Honestly it makes sense and resembles how other companies pay sales people. Lower base salary than other roles in the company for similar years of experience (roughly) but with a commission component that's some percentage of each sale. Commission is a big big part of sales culture that I suspect is hard to eliminate in an effort to be different.

What's interesting is that often times the commission has no cap, so top sales people can take home higher income than even than executives (at least in cash compensation).

But to the commenter's point, true transparency would share the commission % as well :)