The former: surveillance companies don't have much incentive to stamp out click-farms, even when they don't run them themselves. See e.g. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/530961/the-hidden-world-o...

Certainly this is a waste of human potential. I can see that one could argue that the platforms may be acting unethically by not stomping these like farms out, or by misleading advertisers by including these unauthentic ad impressions in their reports, but how are the rich people operating these like farms acting immorally?

Side note: I'm not convinced that the people operating the like farms are wealthy by western standards. Having at one point been involved in the business side of paid captcha solving, this type of business attracts a lot of entrepreneurs with little experience who just want to make a quick buck.

> Side note: I'm not convinced that the people operating the like farms are wealthy by western standards.

I completely agree -- click farming is a way for second-world people to make a living using third-world labor. In the short term, this benefits the surveillance companies at the expense of their clients. In the medium to long term, it probably costs their investors and helps inflate another tech bubble. Seriously shady folks (think Experian, but completely unregulated, at best) will buy the data when it bursts.