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Comment by transverse | Hacker News Reader

In fairness, the cruise visitors to Juneau do spend a fair bit of money there.

If you have ever been, you would see 99.9% of cruise passengers stay down the end of town designed for them, where the ships dock.

Guess who owns the vast majority of shops there!......

Yup! Holland-America!

(Friends tried to open a jewellery shop in Skagway, AK and didn't want to pay the kick-backs Holland-America demanded.... so Holland-America just warns people on the ships not to shop there .. "We heard someone got ripped off.. " etc. Out of business in less than one season!)

I spent on a tour, a ride, and on beer, easily a hundred in all. There are many ways to spend.

I spend easily a hundred on dinner for my family in one sitting. That doesn't mean it props up the economy where I live nor is it a way to justify an argument about an entire economy in a city you visited once.

Not to play down the injustice, but it seems like you'd be able to prove a defamy case for the cost of one cruise. Alternately, you could prove a whole class of defamy cases if there are other businesses affected.

Defamation occurring and proving a case are notably different events, never mind the difficulties of proving damages (many businesses fold or make no profit in the first year even without defamation), and the cost of litigation.

This would work if you would have tons of money, I am looking at Intel case where the evidence is clear and the process is taking years,then someone appeals, some minor issue is found and everything needs to start over, it is hard to fight against a big corporation.

How do you prove it?

Holland-America are not officially printing brochures or anything like that.. they're a just using word of mouth.

If it ever went to court, I am certain they could just say "yeah, we heard it was true..."

There is just no way that the ship will skip Juneau no matter what the city does. It is too important of a port.

"Fairness" is a funny word to use for not participating in an open economy and extracting subsidies through coercion instead.

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