I have an imperfect "canary in the coalmine" test for whether/where the principled/idealist nerds have the power vs the mercenary/cynical nerds have the power:

Advertisers vs Ad Blockers - as long as the Ad Blockers are blocking the vast majority of junk, I feel like team principles is winning. Like they have more nerd power to outsmart the lesser nerds working on team mercenary.

But there are places like Facebook where that is not the case. And even in Youtube, team mercenaries has recently won some territory from team principles.