[xyzzy123]

Fintech companies in particular seem really prone to becoming "hyper-parasites", but pure software companies can have this feel too. It seems like the more abstracted things get the more prone they are to collapsing into scams or parasitism.

But there are plenty of people working boring software jobs that can point at the impact they have in the world and say to themselves "yeah, I'm doing a useful thing".

IMHO it's simpler if you work for companies that directly produce some kind of real-world outcome like logistics, manufacturing, health, ag etc. Then you mainly need to ask yourself if are you aligned with the actual real-world outcomes the company is effecting rather than having to meta reason about everything or whether the entire existence of your field makes any sense. What I mean by this is, people need things to be made and moved from A to B and they need groceries and care etc etc, those things gotta happen. Someone needs to work on the software that facilitates that. Knowing that your work contributes to necessary and concrete outcomes soothes the existential despair a bit.

If the real problem is that you hate capitalism itself then... you are going to have a bad time.