Yeah kind of scummy to get them fired elsewhere too. CEOs and board members do this all the time but god forbid middle class try to get ahead by working hard.
And yes, I do busk in lieu of taking lunch sometimes.
If you keep barely completing fraction of your work, say 5% what you'd normally expect, it's a problem and looking at contract agreement where you agreed to work certain amount of hours for exchange of salary - that is not full-filled starts to matter.
Same way from PoV of employee it would not be fair if company would start to wire you fraction of agreed salary because they're also working with other developers at the same time and you just have to deal with it.
It only works as long as it's a niche behavior, because if not the system will adjust and it'll inflate the supply of labor