But it's so easily beatable! This might be the result of good intentions (being incredibly generous), but as the article states, any bot can afford a $30 phone and the concomitant hardware as the cost of doing business and bypass this.

Also as the article states (referencing an HN comment):

> How should we realistically teach Susan from HR the difference between a real Google Captcha QR code and a malicious phishing QR code - you (realistically) can’t.

Susan from HR is the least of it. This is a huge vector to increase fraud, not decrease it.

How would an ethical, competent engineer argue against this?

The CAPTCHA company who put this out might have an agenda, but also since they're in the industry they might also have knowledge to impart.

We're reaching an inflection point with the oligarchies where the old ideas of "writing a blistering editorial" or "calling your congress-critter" need to be seriously questioned as useful and other non-violent methods of recapturing digital freedom need to be entertained.