Exploitation aside, what's your alternative?

See even if we actually magically got control of the wool industry so we knew with 100% certainty there was zero exploitation anywhere and producing a lot of wool wouldn't be the priority anymore, and profits weren't chased, but just the best care we can provide for sheep. Like the absolute best possible.

In that case, the sheep still have to be sheared, which produces wool. Why shouldn't that wool — essentially a waste product at that time — be utilised by someone?

Or are you suggesting the sheep aren't sheared? Because that's very unhealthy for them in the long term, because it's an animal that's evolved to rely on humans shearing them. They literally wouldn't properly survive, they'd become over entangled with wool and start having all sorts of health problems.

That is animal cruelty, to inflict something like that on purpose. Then the only alternative left is exterminating every sheep in the world.

That or there will be some wool that is completely moral to use.

One can oppose exploitative practices and still use wool. I have several wool items, and they last years and years, despite me getting them from second hand stores. I also have a leather jacket, which was originally made in the 70's.

Someone who buys cheaply made clothing from some Asian sweat shops is definitely contributing more to the suffering of sentient being than I.

Wool isn't immoral, exploitative practices are. Eating meat isn't bad, exploitative farming is.

My brother hunts deer (as a part of a hunter's association who function as the local nature conservationists essentially by taking care of the populace) and I have absolutely no moral qualms eating the meat from him. I don't like buying industrially farmed meat, it's just not ethical.

My point is vegans often take so absolute positions that they are literally impossible to defend without revealing the lack of logic in the absolutist positions.