It all depends on what you define as success and what parameters you set for it. It also depends on whether you adopt a definition of success that is assigned to you or one that you define on your own.
We feel bad because cooperation and pro-social behavior (including empathy) is inherently the natural state for us. The cutthroat, dog-eat-dog, hyper competitive, Sithian status quo is not the natural state and is something that is learned behavior from the capitalistic, corporate environment that we're all immersed in. The vast majority of us naturally have things such as empathy within us. The ones who don't are the psychopaths. Coincidentally, it turns out that the overwhelmingly majority of successful people at the top are exactly that: psychopaths. That's not a statement of resentment or jealousy, but an observable fact. The system we have in place rewards psychopaths who exploit people as game-theoretic assets to be evaluated, used, and discarded (if necessary). If something like loneliness is a concern for you, then this kind of behavior is the epitome of it.
Society doesn't necessarily exploit the young, it's the other (few) people with selfish interests that impede on the interests of many others who do. "Society" isn't some thing that's out there. It's an abstract notion, like "government." Society is just the name we give to a social system that we all collectively agree to prop-up and put in place in order to participate in as a whole. Once we all agree to a system and agree to enter that contract, then that's when you have a "society." So if you construct a system which has an element of exploiting the young, by design, then your options are to participate in that society, or seek to change that element of the system.
You've communicated that you would submit to that system and play by the rules put in place that the "elites" are taking advantage of and reaping the rewards from. That is your prerogative, but it is not a universally optimal strategy across all human societies.