Most of your third paragraph would argue for my #1 or #2 cases: there's an opportunity for more arrangements that would allow productive programmers who are not

Most of your third paragraph would argue for my #1 or #2 cases: there's an opportunity for more arrangements that would allow productive programmers who are not happy in firms with the dominant culture/management practice to have sustainable programming careers, there just need to be more such arrangements or better ways of such programmers finding out about such arrangements. But my #1 or and especially #2 could mean that there's a much bigger opportunity to make typical working conditions better. From this one might see an opportunity for the industry to improve itself, or an opportunity for outside regulation to stimulate such improvement. My #3 predominating means that non-typical arrangements are irrelevant except for extreme outliers willing to make great material sacrifices and that toxic workplaces are somehow (presumably through causing people to work very long hours and work hard due to fear) more productive than bearable workplaces, and presumably there's little difference between workplaces at non- and for-profits whether producing nonfree or free software, because they're all caught up in a race to the bottom. In this case a productive programmer who finds toxic workplaces unbearable and does not want to make extreme material sacrifices would have nowhere to go other than a different full time career, and there's no opportunity to improve the industry to change this outcome from within the industry. From this one could accept that the current state of industry is optimal, or demand outside regulation, or demand the overthrow of capitalism. To the limited extent that I know about them, I admire Tim, Joey, and RMS and assume they've all made the right choices for themselves.