The point was that he did make noise (albeit softly), and his noise went unheard. If you express your honest concerns, and those concerns fall on deaf ears, you'll know that your input won't matter in the future either.
Machine analogy doesn't work here, because machines don't understand human psychology.
I don't really like switching jobs often, and I'm very happy with my current position in the Boston area but here are my hard numbers: Generalist Programmer out of College, fell into C# as first position.
Age 25: Paid Internship at 45k/year
4 Months Later: Brought on at 55k/year
6 Months Later: Asked for raise, bumped up to 60k/year
6 Months Later: New position, (Owner of 5 employee company was dying of cancer), bumped up to 70k/year + 3% Bonus/extra week vacation
1 Year Later: Merit based raise, bumped to 73k/year (asked for promotion and mentioned possible departure)
3 Months Later: Promotion, bumped to 78k/year (4% bonus on new salary)
This isn't the norm, I started at a much lower starting rate than I should have because even though I was qualified, I didn't have any personal projects to show off my skills and just needed to get my foot in the door.
In the end my point is that Salary increases should not (and generally aren't) based on a % of your current salary, but on what you've shown your true worth to be. Once you hit that true worth, it's adjusted for inflation and commitment.
Machine analogy doesn't work here, because machines don't understand human psychology.