But plenty of people here do work on real products. Planes need software, browsers need security patches, hell even your accounting app is good value over the days of doing that all by hand.
That’s not a moral indictment, just a reminder that most of our jobs (mine included) exist to make capital move faster or stickier. Calling one sector “real products” and another “not benefiting society” is a bit of a convenient fiction.
That's not too cast moral judgement -- just to point out that under a different economic system, these overhead costs could be avoided and these resources (human and otherwise) could thus be redirected to ends more concomitant with human flourishing.
It’s fine to take pride in craftsmanship, just maybe less fine to pretend it’s immune from the same critique applied elsewhere.
I am just blaming society in that it doesn’t seem to prioritise “good” and “useful” things.