I think we agree on the broad aspect here, but are disagreeing on minutiae: When I say it’s “not inherently built into the system”, what I mean is that if it was, my situation would be impossible to achieve within the system, not that the system doesn’t discourage it.

The system most definitely heavily encourages exploitation, but it’s still possible to build a company within the current system that doesn’t rely on exploitation. That’s basically what I mean by “not inherent in the system”.