I do joke with my friend who works at Bloomberg that the "evil" finance view has now flipped completely. Bloomberg is a pretty ethical company compared to Facebook, Google, etc.
Heck, I've heard a theory that you should only be counting programming years as life years, i.e. if they haven't been programming for 18 years, then they aren't adults in the world of software. And the funny thing is, once you're at least a teenager by this definition, then you start thinking that they might actually be onto something...
If you start from there, it follows that countries with poor social support systems will tend to generate less ethical workers and less ethical companies.
I grew up in Canada. When I came to California, I had zero debt. That made it relatively easy for me to choose ethical (even altruistic!) places to work starting from very early in my career.
Imagine how different the entire technology landscape would be if most American computer science grads had the same flexibility.
You can afford it a fresh entrant to the industry as well. Jobs are plentiful and there is competition for software devs.
Personally I would have entertained the idea at working at a "Big 4"-type company out of school knowing that they were ethically opposed to me. I guess mostly because the name on a resume is worth multiple other jobs in some scenarios and gives you an advantage over your peers.
Just a few years later, a 6-figure salary doesn't seem that outrageous and unique to those big corporations. Now that the difference is only in the $10s of thousands, these decisions become a little more nuanced and uncertain. Besides that, once you hit the high 5-figures, money becomes less and less of a driver in your life unless you are in desperate need due to your circumstances.
My point is that I think fresh graduates will put aside their ethical qualms because they don't yet know their worth and place in the workforce. That can change pretty quick.
That being said, plenty of people just don't care, and that's why these companies still have thousands of developers. It's easy to be blissfully ignorant of your contributions to privacy degeneration and corporate takeovers of our lives when "all you do" is write some React components or speed up some data pipelines. The executives and managers are the ones who will really need to reckon with their consciences, knowing they implemented all these nasty programs.
It's not like we're making the world better but we're not actively harming it.
But the issue is that top recruits can get a 6 figure salary, cushy benefits and a signing bonus from Netflix or Google or Amazon or AirBnB etc. etc. It's still easy to at least to pretend to be moral of you can shun Facebook as an employer but don't need to give anything up to do so.
Not all of finance is swapping debt like a commodity til the economy crashes and forclosing on people who had some bad luck.
Allowing people to use their money conveniently and securely is arguably bringing more value to the world than helping run psyops to convince people to buy things they don't actually need. People need checking, savings, and credit card accounts and they need them to be secure and reliable
Banks primary objective is not to handle transactions but to invest others money in as risky and profitable ventures as legally allowed. As such you are not their customer, you are their product, just like when you use useful free Google or Facebook products such as messaging, document editing, friend connections, search, maps etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_savings_bank
There's usually one or the other in pretty much every decent sized city.
My credit union doesn't have a lot of fancy features but it has shared branching (can pull out money at other CUs), ATM access at most 7/11s, and zero cost for a basic checking account that can receive direct deposit, with an online bill pay that can even mail a physical check to whoever I want.
Even larger banks sometimes aren't publicly traded. (
Which means that they don't care about ethics.