Presumably that's to keep hardware sales up, e-waste be damned. You won't notice it taking 8 times longer when you have 8 times as many cores, or whatever.
It's stupid and shortsighted, but the entire industry seems pretty damned nearsighted these days.
Even if you didn't read the code if you cared even an ounce you wouldn't ship this crap.
There are still pockets, where if you don’t push it, you loose. But you need to search for it. Average developers won’t ever work at such places. They won’t ever encounter them, because almost no developer jobs needs that.
Btw, you can make such positions in every company. I did it, several times. And it’s very beneficial even salary wise.
If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix it.
Except, they hired all these people and expect them to do Stuff. What are they supposed to do?