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Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft | Hacker News Reader

>these absurd, customer-hostile practices

Companies no longer view their customers as their customers, and I'm not sure I've settled on an explanation that makes sense to me. I only have examples. The biggest one though was Bug Light and the Dylan Mulvaney thing from several years ago. I no longer have a link, but there was a paraphrased quote from the marketing director at the time directly expressing contempt for those who drank Bud Light. But a frustrated expletive, rather a full-on rant about how they were all moronic frat boys and gauche rednecks.

What does it mean when a company has no respect for its own customers, no gratitude, and even measurable levels of what can only be called hatred? I don't know the answer to that question, but that's the world we all live in this year of 2025. And I can't imagine it could possibly turn out well for any of us.

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While I agree with the root of the issue, I think conflating contempt for their customers in general with contempt for a market segment is a mistake. As an opposing example, see how chik-fil-a alienates some secular customer segments and still serves the needs of their target markets.

Similarly, we all understand the concept of "firing a customer" who isn't worth dealing with for one reason or another.

Sometimes, individual customers or vocal segments really do epouse views which are incompatible with the company's ethical mores. It's easy to imagine "firing" a customer who abuses support professionals with racial slurs, as an extreme example.

If a business doesn't want to serve a particular market segment, that's a different situation from generalized customer contempt.

Companies aren't people and so lack volition. It's under-regulated greed and sense of entitlement by decision-makers, owners and/or managers, that is the problem. The root cause is the political corruption that systematically promotes and endorses this kind of behavior.

I'll gently push back on that, and counter that companies (esp. giant corporations) are in fact, akin to a "sentient amorphous entity that wants to maximize itself along various axes".

Consider how big corps are able to get laws passed that benefit them (or stall laws that would harm them).

All this, to say that the C-suite and senior leader types are more like "ticks riding on the back of a mega-parasite", than "greedy entities deliberately transforming formerly-benign corporations into harmful entities".

>Companies aren't people

All companies on planet Earth, since the dawn of history, have in fact been people. None were composed of elephants or aardvarks or sea urchins. It is not anthropomorphization to say this, they are literally people. This is why so many of their behaviors and idiosyncrasies are human, because companies are human.

> The root cause is the political corruption that

A common refrain from the sort of person who hopes to recruit others into their own political crusades. These things are not the root causes, but even if they were, it's essentially impossible to do anything about it.

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