> or keep being taken advantage of

Presumably they're getting paid for their work.

Yes and no. Although you are getting your paycheck, it's extremely demotivating be the only person in a team who gives a damn about getting things done. It gets more demotivating with passive aggression from your coworkers that are afraid that your performance raises the bar for everyone. It gets even more demotivating to see others promoted behind your back because they were going to the bar with the boss while you were figuring out how to deliver that critical thing to the customers.

I have personally been in those shoes and had to learn the business skills the hard way. And I don't think I had any other choice aside from giving up and becoming just another employee who doesn't care.

If you are the only one giving a damn about getting things done then it means you are in the wrong team. All teams have their rock stars and their slower devs but if they are to be called a "team" then they should all care even if they can't contribute the same amount of quality or quantity of work.

Even if you are a rockstar, your pay might be only 20% higher than that of those "slackers", more often only 5-10% or even lower than them (seniority/friends/family etc.). So all you get is a sticker "rockstar" translating in time smoothly into "ninja" (=No Income, No Job or Assets) as you become burned out and slackers are promoted.

OK, you get paid but you have to slow down, play politics, form your/join a clique, because otherwise you become hated by all your colleagues for casting a shadow on them, then be driven slowly out of the company by hiding information from you and spreading rumors about you. In other words, you are wasting the most precious thing you have - time, where you could perform much much better, for some "standard salary". Is that a good bargain?

That doesn't really make any difference. Literal indentured servants got paid for their work.

Right. But someone who's starting their own business has to spend all their time on that business, and is spending most of their income on that business. I have free time to devote to other things I find more rewarding.

and paid well "enough"

This assumes there is now way to find a company that fairly reward the effort you make, at least according to what you are content with.

Uh, no. I have no desire to start my own business, mainly because I value my off work time.

Automated business can give you way more off work time than you can imagine... I used to work 5 minutes/day running automated e-commerce.