I think the primary goal is usually to sell things quickly and at bigger scales, not to make an empath feel something inside for the plight of the users. It's a lucky circumstance to be intimately working on a direct to customer product that you can see tangible gains from and the impact on someone's day. In those lucky positions I've been in where the user hasn't been obscured by business outcomes, part of the implied deal is still that I've found the mechanics of the job somewhat gratifying, otherwise it is indeed hollow in the sense that the middle part where you cut things with a metaphorical chisel goes away or changes sufficiently. It was the goal for many developers to be engaged in that way, not anyone else who didn't like that, and certainly not the product goal, but it was part of why those people did it, and it always created tension with those who exclusively care about numbers and had no technical expertise. If all you do is grind for outcome, then have at it, but I find that only minimally and rarely mentally engaging.