One of the most salient features of our Tech Hiring culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.
If the recruiter still forces you for an answer, just politely say that you won’t discuss it. At this point usually I already lost interest in the company anyway.
This is also basically where my red line was one year ago.
Since then I moved my red line a bit further after realizing two things:
That it was useful to have a criteria to filter out companies early in the process, so that I can spend more time on the good companies. The hiring process is like the honeymoon of your working relationship. If the company acts in such a gross manner during the honeymoon, how will it act later?
That if a company asks me what my current salary was, it probably asked it for all the colleagues too. Which means that some colleagues will be underpaid, just because they are bad at negociating salary or they used to be underpaid. Typically the female colleagues. I would rather not have this.
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This is also basically where my red line was one year ago.
Since then I moved my red line a bit further after realizing two things: