Ask HN: Why is it easier to make money by being evil? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why is it easier to make money by being evil?

9 pointsdiminium9 comments

So, why is it easier for a company to be evil?

Example 1: Why is it easier for a company to make money by tracking their customers and selling their data to the highest bidder then it is to make money ANY other way?

Example 2: Why is it easier to sell software which tracks employees in a Orwellian style central management control system then it is to sell software which empowers employees to do what they think is best?

It seems like it is much easier to make money by doing evil things then it is by doing good. Why is this?

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For any problem with optimal solution k, a superset of that problem formed by relaxing the rule set will have an optimal solution at least as efficient as k.

It comes up in AI a few times.

Capitalism and currency as a concept have no understanding of ethics, morals or good vs. bad built into them.

The responsibility of enforcing and encouraging ethical behavior is on the shoulders of the government and broader society. For example, if we take that selling people's personal information is "evil" as a given, it would not be a profitable practice if literally everyone did not accept it as a fair practice or the government could theoretically censor it completely. There would be no money to be made because potential buyers would distance themselves from it.

To take it to the extreme, for example, if our culture valued something as blatantly evil and extreme as cannibalism and the government had no laws against such actions, there would unfortunately be money to be made on selling human tritip as gruesome as that is.

The point is that the trend you notice of companies profiting from "evil" actions (I agree with this) is more a reflection of the current status of society, our value system, and the government than it is of capitalism or business. If we all were purely "good", the nature of what is profitable would be quite different.

I would argue that being "evil" is less important than being completely single-minded.

Why, for example, does Google track its customers? To show them more relevant search results and ads.

From Google's perspective why is that a "good" thing? Because more relevant content means the customer is more engaged.

Why is engagement important? An engaged customer is going to spend longer on your site/services than an unengaged one.

So what can we take away from this? Google is completely single-minded about keeping customers using its products and customer engagement is a cornerstone in that strategy which in turn leads to things which one might consider "evil."

Good and evil are all a matter of perspective. The problem with morals is that they get in the way of being single-minded. If you WANT your business to succeed but are too moral to fire that under-performing employee then you might at best set your business back or at worst fail entirely.

Example 1: I'm assuming you mean users (instead of customers, since normally your customers are buying something from you and that's how you make money). If your users aren't buying things from you directly, appeals for donations and affiliate programs aren't as steady a stream of income as selling tracking data.

Example 2: I think this speaks to corporate management philosophy more than anything. If management philosophy of large corporations shifts towards empowering their employees and away from quantifying employee's productivity contributions, then it will be easier to sell software which empowers employees to do what they think is best.

inb4 capitalism

It has to do with keeping customers, learning about them, and selling goods/services to them over and over.

The other side of the coin is the aim to maximize profitability (collect and sell data). Take the humanity out of the equation and look at the business plan thru the lens of a logical, emotionless strategy. I am not saying that is good or bad, but it certainly is logical, no denying that.

Wait, what? It's way easier to make money by selling a product or service than it is by 'tracking customers and selling data.'

An individual's data is worth next-to-nothing. You have to accumulate huge audiences and keep the costs of whatever you're giving away ridiculously low to make that sort of business worthwhile - and both of those are really really hard.

Define 'evil', and then define 'easier'.

It is easiest to make money by being amoral.

This is distinctly a different approach from being immoral.

Caveat Emptor is neither evil nor consistent with the golden rule.

Asymmetrical Information.

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