Sure, that's the game. I get an extra bonus or raise or something with promotions, and more when I switch jobs, but nearly all the profit goes elsewhere. If you want to leave the upper-middle class you'll need to set out on your own eventually.

If you don't have a solid plan and life circumstances for building your own business yet though, why would you not do things the business likes, especially when it means your day-to-day is more palettable, it doesn't actually require any more work, and it has some moderate career impacts in case you never set out on your own?

> this may backfire

That's the same sort of logic that leads people to have asphalt roofs instead of white roofs in southern climates. You do, absolutely, alienate a significant fraction of buyers (employers). You command a premium at every place that's left though because they want you _because_ of the things that make you different. So long as you don't shrink the pool too much, each individual job is more lucrative.