I've been lucky enough to be able to spend my entire software engineering career so far working on software that end users use and pay directly for. I often say

I've been lucky enough to be able to spend my entire software engineering career so far working on software that end users use and pay directly for. I often say that I really only want to work on software that makes money because it does an excellent job of solving a problem for its users, and that's the only reason they use it. When you have other financial relationships and monetization strategies in the mix -- advertising, monetization of user data, virtual currencies and loot boxes, etc. -- the incentive structure is such that you have to focus on goals other than "make software that our users love". Of course, it's probably not a coincidence that I haven't spent my software engineering career working for high growth startups or big companies. But that's a plus too. I really enjoy working at a company with 10-20 people making a product that people love, a completely straightforward business model (users buy our software), no VC money, and no ambitions to grow like crazy or get huge.