Facebook substantially altered lives: it is used for genocide, recruiting insurrections, and ruins mental health -- and nobody here is wringing their hands about working on the broader ecosystem. Engineers who worked to build out DTC brands aren't considered lepers.
It feels like a double standard and pulling the ladder up, so even if the next generation of startup programmers get work, they'll be "tainted" by starting in crypto. I am in a sophisticated niche of the industry just like many readers here are in their comfortable niche of their industries and reasonably distant from the most harmful practices.
Maybe I just need to accept that SV programmers don't like to look in the mirror and see that most of our work is ultimately as pointless/destructive as crypto but with a couple extra steps.