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Comment by asdfman123 | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that China is a country of a billion people, many of whom are rapidly entering the global middle class, so many companies depend on those new customers to hit their growth targets.

Companies growing so that they can be worth more when their investors sell them is the whole point of businesses in general. It's the reason we all go to work every day.

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I think relying on China is about to become a very risky growth strategy. While China's population is much larger, the US is still large and very rich, and an American company is always going to understand how to develop and market products better for Americans than for China.

China's political censorship abroad, enforced via sheer economic muscle, has received extremely strong bipartisan condemnation in the US during a time of unprecedented partisanship; even AOC and Ted Cruz have blasted Blizzard. What China's trying to do goes against everything Americans have been raised to believe, from the most conservative to the most liberal. Political outrage within the US about domestic US affairs is often ineffective because it's too partisan, and it tends to just energize the other side (e.g., the Chick-fil-A controversy in 2012/2013 actually increased their sales). This is different because everyone agrees and there is no "other side" to energize, not within the US.

many companies depend on those new customers to hit their growth targets

They will never be your customers. You think they will, so you hand over your IP to a local partner, and then they don’t need you anymore and take those customers themselves. I am surprised any Western company still falls for this ruse.

greed is good until it isn't and some people, me included, think the line has been crossed here. or, in other words, if the chinese customers can only be serviced at the expense of following chinese laws everywhere in the world, perhaps they aren't worth servicing?

many companies depend on those new customers to hit their growth targets

That's a choice.

Companies growing so that they can be worth more when their investors sell them is the whole point of businesses

Also a choice.

Companies are accountable for their choices. Accountable to their shareholders and to their customers. When those groups aren't aligned, then you're in a tough spot. You might wind up with a new set of shareholders or a new set of customers.

Or no customers and no shareholders.

Corporations are allowed to exist by the public (via the representatives of their collective will, i.e. government) under the belief that doing so will, overall, result in a net benefit to the public. Making a profit or increasing shareholder value are secondary considerations. They can be motivations for why a corporation exists, but don't have to be (there are plenty of non-profit corporations). They are not the sole raison d'être for the artificial constructs we call corporations.

> Corporations are allowed to exist by the public

I would argue that in America, the public is allowed to exist by corporations.

(Tongue in cheek cynicism, mixed with more truth than I'm comfortable with.)

And here I thought reputation, value exchange, and being a good corporate citizen were what made a company worthwhile and respectable.

Thanks for showing your position on the side of "money first people second, if at all".

This is an uncharitable interpretation of the parent comment.

If I say that male lions kill the cubs of rival males when they take over a pride, I am stating an observation, not making a moral claim that I am "on the side" of lions killing cubs.

It's a fair observation that the structural incentives of modern investment driven capital are that growth is absolutely rewarded and morality is often not. Good citizenship only rewards a company when there are enough consumers aware of that citizenship and who care enough to change their spending habits. At the scale of many corporations, it's very hard for enough people to care enough to affect the company's actions.

I think it's often underestimated just how many people don't care and are just focused on doing their job and feeding their kids. They might passively agree or disagree with something but acting on it is a whole different matter. Walmart's still bustling.

>>Companies growing so that they can be worth more when their investors sell them is the whole point of businesses in general

Eww. I thought it was about trading products and labor for currency and vice versa. The investor class is just a parasite on the whole endeavor.

Yup. Our civilization already pulls a bait-and-switch on children by teaching them (us) that work is about the contribution to society, and not making money while incidentally providing some value; the investor mindset of treating companies as first-class objects to pump up and pass around is making things even worse. I for one, when I go to work, don't give a damn about resale value to investors. I'm there to build maximally useful products to the customers that use them.

> The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere makeshifts, and a shirking of the real business of life, - chiefly because they do not know, but partly because they do not mean, any better. The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living. The philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the dust of a puffball. The hog that gets his living by rooting, stirring up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command the wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay such a price for it.

-- Henry David Thoreau, "Life Without Principle" http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER2/thoreau/life.html

I think China might be a great market for micro transaction based games. This is why Blizzard is acting like this.

Right. Follow the money.

Pedantry is important here, because it's important to point out that the Blizzard that people loved is long gone. It's really Activision Blizzard who are acting like this.

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