> aboyt how much Apple cares about users No company cares about anything. A company is not a person. Apple, because of its privacy-marketing, is incentivized to be the privacy player in the market. But only so far as consumers keep them honest about it. They got away with this loophole because it stayed under the radar; if it gets enough attention and enough customers show that it matters to them, it could change. On…
> No company cares about anything It's a common misconception that corporations are amoral incentive-driven machines impervious to ethics, morals or mission. Corporations are run by leaders. Many leaders choose to pursue unethical and immoral activities to maximize profit. They justify their actions by saying "it's just business", or "we have a fiduciary duty to the stockholders to maximize earnings per share by what…
It's entirely possible to do immoral things for the sake of profit while still being prudent about your company's future.
As for sacrificing profits to a moral end: private companies may do this occasionally. Not often, but sometimes. But the CEO of a publicly-traded company expressly does not have the option of sacrificing profits for any higher purpose, unless that directive comes from his shareholders. And in today's world, the shareholders of most major companies are of such a large number and have so many layers of detachment between themselves and the actual company (I don't even know what companies Betterment has me invested in; they can change every day) that the only common goal they can agree on is almost always profits.
An interesting exception to the norm is Facebook: despite being publicly-traded, Zuckerberg maintains both a majority holding and the position of CEO, and is therefore free to go on his crusade of "connecting the world", mostly ignoring what the other shareholders might want.