SNCommand said:
The argument is more complex than just "companies exist to make money"
It also means that companies need to make money, if a practice is deemed unprofitable they will of course try to steer away from it, they might not be correct in their assessment, but then it's up to the consumer to buy the product or not
The argument isn't about someone having to like or even accept why a company does what it do, but it is to make someone understand why they do it
That's the rational argument but I've literally never seen that be "the argument."
100% of the time its a mob of people defending literally anything and acting like businesses not don't don't need to have moral compasses but they SHOULDN'T have them.
That capitalism is above the health and safety of all people.
You won't catch people saying "companies exist to make money" in response to a complaint and then seeing them follow it up with anything short of objectivism.
I've been on the Jim side of this for most of my life, basically a business exists to profit but they should be expected to create the maximum amount of profit with the minimum level of negative impact.
I realize "negative impact" is a vague term but you get the heart of the message.
Similarly any business willing to endanger for maximum profits should be held to damages equal to its profits. So if you flood an entire gulf with oil you should lose your business. That's the danger of doing something extremely dangerous for extreme profits, you get hit with extreme repercussions.
As it stands most extreme businesses get hit with fines equal to a few weeks or months of income. Hardly enough to care.
Ukomba said:
Immoral? Please, do tell, what have they done that is 'immoral' or a practice that should be made against the law?
I would consider the step by step back peddling of what people get for what they buy is wrong. Looking at the customer as a hurdle to profits instead of a market to be satisfied is wrong.
Morality is inherently subjective, but I would say that in general when your business is in making markets instead of satisfying them you are probably doing something wrong. Is it as wrong as killing a child? No obviously not. But its destructive, you end up with more money without any improvement to the system your business exists in.
Basically any profits gained without improvements to a market are negative gains. Again subjective but you can see companies all over the place raking in record profits without adding anything. Comcast gives terrible service and rakes in massive margins, oil companies, banks, the list goes on.
All these companies do give 'something' back, usually small things, the convenience of depositing a check by phone is nice for instance. But the giving back versus the intake is so disproportionate that in the end it hurts everyone.
Not just the people who don't like it, but the people who (for whatever reason) defend it. It hurts them in ways that they are not aware of or it will eventually hurt them when it crosses that thin line between "Acceptable" and "Unacceptable".
In business the slippery slope is less a cliche and more of a history repeating truth. Give any industry enough rope and they'll hang you with it.
Lakes on fire, vegetables choking on toxic waste, dead zones, mercury in fresh water and fish, and the list goes on. The gaming industry might seem trivial in contrast but that attitude and the ever stricter grip on profits is something that shouldn't be acceptable anywhere.
But in the end I just wrote most of this to butter myself because your question is obviously written in a way that exclaims proudly "I've made up my mind. So give me fuel to flame you." There wasn't even an attempt to veil the condescension :/...
walruss said:
It's the job of the company to use whatever means is possible to increase its profit margins. It's the job of the consumer to only buy things that are worthwhile to them.
In a perfect world with a perfect distribution of information this would work. However that world doesn't exist so this world view won't work.
walruss said:
When the two meet, the company is going to charge the most it possibly can, and the consumer is going to get the lowest price he possibly can.
Originally this view was put forth by Publilius Syrus. "Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it."
Except over thousands of years we've gotten a very detailed understanding of psychology and how to manipulate people. You can easily put people in a situation that makes them feel compelled to spend more money than they otherwise would have in a fair situation.
What is a fair situation? Tough to say, everything down to how aisles are laid out, the colors of packaging, the word choice and location, all these things are part of the goal of manipulating people.
I would say a fair situation is any situation where people find a market and they satisfy it. Any situation where you create a market to satisfy is likely unfair and involves manipulation. But that's a personal belief.
Basically when Syrus wrote that the message seemed to be more that "you can't charge people more than they are willing to pay" and not "Charge everything you possibly can and milk them till they get some sense about them!"
It also probably didn't take into consideration preying on children for profits.
walruss said:
This model is broken in a lot of places (necessities, for instance), but the one place it works perfectly is in luxury goods like video games. This is because nobody HAS to buy video games, so consumers have a lot of bargaining power.
This system works terribly in luxury goods and everywhere else. When a company that does things you don't like gets large enough they can start buying up companies you DO like.
Suddenly it doesn't matter if you have an opinion because all your alternatives are gone. You can name just about every single non-nintendo company that I liked in my childhood.
You know what they all have in common? EA bought them and destroyed them. Did I have any say in that matter? No. This is where that model breaks down.
walruss said:
Maybe we should consider, you know, using that instead of complaining that companies aren't doing our negotiating for us. Unless you believe that EA has some moral imperative to give you video games in the manner to which you're accustomed. In which case you need to consider whether you maybe have a bit of an entitlement issue.
So basically your argument is "businesses are entitled to do whatever they want and if you have any problems with that you are a child."
Classy.
Anywho, I'd suggest going back to the drawing board. Once you can invent a system where every company I enjoy can't simply vanish tomorrow into the maw of some entity that basically controls the market I'll be on board.