Some ethical systems put false dichotomy between "doing what one wants" and "helping other people". And then they derive an 'ethical' conclusion that "doing what one wants" is evil, and "helping other people" is good, by definition.

Funny, this is a decent summary of an idea I've had kicking around for a while, though framed differently. A more or less independent one, I think; I've read Rand, but not for about a decade and a half.

I'd also add that "helping people" in this pop-culture mentality is typically built in a virtue-ethical rather than a consequential way; one is recognized as a good person by pattern-matching to preconceived notions of how a good person should behave, not by the expected results of one's actions. Since those preconceptions are based on well-known responses to well-known problems, a pop-culture altruist can't be too innovative or solve problems at too abstract a level; everyone remembers the guy that gave half his cloak to the beggar over the guy that pioneered a new weaving technique or produced an unusually large flax crop. Nor can one target too unfashionable a cause.

Innovators might eventually be seen as heroes, but only weakly and in retrospect. In the moment, they're more likely to be seen neutrally or even as villains (for e.g. crowding out less efficient flax merchants, or simply for the sin of greed). Though this only seems to apply in certain domains; pure scientists for example are usually admired, even if their research isn't directly socially useful. Same for artists.