User data is a business model that a significant portion of tech workers are now vested in, this constant stream of conversation and hand waving among insiders who are designing and implementing these systems without protest, dissent or advocating any course of corrective action has normalized it, like state and private surveillance.

Now it just serves as signalling to outsiders by those vested in the system to pretend they are not responsible and somehow equally shocked. That also explains why inspite of so much 'hand wringing' and 'concern' Google, Facebook and others continue to enjoy respectability in tech circles with no shortage of people eager to work for them.

But here is the problem, we expect even the poor and desperate to behave ethically, for highly educated privileged individuals to behave unethically means there is now no basis for expecting any ethical behavior from others in society and you create the conditions for your children and others to live in damaging environments.

Yes. And same to those engineers who work in mining (huge pollution), search engines (censorship and tracking to governemnts), ISP (tracking to governments), Telecommuncations (tracking for the government), ads (lying and tracking), motoring (over 2 million people dead every year), pharmaceuticals (addiction, overdosing), etc...

You don’t see it as addicting kids. Its creating a fun experience for “free” that is paid by advertising or data gathering. Don’t the games, hate the cheap parents.

Besides, all games are designed to be addictive. That’s what games are. They provide a fast feedback loop of small successes

Compartmentalization. Even psychopaths can do it. This is why even the people who work for a company like Facebook and are on HN won't admit to themselves what they're really helping grow.

> engineers why they work for companies that track and addict kids.

If you think addictive games are bad, then we can go ahead and cast a moral judgement ib parents too. Parents know that games are addictive. Why are they letting their own kids play addictive games?

As far as engineers go, it is possible that they did made the game addictive specifically for <13 years old. It just happens that parents of <13 year olds let their kids play, and they are getting addicted.

Because they pay.