Ok, I want to say "well how does sitting in a basement with 10 other people making data go from server a to database fit into that" but I feel like the common answer boils down to "ETL is just an abstraction of that work. It takes the place of finding food because [capitalism]"... so yeah, in capitalism, you're right. But capitalism is bad and is a bad excuse to do so many of the things that we do.

I'd love to hear a different argument.

We're probably just really, really far apart on potentially every point on which this conversation might want to turn. For example, I'm a capitalist and from your short response above it's likely that what I think is obvious is the exact opposite of everything you think is obvious, so I'm not sure there's hope of resolving much here.

Capitalism can only be "bad" in relation to some other specific alternative. What are you proposing exactly?

It can just be bad. Requiring a superior alternative us another kind of trick. Identifying problems and providing solutions are two different things. Combining the two is a clever way to set an artificial bar on what can be discussed.

There's no such thing as just bad. Bad is a relative term. I can run better than the average person, but I'm a bad runner compared to Eliud Kipchoge.