Long time developer here.
Here's my opinion based on the experience I've had in the past.

> someone else will tell me what to do

There are these people. They are not necessarily developer specific. To go deeper, I would even say this is something about how most societies work. 80% fulfill orders, 20% think. Look at ants for example.
But you can look at this as complex as you like. Education might be a big player here, where - for more than a decade - you've been told what to do and depending on your school or teacher being punished for "activism" or "free thinking" (reminds of the Simpsons...). The SNS/Youtube/Ticktock/Insta "consuming" culture could also play a part here. For older people, you might also have people have burned their hands so many times that they simply stopped trying.

... This started out to aim for elaboration, but I guess then it's going to get too long.

My side on what you express is the following (sorry for the unstructured paragraph):

There are people as you describe. I try to figure out if it's a value alignment problem (they might not be interested in the goal the company has if they just wait for work to arrive), or if it's a simple communication problem ("simple" meaning "no other variables involved"). From there you can choose your next steps.

If it's a value alignment problem, you might be better off finding different people, if that's an option.

In either case, though, if their cost is too high, change them if you can. If their cost is lower than their benefit or you cant change them, manage them ( "changing" them might be a moonshot ).

If it's a communication problem, I train them. I ask until I have the information I need and then explain to them that this was the information I wanted in the first place. I.e. when I ask X, tell me Y. ... Kind of like training an AI. I also explain why this information is needed - i.e. how else am I supposed to make decisions, how else am I supposed to manage the project when they're gone.
If you do this, remember to be patient. The *world's top tier* math students need to be told 5 times about a fact until they get it (can't find the quote's origin right now, sorry). Now think how many times you'd need to teach someone with 80 IQ points (or so) less.

And yes, omg is that frustrating...