For most people it's not, but some people subscribe to the notion that choice implies consent/endorsement/approval regardless of mutual inclusions, mutual exclusions, or tradeoffs inherent in the structure of the choice. I do not sympathize with this point of view. My best guess is that people accept it primarily as a means to rationalize away blatant and immediate inequities for a number of reasons:

1. To comfort themselves (X would never happen to me because I would just Y)

2. To justify past decisions by framing the decision as a positive difference in street smarts rather than as a negative difference in selflessness/drive/dedication (I'm such a smart guy for leaving / never entering science!)

3. To reconcile evidence with strongly ingrained just-world or libertarian philosophy (it's ok to abuse people on the wrong side of a supply/demand asymmetry because it forcibly drives people towards the market-determined equilibrium point (assumed to be a net positive for society) while maintaining individual freedom in the sense of "you are completely free to do anything but you will be punished for disobedience")

My usual counterargument strategy is to call attention to the fact that it's actually an extreme point of view by applying it in more extreme circumstances:

"It's difficult to sustain sympathy for <coal miners dying from black lung> when the problem is not a secret."

"It's difficult to sustain sympathy for <trapped firefighters> when <the fact that firefighters occasionally get trapped in fires> is not a secret."

"It's difficult to sustain sympathy for <a soldier who jumped on a grenade to save his buddies> when <the fact that this would certainly kill him> is not a secret."