This is not quite true that "considerations of ethics, user safety, privacy, security, how can this be used for evil, and is this even good for society often come as a belated afterthought". Referencing only recent popular articles in mass media does not paint the whole picture.
The very concept of SSI was motivated by ethical concerns: https://www.moxytongue.com/2016/02/self-sovereign-identity.h...
There is a field of academic research on ethics of SSI: [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-020-09563-x [2] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbloc.2020.0001...
And there is a great deal of awareness regarding these issues in industry https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/04/26/self-sovereign-id... (yes including core Ethereum developers community).