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Comment by bfg_9k | Hacker News Reader

It's an interesting one - I've always thought that businesses should have no right to refuse business, and it kind of already exists, for example you can't refuse to serve a customer purely on the basis of their skin color.

Likewise, if a casino or betting company (ladbrokes, for example) have customers that win too often, I also think it should be illegal to stop them betting. Fundamentally if you're running a business that is an uneven coin toss (to your favour) and you have customers that are able to make money off you - that's your fault for having a bad business model.

So to answer your question, any size.

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If you run a restaurant and a known dine-and-dasher walks in, can you not refuse to serve them?

If you're a consultant do you have no right to refuse a client? Even if you have other clients you'd rather work for, or that particular client is a bad fit for you, or any other reason?

If you run a transport company, and you think someone is trying to get you to move illegal goods, or goods that you have moral qualms about transporting (such as a vegan being asked to transport livestock for slaughter) do you have no right to refuse?

Known dine-and-dasher - no, I think you should be forced to serve them. You don't know if they're going to dine and dash you, you're not the police or the courts, punishing a dine and dasher. Your job is to serve food to those who pay you. If you've got a problem, make them pay for food first?

Consultant - unless you've got a legitimate need to reject providing services to them, I tend to think the same, you should have to serve them if they're trying to pay you, or there's a legitimate business need to avoid that client.

Transport company - it's not your job to judge what's being moved. It's your job to move something from A to B. If you want to avoid moving livestock, don't go into the transport business. Should that same vegan be allowed to not teach kids in school because the kids they teach eat ham sandwiches? Should they be allowed to reject someone from banking services just because they own a fur coat?

These all sound wild and like their impeding on all kinds of freedoms - you’re saying that a business should be compelled to serve or work with anyone that offers to pay them which is _wild_.

The issue comes down to when you refuse to work with someone because of an immutable property - race, gender, age, etc - denying someone from coming into your restaurant because they’ve ripped you off is completely fine and I can’t see why it shouldn’t be. This smacks of “freedom of speech” when people get mad that a private platform told them they couldn’t say mean things.

But say you're a concreter, you've worked with a client who's an absolute prick - doesn't do anything illegal exactly but he's a total stickler with your work, calls you all the time with stupid questions, tries to find problems everywhere to justify a discount (despite you having hypothetically done the job perfectly), pays as late as possible. Shouldn't you have the right to not take on another job for this guy?

You're right - but in that instance the justification in my mind (and what you'd presumably argue if challenged legally) is that they're difficult to work with - which I'm okay with.

But not wanting to concrete that person's driveway because they're in the army, or because they're a politician or whatever else along those lines I think shouldn't be allowed.

Okay, I will now say "they are difficult to work with" or "i don't have time" every time a client walks up that I don't want to serve. Infact, that's exactly what a lot of handymen say already to avoid the irritation associated with declining a job. I hope you see how your "ought" will be difficult to implement in practice

None of this has anything to do with companies having rights. You as a person can choose to not to business with another person.

But given that companies are made up of people, where does the line get drawn? If your concreting business has a couple of other guys working does it still count?

Can't you price that into their bill, or require payment before services? That is what most construction companies already do, if you are a pain in the ass they charge you more and more until you either don't want it any more or they are satisfied that their pay is worth your trouble, and if payment is potentially questionable they make you pay beforehand.

This is completely unworkable in the real world

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