but the moral here is: corporations aren't your friends ... regardless if they do stuff that's beneficial to you or not
Ultimately, I agree. All I'm really saying is if there's a hypothetical baseline for greed, immorality and disinformation in the corporate world, there are
still differing levels to how
far some corporations go.
I've used this example before, so I'll return to it: is Apple fundamentally just another Silicon Valley tech company that exists to profit off the backs of the masses with overpriced and sometimes morally dubious tech? 100%. Do I still retain
some level of respect for them because of their stance on encryption and digital security? Also 100%.
And in that case,
maybe it's possible that it's actually a company-level stance that they take because they think it's a moral issue. Or more likely their stance on encryption is probably simply self-serving. Maybe it's CYA type stuff. Who knows. But I can retain at least
some level of respect for them because they're not Google or AT&T pouring out the content of their users' digital lives onto the desks of every national government that asks for it.
In the same vein, I retain some level of respect for Valve for continuing to operate as though generally customer-oriented policies are the way to increase their bottom line. They "care" about me insofar as we currently provide each other a mutually beneficial relationship.
And let's be real and
suuuuuuuper cynical here for a second: that's true of most human relationships. Most people only care about other people as long as there is some perceived benefit (whether tangible or not) in "caring" about the other person.
Yes, the corporation doesn`t care about you... but consumers should always show care towards policies that benefit them the most, otherwise what would encourage companies to pursue them at the detriment of themselves?
Yep. Companies are customer-oriented insofar as it serves their bottom-line.
The important thing is to always make it evident that serving the customer does in fact benefit their bottom line through higher revenue and increased customer loyalty, and that customer-unfriendly policies will invoke the reverse.