Most of the world doesn't even consider it cruelty. Certain barbaric religious customs notwithstanding, modern slaughtering is quick and painless by nearly instantaneously destroying the animal's brain.
But go visit a family owned ranch in Wyoming and tell me those cows don't have it just as good as the elk grazing alongside them.
Also, for the cows, chickens, pigs, etc themselves, the options are a life under husbandry or no life at all.
I would like to see meat substitutes become good enough to displace the low quality stuff (fast-food, etc), but a world without high-quality natural animal protein is a dull one...
Sci-Fi reader part of myself wonder if there could be some information theory aspect to a perfect-mess of meat, that the food must grow within a context relevant to the consumer, i.e. a perfect piece of meat or a carrot from 100 years in the future or past is not perfect to us in present.
We just need to consume less and go back to more natural production of what we do eat.
I don't know for the US, but in France 82 % of poultry, 90% of pigs et 99 % of rabbits come from mass production.
So if you live in the city and cannot really know the origin of what you eat, you can bet it's been mass produced.
I think that's why there's such a hype around vegetarianism and veganism right now : not so much because eating animal is an absolute evil, but because most animal products available do not come from a family owned ranch in Wyoming but from places like this one : https://animaux.l214.com/poulets/elevage-poulets-duc-yonne-2...
If they could be raised in humane, unlike mass production conditions, then one could argue convincingly that it's better than not doing it all from a purely compassionate viewpoint.
It's still tremendously wasteful of land and resources, but that's a separate concern to address.