This thread is somewhat framing this as ethics vs salary, but what I found most useful in your statement was the (somewhat implicit?) thought that there is often no ethical way to earn a salary for some programmers.

While this has not been true in my personal experience, I must say that I've been very fortunate in life. I can totally understand and see how this may be true for some programmers.

I wonder if, as an industry, there was a better way for us to handle such situations.