Why Companies Don't Fix Bugs

This is exactly what happens when Product completely takes over the dev. team and they aren't given any control over their craft. Dev. team should always have x% amount devoted to things by devs for devs.

Fixing other's shitty code doesn't push the needle -- particularly in an industry that strives to get customers to open their wallets and shell out hard currency.

If a company's ultimate goal is to extract money from people, then developers who can extract money faster (even if their rendering/loading algorithms suck) will get rewarded better than those who don't.

That's why enshittification is a thing (and actually come to think of it, not new either). It might be a dev that learned from product leadership that, "I could fix these 13 lines of code. But you know, our company could also sell a 'PRO' version subscription for $5 a month which provides the fix..."

Yeah, it's sad but this is the reality. Caring about your craft is for your passion projects / hobbiest endeavors. Once your beautiful software meets the reality of the real world and business it all falls apart— you can either take a mindfulness approach and just come to accept it or let it drive you mad.

The goal is to write not-bad code. You're not trying to do shoddy work on purpose but good enough is good enough.

This is true, but a software company that does not provide good software well eventually do worse than one that does.

There is no substitute for actually providing value at the end of the day.