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617 points jbegley | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.408s | source
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a_shovel ◴[] No.42938313[source]
I initially thought that this was an announcement for a new pledge and thought, "they're going to forget about this the moment it's convenient." Then I read the article and realized, "Oh, it's already convenient."

Google is a megacorp, and while megacorps aren't fundamentally "evil" (for some definitions of evil), they are fundamentally unconcerned with goodness or morality, and any appearance that they are is purely a marketing exercise.

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1. mystified5016 ◴[] No.42938748[source]
> they are fundamentally unconcerned with goodness or morality

No, no. Call a spade a spade. This behavior and attitude is evil. Corporations under modern American capitalism must be evil. That's how capitalism works.

You succeed in capitalism not by building a better mousetrap, but by destroying anyone who builds a better moustrap than you. You litigate, acquire, bribe, and rewrite legislation to ensure yours is the best and only mousetrap available to purchase, with a token 'competitor' kept on life support so you can plausibly deny anticompetitive practices.

If you're a good company trying to do good things, you simply can't compete. The market just does not value what is good, just, or beneficial. The market only wants number to go up, and to go up right now at any cost. Amazon will start pumping out direct clones of your product for pennies. What are you gonna do, sue Amazon?! best of luck.

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2. roca ◴[] No.42944168[source]
"The market" is just a lot of people making decisions about what to do with their money. If you want the market to behave differently, be the change you want to see, and teach others to do the same.