It was admittedly tongue in cheek and not a serious recommendation to end the friendship. Personally, for me it is important that my work has a positive influence or at least not a negative one. Sure, perhaps there is some pile of money where my conscience might fade, I will not deny the possibility.

I think the trust in software is heavily affected by badly behaving parts of the industry, especially the security industry that addresses mainly IT customers and I won't hold back against clear indignation of surveillance-ware chasing a quick buck by scaring people into a position where they believe they need it.

I also know enough about management and know what types of manager this enables. It isn't the productive ones. An employer has the right to demand performance from his employees and there are ways to do that without questionable software. But parts of the industry decided that it can use the opportunity of weak legislation to sell their scams. I believe this is a problem for everyone. But sure, in the long run legislation is necessary. That wasn't always the case and privacy and real security of users was paramount to developers.

The same is true for education btw.