When I, as a developer, was told (essentially forced if I wanted to keep my job) to implement dark patterns, I did it knowing I made the world worse. I was fully aware of it, and my coworkers as well, we discussed it openly, and I imagine everyone implementing such tech are. Of course I and other could claim plausible deniability, ”we didn’t understand consent”.

I hope one day there will be pushback on this from people like you, but when your boss has an economical stranglehold over you, not to mention the old adage 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it', it's understandable why we're in this situation.