Is it wrong/unethical/extractive/in bad taste for companies to require applicants to produce valuable work "for free" when applying? Are there exceptions?

E.g. write an investment thesis, do competitor research, put together a pitch deck, prototype a new feature, etc.

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this is tricky - I think if the work could be leveraged / used by the business in any way it should be paid.  

I think work trails if you can do them, is a great way to solve for this.  

If it is more in the abstract; while I think it would be nice to pay a candidate for their work, it is, at the end of the day, the company's prerogative to have a process they want and the candidate wants a job there.

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And that’s what happens. 

For a recruiting role at a well known AI company, to APPLY you had to send in 5 potential candidates for one of their live roles. You could never get an interview and be providing sourcing for them.

Totally - I'm seeing more and more non-traditional JDs that want applicants to produce work similar to what the role demands, e.g. a pitch, memo, product idea, etc. 

Which feels like it could yield a better signal about candidate-company fit but also feels like it introduces a weird ethical gray area.. and if I didn't care about that, I would open up a bunch of these non-traditional JDs, blast them across a bunch of job boards, and just wait for free work to come in 🫠