In principle, this amounts to giving a gift to society: the programmer spends more time on their work so that society as a whole consumes fewer resources. Often, the opposite happens: the programmer transfers their productivity gain into an additional cost for society (usually by contributing to e-waste and added resource requirements).

It's easy to extrapolate this to other domains. Imagine that in order to enhance their productivity, aerospace engineers start buying off-the-shelf generic components and get them assembled as quickly as possible without seeking optimization because you know. The airplanes will consume more fuel and require more maintenance, but it doesn't matter much as the manufacturer can now hire fewer engineers to design a plane, and it's other people's fuel you're wasting anyway.

I understand that seeking immediate profit is the norm, but I'm always a little disillusioned when I see selfless initiatives ridiculed.