I want to be careful about what I write given the context of what's going on, and the personal ramifications that can have.

Suffice to say, it's worth considering whether the cost of a decision can be interpreted solely as how much money there is vs the wider ecosystem level consequences of said decision.

To make a counterpoint: never underestimate people's ability to make a convincing hypothetical case to connect their livelihood to "the wider ecosystem", even when that livelihood involves committing fraud.

I take a lot of these arguments with a grain of salt. As a society, we've gotten way too used to substituting plausible hypotheticals for concrete data.