That's the bias of privilege talking.
Going from $2/day to $8/day may not seem like much to you, but to someone at that level, their income has quadrupled. They might have access to a bicycle to get to a paying job now. Shoes. Clean water. School for their children, so the next generation has more opportunity. Go from $8 to $32 (using Rosling's quadruplings here), and you now have a car, potable hot and cold water from a tap, even the possibility of college for your kids. It's still "poverty" to us, but not all poverty is the same. Understanding this is a shift in perspective, and requires putting down our wealthy, western privilege for a moment.
Keep in mind, too, that a world of no health care, no clean water, no literacy, etc - the extreme poverty of the poorest nations - was the situation in much of Europe during the 19th century. It took Europe a long time to get to where it is today, and much of the progress happened in the post WWII, post colonial era. "Open exploitation" is not what you think it is, not anymore.
As I've pointed out elsewhere, much of the world has seen income increases from 20x-100x per capita in the past 50 years. That's the poor, "exploited" countries.
Economic change takes time. Generations. The fact that we wiped out two thirds of the world's extreme poverty isn't "boneheaded", it's incredible. But it will take several more generations to get the rest of the world up to the standards of our privilege.