How is 'exploitatively' defined? I have seen it used as 'literally anything that makes a profit is exploitation by definition' crap used unironically often enough that 'exploitation' itself has become a major red flag (no pun intended). Those users of such definitions just love those sorts of tautologies disguised as logic as it makes for a nice and orderly world view to be able to make baseless and frankly, batshit insane assumptions. Like 12% returns being only possible through net harm to society. It is perfectly normal for a successful small business to have a ROI of 25% to 40%.
Right: a successful small business where people are doing actual work can have a potentially-unbounded ROI. "Money makes money" schemes, on the other hand… the situations where access to money is genuinely worth 12% returns to someone are slim. (If it's a high-risk venture, then that's not 12% returns in expectation: "loan that we'll write off if your venture fails" is providing actual value, under certain circumstances.)
Scams, cons, grifts, and destructive exploitation of common resources, on the other hand? Those can get massive numbers of monies out for every single number of money in. So that's where my mind goes, when someone talks about "make 12% on [a pile of cash]".
