They do make some sense if you consider the US’s puritanical roots where, in essence, suffering is considered good and moral, or at least leisure and enjoyment are considered hedonistic and immortal.
Also, that for whatever reason everything is short term thinking: is this quarter better than last quarter? If not, your business is failing. Is this quarter enough better than last quarter? Business is failing.
From a business perspective, it makes no sense, but businesses don’t make decisions. People do. And those people frequently do not stick around to see the fallout from those decisions, they just pump up the business’ bottom line long enough for the stocks to rise, sell out, then bail out taking a generous severance before the company crashes and burns.
And nobody is really stopping it because it’s so lucrative at the individual level that the individuals that might be able to change it are profiting from it.
And lack of regulation is what permits it to continue.