Quote:
Originally Posted by jhempel24
Prove their decision was pure business. That's how you are coming off. Anything you say is just speculation. I lean on thebside of human beings in their most dire state are generally good. You seem to skew the other way.
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There are human beings, and there are businesses -- which, despite being "corporate persons" are not the same thing.
Natural persons have the freedom to do things which bring them solely intangible benefits. Donating to charity, for example, makes a person happy. Or it makes me happy, anyway, and I can't see why anyone would do it if it made them
unhappy, so I have to assume I'm typical in that way. Businesses, on the other hand, have to make, and increase, their profits. Any benefits they get from their decisions have to go somewhere on that profit & loss statement. You can count something as advertising, or even employee morale boosting (on the theory that happy employees will work harder) but there's nowhere to put "because it's the right thing to do." "Right" and "wrong" don't enter into it. "Legal" and "illegal", which are not necessarily the same thing, do.
Take, for example, a small hydro power station which used a particular lubricant. The fellow in charge of engineering wanted to switch to a variety which was much less hazardous to the environment. However, the stuff he wanted cost more. The managers would not approve it because he wanted to trade an intangible benefit (less environmental harm from the inevitable leaks) for a tangible cost (a higher price for the lubricant). The stuff they were using was legal, so whether it was right or wrong didn't enter into it; it was legal, and it was cheaper. The decision they made was bad for ... well, everyone but the stockholders ... but it was legal, so they went with it.
I have no reason to doubt that the people who work in those Apple stores are, as you said, generally good. Most people are, and Japan in particular seems to encourage that behavior. But that's them as individuals, when they have the freedom to seek intangible benefits. That is, again, a freedom that individuals have but businesses do not. And when they are making decisions on behalf of Apple, they are making decisions as a representative of a business, with all the constraints that implies, rather than with the greater freedom of an individual. They are making business, not personal, decisions.
(incidentally, the engineer did some work on his own time and found figures to prove that if there was a major leak, the stuff they were using would cost more to clean up and tick off the people in the area far more, causing the power plant additional permit costs, impeding expansion, etc. He got his goo)