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> If you're competent and you actually know what you're doing and how computers work

There's your mistake - you assume that a) people care, and b) they are competent. Usually at least one is false.

I'd argue that everyone should at least pursue competence.

Agreed. And competence includes not writing dirty code, but for reasons other than saving the environment. But this doesn't change the fact that for a vast majority of programmers, the work is nothing more than a means to a paycheck, therefore they will do the minimum required to get that paycheck, nevermind how much technical debt they are incurring their organization.

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