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I don’t think it’s possible for a private company to have the public’s interest at heart, at least in the long term. Especially for Google, who have shown a lac

I don’t think it’s possible for a private company to have the public’s interest at heart, at least in the long term. Especially for Google, who have shown a lack of respect and privacy for its users.

vageli 8y ago
> I don’t think it’s possible for a private company to have the public’s interest at heart, at least in the long term. Especially for Google, who have shown a lack of respect and privacy for its users. While I agree in general with this sentiment, do you think non-profit corporations are in the same boat? Or something like the FDIC?
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  >do you think non-profit corporations are in the same boat? There are really bad non-profits, I've worked at them. However, endless search for endless profit by shareholders, CEO's, and executives is usually the cause of a loss of morals and ethics. I think it's nearly impossible for very large corporations making profits to do actual good for society except give us endless growth with products and services we really don't need. This doesn't mean a small local bakery taking in profits isn't doing the community good, but extremely large corporations don't benefit the same way.
  - briandear 8y ago
    https://www.npr.org/2014/10/29/359365276/on-superstorm-sandy-anniversary-red-cross-under-scrutiny https://www.npr.org/2014/10/29/359365276/on-superstorm-sandy... The Red Cross is worse than many for profits. If a for-profit doesn’t deliver the goods, they don’t get paid: they are incentivized to do what their customers want. The Red Cross is incentivized to bring in donations even at the expense of their stated purpose. Look at the salary of the Red Cross CEO — a salary paid by tax deductible donations. Look at the corrupt nonsense engaged in by many universities. To suggest non-profits have any better or worse ethics than for profits is a vast over simplification. The Clinton Foundation even paid for Chelsea Clinton’s wedding as well as private jet transport by principles. Even Greenpeace’s leader was commuting by airplane.
    - lern_too_spel 8y ago
      Nope. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/04/did-the-clinton-foundation-pay-for-chelseas-wedding/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/...
    - drb91 8y ago
      Well, it’s actually quite easy: if you care about profit, your morals are necessarily compromised. You are right that non-profits have other incentives as well, but expecting a for profit organization to have morals is inherently going to disappoint your expectation every time.
drusepth 8y ago
I'd argue it's way more possible for a private company to have the public's interest at heart than a public company. Obviously a company needs to make money to survive, but the necessity to make enough profit to survive as a company doesn't preclude any kind of public interest; the two aren't mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, they do often overlap a lot less than they should, often just so the company can make even more money. It could be argued that there's some bigger picture ploy in the form of "if we make more money, we could help more", but obviously this gets into a case-by-case basis analyzing companies -- some fit the mold of having the public's interest at heart, and some don't, but all of them are on a spectrum both for public interest _and_ how well they implement it. This is completely disregarding the fact that what is "right" for "public interest" varies from person to person. One person of the public might very much want total surveillance and one might not want anything to do with technology at all -- is building something for either really in the public interest? The common sense answer is no: "public interest" defines what the _majority_ of people want (which has its own issues), but even that changes over time.
- jammygit 8y ago
  It seems like most of the private companies who act in the public's interest are newer ones that are either run by a founder, or still influenced by the original founders ideas from not long ago. Does anybody know of any good counter-examples off hand? A lot of older/larger corporation have pretty bad reputations (I guess I mean as core business practices, not just "we had a good quarter and can hire some extra interns to give them a start in their careers / donate to that art exhibit")
  - prolikewh0a 8y ago
    >It seems like most of the private companies who act in the public's interest are newer ones that are either run by a founder, or still influenced by the original founders ideas from not long ago. Have any examples of private companies who act in the public's interest? I can't think of any.

vageli 8y ago

> I don’t think it’s possible for a private company to have the public’s interest at heart, at least in the long term. Especially for Google, who have shown a lack of respect and privacy for its users. While I agree in general with this sentiment, do you think non-profit corporations are in the same boat? Or something like the FDIC?

prolikewh0a 8y ago
>do you think non-profit corporations are in the same boat? There are really bad non-profits, I've worked at them. However, endless search for endless profit by shareholders, CEO's, and executives is usually the cause of a loss of morals and ethics. I think it's nearly impossible for very large corporations making profits to do actual good for society except give us endless growth with products and services we really don't need. This doesn't mean a small local bakery taking in profits isn't doing the community good, but extremely large corporations don't benefit the same way.
- briandear 8y ago
  https://www.npr.org/2014/10/29/359365276/on-superstorm-sandy-anniversary-red-cross-under-scrutiny https://www.npr.org/2014/10/29/359365276/on-superstorm-sandy... The Red Cross is worse than many for profits. If a for-profit doesn’t deliver the goods, they don’t get paid: they are incentivized to do what their customers want. The Red Cross is incentivized to bring in donations even at the expense of their stated purpose. Look at the salary of the Red Cross CEO — a salary paid by tax deductible donations. Look at the corrupt nonsense engaged in by many universities. To suggest non-profits have any better or worse ethics than for profits is a vast over simplification. The Clinton Foundation even paid for Chelsea Clinton’s wedding as well as private jet transport by principles. Even Greenpeace’s leader was commuting by airplane.
  - lern_too_spel 8y ago
    Nope. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/04/did-the-clinton-foundation-pay-for-chelseas-wedding/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/...
  - drb91 8y ago
    Well, it’s actually quite easy: if you care about profit, your morals are necessarily compromised. You are right that non-profits have other incentives as well, but expecting a for profit organization to have morals is inherently going to disappoint your expectation every time.

drusepth 8y ago

I'd argue it's way more possible for a private company to have the public's interest at heart than a public company. Obviously a company needs to make money to survive, but the necessity to make enough profit to survive as a company doesn't preclude any kind of public interest; the two aren't mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, they do often overlap a lot less than they should, often just so the company can make even more money. It could be argued that there's some bigger picture ploy in the form of "if we make more money, we could help more", but obviously this gets into a case-by-case basis analyzing companies -- some fit the mold of having the public's interest at heart, and some don't, but all of them are on a spectrum both for public interest _and_ how well they implement it. This is completely disregarding the fact that what is "right" for "public interest" varies from person to person. One person of the public might very much want total surveillance and one might not want anything to do with technology at all -- is building something for either really in the public interest? The common sense answer is no: "public interest" defines what the _majority_ of people want (which has its own issues), but even that changes over time.

jammygit 8y ago
It seems like most of the private companies who act in the public's interest are newer ones that are either run by a founder, or still influenced by the original founders ideas from not long ago. Does anybody know of any good counter-examples off hand? A lot of older/larger corporation have pretty bad reputations (I guess I mean as core business practices, not just "we had a good quarter and can hire some extra interns to give them a start in their careers / donate to that art exhibit")
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  >It seems like most of the private companies who act in the public's interest are newer ones that are either run by a founder, or still influenced by the original founders ideas from not long ago. Have any examples of private companies who act in the public's interest? I can't think of any.