Tragedy of our generation is that people who are so smart and determined to find and exploit these vulnerabilities, can't find better uses for their talents.
Non-same origin Javascript does not have economic purpose either. I believe, that it will be completely eradicated from browsers within this century (if not in couple of decades).
So I definitely think the smartest of more recent generations who are employing their skills in these software hacks and ad tracking are perhaps saintly in comparison :-)
For now, I hope. Google can and should pay equivalent amounts.
Don’t lose weight, just buy bigger trousers!
Don’t take personal responsibility, just blame society!
Personal responsibility is important. And even if you're bored, there are things to do other than hacking.
But working mind-numbing jobs , way below one's skills and talents happens to such a large share of people.
Maybe it's a sign to a problem with society ?
Why would they. People who break DRMs for fun and profit look with disdain at their whitehat counterparts.
Same with ad fraud. People in that particular business take pride at being able to fool boatload of best and brightest computer scientists who work at bot detection
As for people in good old browser exploit scene, I think they have good time laughing at vain efforts, and ineptness of their counterparts too
I think people are wrong thinking of it as a money thing