My personal perspective is cynical like yours - that it's generally a scam to try and extract more "value" out of workers - but my wife works at a large corporation where they seem to genuinely try to make it an enjoyable place to work and the people involved, all the way up the ladder, are committed to that ideal.

Praise flows freely, they do a ton of charity work, and it's not a thin veneer over a corporate machine. Perhaps the difference is that it's over 100 years old in a very established worldwide business, so there's room in the budget and schedule to be a lot more flexible and provide home/work balance.

All I know is I'm kind of jealous - I've only ever worked in the soul-sucking companies.