> Smart people will always gravitate to something like this to justify all the abuse. It was inevitable, reading this, I figured it was coming up in the first sentence.

No. The justifications come in around making employees also work a 9-5 shift. If they just hired night-quants it would be fine.

It's simply a fact that some work needs to be done by the next morning like stocking shelves. Or 24/7 like tech support.