What do you mean, you don’t like IE6? Really?

Oh I don't know...sometimes I think IE6 is a good example of why slow-moving companies can fail and startups can eat their lunch. If you don't identify and fix ingrained problems, you'll eventually be screwed.

I don't care if lots of companies keep overpaying to keep IE6 viable, or if it's challenging work done by large teams. Just because a job exists doesn't mean that job is very useful, especially to the economy as a whole.

If your talented people are actually doing interesting work, they'll be building skills that are more likely to apply to a variety of problems; they will probably be more energized too, and willing to stick with your company. Each country will also benefit, because talent pools will encourage companies to invest in certain areas instead of having people jump ship to wherever the next IE6 fire has been set (only to eventually be outsourced completely).

Companies could be spending all this money on things that actually make new and interesting products.

You don't need to look much further than an app store to see what can be achieved in a few months. It's that kind of developer potential that is currently being wasted on crap like IE6 workarounds.