"Profit" means you're overpaying (i.e. the amount of money you exchange for goods or services exceeds the cost of providing them). Failure to operate at a profit (even if it may be indirect in cases like VC-funded disruptors undercutting established competitors for early growth) means the business will fail.

Business transactions are exploitative. That's the entire point of them. Otherwise it'd just be tit-for-tat or a gift economy. You don't want to recover your investment, you want to grow your investment. And beating inflation is the baseline.

'exploit' comes from Latin via French, where the meaning of 'to attain profit through abuse' is further down on the list of meanings (https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/exploitation/...) compared to English where it's the primary or secondary meaning (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exploit).

I'd probably agree that it makes sense to try to find a synonym where possible, but I wouldn't say it's necessary in cases where it would not be succinct or clear otherwise.

We're speaking English in this conversation, not Latin or French. The word "exploit" clearly has a significantly negative connotation that is not appropriate in this context.