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Comment by ziddoap | Hacker News Reader

When viewed as a percent of their annual revenue, rather than an absolute number, it's not really all that massive. It's like 3% or so.

And you can't really just look at the 3%, you have to factor in what benefits (money, political sway, whatever) they received in exchange for the data. For simplicity, if they got paid, I don't know, $150M/yr from China for the data and they've been sending data for (at least) 4 years... They would have made a profit despite the fine!

($150M is obviously pulled out of my ass, just as a demonstration of how when you look at the fines from a bigger context, it might just be a line item on the expense report that's worth taking the risk on)

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> When viewed as a percent of their annual revenue,

I've always found this viewpoint a bit childish, with little regard for how businesses work IRL (even the ignoring the obvious profits vs revenue part). Reminds me of how every comment section re: some crime story is people calling for death penalty or how a mob should kill them first. Justice is never that simple.

I understand people want businesses they don't like to simply not exist anymore but that doesn't mean it's rational to throw up insane fines because you spent 2min doing back of a napkin math of revenue * (imaginary deterrent %)

> For simplicity, if they got paid, I don't know, $150M/yr from China for the data and they've been sending data for (at least) 4 years... They would have made a profit despite the fine!

The Chinese government doesn't need to pay companies to exfiltrate data from companies within their reach.

>I've always found this viewpoint a bit childish,

It's childish to view fines as a percent of revenue rather than an absolute number...? That's certainly an odd take.

Fines are meant to be a deterrent. If you fine Microsoft $50,000 they will literally not notice. If you fine my locally owned convenience store $50,000 they will probably be forced to close. It's absurd to ignore that.

>I understand people want businesses they don't like to simply not exist anymore

I did not say this, or anything close to it.

My entire point was that looking at a number in a vacuum and saying "that's massive" or "that's not that big" is silly. What's "massive" to some companies is a tiny blip on the radar of other companies.

I cannot understand anyone who thinks looking at fines in context is "childish".

Not looking at fines in context is something only the largest and richest of companies would be a proponent for, because it would make the fines absolutely meaningless for them while being effective against anyone smaller.

I'm convinced that when someone makes an argument using revenue vs profit, it is either a literal teenager (look at that huge number! I've never seen a number so big), or an inauthentic poster (just putting the fries in the bag)

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