Ultimately, yes - nobody should feel bad for FAANG employees or anybody else who has chosen the golden handcuffs of the "cushy IT salary life." It was a choice and we are all responsible for our own choices... and in a world where people are starving, we shouldn't feel bad for somebody making a cushy living.

But it gets complicated.

A typical scenario is somebody choosing that life and after X years realizing it's not for them. But by then it's too late. You've got a partner, mortgage, pets, kids, whatever. And even if you haven't chosen any of that baggage, maybe you have a few hundred grand in student debt.

Yes, these were all choices. But it's awfully tough to know how you'll feel X years later when you are making those choices and by then there's no escape.

(FWIW, I have not worked at a FAANG. Just your average HN engineer type in a less glamorous part of the country.)