[jryle70]

Infosys and TCS have been around for decades. If their business model was based on "magical thinking-rooted exploitation" then their customers must be real fools. Or maybe they thrive because there were huge demand for IT projects, which continue to the present time, and businesses have traditionally not considered software engineering their core competency, despite the fact that outsourcing is inherently inefficient.

> Engineers need to form their own worker-owned consultancy co-ops and eschew corporations to capture more of the wealth they generate for themselves rather than as underpaid servants of said large corporations

"Infosys was established by seven engineers in Pune, Maharashtra, India with an initial capital of $250 in 1981" [0]

$250 in 1981 is $706 in 2019 dollar. So yes, looks like they started out exactly like how you advocate.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infosys