Why would those hackers not work on their own projects with that time? There is nothing wrong with people doing what they want with their own free time.
Making labor scarce so that workers are paid a larger share of the profits they are involved in creating, like they have in the recent past, is the point.
> Why would those hackers not work on their own projects with that time? There is nothing wrong with people doing what they want with their own free time.
Sometimes, one’s personal projects align with projects relevant to one’s work. Many projects at my work have been so interesting that I continue to think about and work on them in my spare time. Furthermore, the closer one’s personal projects are to their work projects, the more successful they will be at their job. This is what creates an implicit culture of overwork: if Hacker Helen’s personal projects align with her work, causing her to get promoted faster than Hacker Harry, he may also start devoting more of his personal project time to work-related things, in order to maintain job parity with Helen. This will percolate across employees, to the point that Non-hacker Nick, who never touches a computer outside of work, will be seen as underperforming.
Making labor scarce so that workers are paid a larger share of the profits they are involved in creating, like they have in the recent past, is the point.