Yes, ever since computers became "fast enough" developers have traded user's efficiency for their own. It's faster to write, but slower to run. The difference is that it's written once but run thousands or millions of times each day. It's distributed waste of resources, and it adds up.
The conservation of developer's time (and company money) at the expense of the users' time and money is the epitome of an externality. It's clear that we'd all be a bit better off if user's time was valued more. But who's going to pay to make that happen?
The users. If a person wants something, they buy it; if they don't, they don't; and if they didn't, they didn't.
A very simple and straightforward model of action. Yet it has fueled almost every major non-military-funded technological advancement since at least the Industrial Revolution, inclusive.
(And if you consider the military a very special customer who has been graciously granted the disposal of the entire nation's profits ... then they are no exception after all.)
Users could easily pay a few cents more to hire that competent dev to optimize, but there's a massive information problem that keeps the option from showing up.
