> But what is the option? I feel each of us wants to draw a line based off of our morality but the circumstances don't allow us to stick to it (still gotta pay rent)
I was with you up to this point, but when you say "life is to hard to stay moral" I am thinking about how buying the wrong shampoo contributes to micro plastic in the ocean, or how buying a fitting jeans that is not exploiting labor is an extremely time intensive endeavor, or how avocados may be vegan but often produced unsustainable. Basically I thought you were making this point from The Good Place https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lci6P1-jMV8 .
But when you are working in IT, an industry that is generally still very well of, avoiding an employer that is actively making the world a worse place, is a low bar to cross. It's just one decision every few years, which also is comparatively easy to research (you are probably doing it as your normal preparation for the job interview anyway) and the impact of that decision is enormous in comparison to most other decisions you make, so it's well worth it to ponder a bit.
Given the atomization and layering of work, this has become much harder to truly judge. Ten years ago I was excited to join a customer feedback platform - what could be better than helping companies understand their customers and provide better services and products? You can probably see where this is going, but inevitably the tools were just used to better tweak product profitability and eliminate end customer surplus, to the customer company’s benefit. And they were used by the likes of draft kings et al along with the Starbucks and Nikes of the world. I hear people claim that, in capitalism, no one hands are clean, and I am inclined to agree.
I think moral purity tests for work places is a delicate and tough question event for software development.
Which work places would you feel are acceptable?
What about a bank? They invest or loan money to weapons manufacturers.
What about a renewable energy company? What if that company accepted investment with funds from Saudi Arabia / UAE / Qatar?
Etc.