> But those engineers also want to have jobs doing what they like and to make a living
In the US, the average software engineer's salary is more than double the average person's salary. Nobody who chooses to be a software engineer at any of these companies has any trouble making a living. They could literally work only half the year and still do just fine.
The fact that they're doing this all year tells me that either they are indeed capitalists and wish to maximize their income, or building these proprietary systems is in fact what they like to spend all their time doing.
> they aren't the driving force behind unbounded growth and corporate conquest; they just get paid by it
There's plenty of people in this world who have the skills to get paid far more than they do, yet spend their time and energy doing something they find more worthwhile. "We just get paid" is a dangerous slope to stand on.
How do you reconcile them as idealists who want less monopolization and more openness and better privacy, yet at the same time aren't doing it for amassing wealth? What other reason could there be for doing a job one doesn't want to do?
> Just look at the sentiment of your average HN comment section.
People are notoriously bad at accurately explaining their own behavior.