[adrianmonk]

Incentives are often a big part of the problem. In many cases, people are writing software that will run on someone else's hardware. This applies to basically all front-end web development, all mobile apps, and all software licensed to someone else.

That means the programmer (or their employer) doesn't pay for the electricity it uses (or battery it drains), the RAM it allocates, the disk space it wastes, or the hardware upgrades necessary to make it run acceptably.

Why conserve a resource that you're not paying for? Especially if you have to expend your own resources to do it.

I'm not defending crappy software (nor, apparently, offering a solution), but if a programmer's personal sense of honor is the only weapon in this fight, then it's not a great formula for winning the fight.