Wow. You are very passionate about this aren't you? (I'm not being sarcastic, I really admire you for voicing this).
I guess I just don't see this practice as unethical because if I look at the whole spectrum of unethical behaviors, this seems very minor to me. Does that make it excusable? Probably not. But to me this is just about acquiring a skill which I previously did not have. It's not about recognition or compensation.
But even still, I fail to see what my employers are doing wrong. You will be compensated for the skills you bring to the company and what you produce. And if you're middle aged with a family to support you could get a paid job there if you had the skills. If not, you could apply for the unpaid internship.
But nothing bars you from getting hired, so that's why I don't view it as an injustice. At the end of the day, its a choice, and if you didn't like the terms, you are perfectly free to go somewhere else.
I went to graduate school. A Ph.D. program is like being an unpaid intern for six years.
(And, yet, in some ways it's better. There is some pay. And a Ph.D. is a regular old-fashioned apprenticeship program: The bad news is that you're a slave, but the good news is that your adviser has a fairly strong incentive to help you graduate. The commitment goes both ways.
And, of course, if you've got an apartment and a web connection you can teach yourself to be a professional programmer -- especially if you already have a CS degree -- but you can't say the same for semiconductor engineering.)
No, it's not unethical. It's downright criminal. It's called fraud. Someone is being misled into supplying someone else with labor. What are the falsehoods? The purported benefits to be obtained in exchange for the labor.
I guess I just don't see this practice as unethical because if I look at the whole spectrum of unethical behaviors, this seems very minor to me. Does that make it excusable? Probably not. But to me this is just about acquiring a skill which I previously did not have. It's not about recognition or compensation.
But even still, I fail to see what my employers are doing wrong. You will be compensated for the skills you bring to the company and what you produce. And if you're middle aged with a family to support you could get a paid job there if you had the skills. If not, you could apply for the unpaid internship.
But nothing bars you from getting hired, so that's why I don't view it as an injustice. At the end of the day, its a choice, and if you didn't like the terms, you are perfectly free to go somewhere else.