the board has a duty to their shareholders to maximize holdings, not to be nice. I think that is a fundamentally biased description of the situation. It isn't

the board has a duty to their shareholders to maximize holdings, not to be nice. I think that is a fundamentally biased description of the situation. It isn't necessarily about "nice" vs "profits" - its about corporate responsibility to the community that supports it. Or to over-simplify: short-term profits vs long-term profits. A store in a ghost-town doesn't do walmart any good in the long run.