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Comment by mdorazio | Hacker News Reader

I think it still would have been met with backlash because Blizzard previously hopped on the sociopolitical issue bandwagon when they thought it would win them public points [1]. A lot of people see the current situation as transparent bullshit because Blizzard obviously wants to have its cake and eat it, too.

[1] https://www.gameskinny.com/as926/blizzard-entertainment-says...

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Perhaps people will now realize corporations only act woke to the extent it is to their benefit, and not a millimeter further. Profit consumes all. Corporations will never choose morality.

There's a large contingent of people who don't want corporations at Pride. But there's also the reasonable view that 'woke for the money' corporations are still better than not woke corporations. It's challenging to work through what's best, especially when the employees of a business might hold stronger views than their employer.

There's also "woke for the talent", which in the current skill economy is non-negligible.

If you're having a hard time finding international software developers to work for you because you're sponsoring US border militias (to use a ridiculous example), then you're materially hurting your bottom line via political speech.

And while that's an example of active speech, there are similar examples of lack-of-speech. E.g. employees at cloud companies disagreeing with neutrality regarding ICE contracts.

It's sad that only a relatively small subset of labor has this much bargaining ability, but it does seem healthy in making companies responsive to popular (for some definition) demands.

On the other hand, ICE contracts scaring away open borders job-hunters means less trouble with unionization efforts in the future.

It's also strange that devs have so much leverage and don't immediately try to unionize to lock in that leverage. I bet most software devs make a fraction of what they earn for their company. A significant fraction, but a fraction just the same. I'm surprised that given how desirable the skill set is they are willing to leave that money on the table.

It's almost like they're anti-social or something.

And, unfortunately, it has been deemed more profitable historically to subscribe cynically to the bigoted aspects of conservatism. Whether it's truly more profitable or not is up for discussion, but fear of Middle American backlash has stayed the hands of a good many companies who would have like to have been able to market to marginalized groups. I think it's good that they've shed that fear, even if only in the interest of profit. You make it sound like it's a bad thing that we opened lunch counters or run ads with openly gay or mixed couples; that we stopped letting backwards taboos throw a wrench in our markets.

No, it isn't a bad thing. But organizations shouldn't be lauded for meeting the minimum basic standards of not being terrible.

CVS stopped selling cigarettes and lost $2B revenue per year. After a few years, their stock is up. Is that seeking profit or doing what's right? Why does public good and public profit always have to be opposed? If being "woke" is profitable, we shouldn't discourage the good just because of potential profits. That would be like boycotting the Prius because Toyota is trying to make money off environmental concerns...

There are a few decent case studies around this move, and I still find it fascinating. They can say they did it for their values, but immediate revenue loss for values doesn't happen all that often. If it were truly for values, I'd expect alcohol to be removed from shelves as well.

In the early 2000's, CVS started treating patients at their MinuteClinics in the pharmacy. It became directly comparable to an actual doctors office, where cigarettes haven't been sold since the 1950's.

Anecdotally, and ironically, most of the people that are aware CVS made this move are inconvenienced smokers. I'd expect a huge continued marketing campaign around this endeavor in the US, but it hasn't been as strong as many other less impressive campaigns.

they sell alcohol at CVS?

Most pharmacies in the US sell beer/wine. I don't think that is the case for hard liquor, though.

RiteAid sells hard liquor in Washington state.

I guess it makes sense it would be legal in states where the sale of hard liquor is allowed in places outside of dedicated liquor stores (and WA is one of them), I've just never really noticed it (never been to RiteAid in WA, though, only to Bartells/CVS/Walgreens). Thanks for the correction.

Is ending the sale of tobacco really that similar as ending the sale of alcohol in terms of values? What shared values do you see in ending the sale of both of these products?

>If it were truly for values, I'd expect alcohol to be removed from shelves as well.

Not sure why everything has to be black and white. An individual or corporation can hold values that are against smoking but ok with alcohol.

Picking one and not the other does not invalidate the value.

>Anecdotally, and ironically, most of the people that are aware CVS made this move are inconvenienced smokers. I'd expect a huge continued marketing campaign around this endeavor in the US, but it hasn't been as strong as many other less impressive campaigns.

This is not surprising or ironic if the action was based more on ethics and less on PR/ virtue signaling.

Wait, how did CSV help anything? People aren't going to stop buying cigarettes. They're addictive. People will just start paying double from a gas station.

If we all waited until we could universally eliminate an unethical behavior before we stopped participating in it ourselves, the behavior would never die.

CVS has chosen to stop contributing to a problem, and the behavior of other businesses has no bearing on whether they did the right thing.

Actually there is evidence to the contrary - Cigarette sales fell in the entire state where CVS had a significant market-share, and anti-smoking patch sales increased by 4% in the months following (src: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2017/02/20/after-cv...)

Granted, it's hard to really know anything, but I'm not entirely sure what you're saying is true. There was probably at least a few people who just said screw it and stopped buying cigarettes because they wanted to quit and needed an impulse. Since their sales actually increased in the years following, and typically cigarettes have ancillary sales, I think at -least- a few people quit due to this move.

Not to diminish your point, but to add an additional possibility, I imagine the pro LGBT stance may have been singular or small groups of employees inside Blizzard sounding off inside a corporation with different values.

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