Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
It's not a matter of equating PayPal's or Smashwords' actions with "ending apartheid." It's that economic boycotts are a perfectly valid tool to achieve a political end.
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You seem to be drawing a false parallel between boycotts by consumer advocacy groups and an unprecedented non-business-related threat against a book seller by a financial transaction company with which it has had a long-term relationship. Smashwords is certainly informed (as is Limbaugh) as to dealing with consumer boycotts. But no one expected the
San Jose Inquisition.
Deep ties and crucial coding are involved in this situation, as people here have said repeatedly. To betray a partner at such a late stage amounts to a violation of trust. I understand your point about customers' right to express disapproval and the targeted company's right to comply or not, but this is not only a surprise attack but a very late demand about preexisting content on one business by another business. If PayPal intended to do this to bookstores and content delivery industries generally, they should have been honest about it from the beginning. If they'd done that, PayPal would be far less prominent on the web and in our thoughts today.