In principle, this amounts to giving a gift to society: the programmer spends more time on their work so that society as a whole consumes fewer resources. Often

In principle, this amounts to giving a gift to society: the programmer spends more time on their work so that society as a whole consumes fewer resources. Often, the opposite happens: the programmer transfers their productivity gain into an additional cost for society (usually by contributing to e-waste and added resource requirements). It's easy to extrapolate this to other domains. Imagine that in order to enhance their productivity, aerospace engineers started buying off-the-shelf generic components and get them assembled as quickly as possible without seeking optimization. The airplanes will consume a lot more fuel, have a worse safety record and require constant upgrades and maintenance, but it doesn't matter much as the manufacturer can now hire fewer engineers, and it's other people's fuel you're wasting anyway. I understand that seeking immediate profit is the norm, but I'm always a little disillusioned when I see selfless initiatives ridiculed.