Hacker News Reader

Interesting. Any case studies in particular come to mind?

Where a profitable company increased its profits, via actions that later lost customers and profits?

(The historical cases that come to mind for me of are companies that were already in the red, trying to turn it around.)

View on HN

Costco could easily triple their cost of their hotdogs and still be cheaper than everyone else. They don't because they know it would be foolishly destructive to their reputation in the long term.

They also faced pressure during the pandemic to increase their margins like other companies were doing to price gouge.

But of course that would do the same to their rep and is not where they make there money. Iirc 80% of profits are from memberships

So that's an example of business making the right long-term decision.

Seems a couple of concert tours were canceled this summer, largely due to failure to sell inflated ticket prices. Popular performers/bands with established fan bases that could almost surely support a modest tour, instead everyone is angry and disappointed and there's no tour at all.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com