The post I responded to said the fine “should be significant compared to what they can afford”. This isn’t the standard economic formula (which I agree with). It’s a different standard that would have companies that can afford more pay larger fines.
Deterrence is the goal.
On the other hand, a corporation rarely if ever does anything for reasons other than "revenue > costs"; in fact, it usually employs people making sure that ideas violating that rule don't get executed. So calculating a punishment in a way that erases all profits from the infraction and then some is a very good strategy when dealing with big companies.
If you’re basing the punishment on profits from the infraction, you still have to take into account the percentage of those infractions that are punished. If the fine is 5x what the company would make from that behavior, but there’s only a 5% chance they get caught, they may very well choose to do it anyway.
Also, corporations are made of people. An emotional punishment may sway someone high up at the company who has the power to reform it.