I'd think (if I didn't know any better) that being well-off would result in people having more time and energy to consider things like ethics or politics. I think this is how it's supposed to work, historically. Evidently, it stopped working, both in the general populace and in people involved with tech.

It's not very surprising, though. The technology is mostly built by one-step-above (or outright-) autistic nerds, and marketed and sold by hyperactive pie-in-the-sky megalomaniacs. The nerds don't care that much about anything in particular (other than tabs vs. spaces), and the business types have flexible ethics. Both groups would be dangerous - for different reasons - if taken separately but taken together make for the most ethics-free industry ever.

The complete inability of both nerds and founders to act as a (larger) group might be the only reason why the industry is not under regulations stricter than surgeons and soldiers are. If it were possible for this industry to actually wield the power it has, the governments would be much more pressed for securing what became a vital infrastructure. My guess is that they know for a fact that shutting down Google for a week is not going to happen, ever - and that they are content with the kinds of people that self-select into IT.