You have to wonder where the ethics are on the ground level. I understand that these decisions are made by management in virtually every case, but you still see these kind of dark patterns from places where every engineer is on $100k+ with plenty of leverage against their employer.
Every UX specialist and software engineer I know would be up in arms if they saw such a story in the backlog. I wonder about the internal dynamics of these work places as well.
People will do just about anything if they are told they are "saving the world". Silicon Valley and its... companies.. fully believe they are God's gift to the planet. Pretty much anything can be subverted to such a point of view.
