I got as far as the prison break. Don't really care anymore. Would rather spend my free time watching movies. Sorry everyone.
I pushed to the end of the first season, but that moment was the one that broke me. Also, I didn't ultimately like or identify with Elliot as much as I had hoped, for reasons you address.
I guess I struggle with the whole principle of the action that the season is based around. Basically the show's logic is that destroying EvilCorp's records means getting rid of debt, which would be a great victory for the poor and downtrodden. And there is a sense the only cost is to the corporate heavies anyway. But this isn't how debt works.
First off, debt is financed by bank holdings. You put money in a checking/savings account and they loan that money out to others at interest, some of that interest might accrue to the person with the checking/savings account, with the rest being the profit that incentivizes the bank to exist. To eliminate the debt is to eliminate the savings.
The other thing of note is that the truly poor tend to have neither savings nor debt. They don't have the credit necessary to take on substantial debt. The main exception here would be something like medical debt, since hospitals cannot deny service based on credit-worthiness. But mortgages, car loans, credit card debt...these are debts of the middle class more than the poor.
So you are poor and you received no benefit when these hackers altruistically eliminate debt. What you do get is laid off because the economy tanked and you have a job that is most dependent on the whims of the economy. Also, governments are cutting services because the economy tanked and they have lost revenue (and further are probably out a lot of money bailing out the financial system because all the middle-class people just had their checking accounts deleted...though I'm not sure how FDIC would work if all banking records were truly lost). So not only are you unemployed, but they are probably pretty stingy with social support programs. Your life has indisputably been made shittier by these heroic hackers taking it to the man.
Now, you might say, the show doesn't actually see the hackers as being heroic...it's hard to say, but there is a significant contingent of the audience that does...this is the same populist ignorance that supports Brexit and some of the wilder notions of Trump AND Sanders. There really are a lot of people who think good will come from burning down the system. I feel like this show plays to them and nurtures their ignorance. But it doesn't play to me.