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Comment by glimshe | Hacker News Reader

Whenever you see companies engaging in political positions, know one thing: it's not you they have in mind.

I prefer to deal with a company who is making the world a better place rather than a worse one. I don't care whether they like me or not.

I'd rather they did it for good reasons. It makes it more likely that they'll continue to. But they might also do it just to help keep my business, and that suffices.

Are you making reference to the “class action farms” or to Costco here. Because I certainly don’t think class action lawsuits have victims in mind. Source: recipient of a few coupons and $10.00 checks after some “successful” class action.

Lawyers get like 50% of the class action settlements its pretty wild.

Right! THAT is the “business” with a political position in this case. Not the one seeking a refund on illegal taxes. It doesn’t have to be in my personal best interest for me to think it makes sense for a retailer to seek a tariff refund!

This would be pretty rare. There's no doubt they get a lot in billable hours, and the pay-out process - if complex - can be expensive, but my understanding is it's typically closer to 20% to the lawyers and maybe 5-8% more in administration. It's definitely a lot but not averaging 50%.

> Whenever you see companies engaging in political positions, know one thing: it's not you they have in mind.

Yes, those pesky political companies...

* Paying their employees above average wages

* Working with their suppliers to achieve win/win/win outcomes wherever possible

* Stocking products that enhance their customers' lives instead of optimizing for profit margins and nothing else

* Etc

Costco is a rare example of a company doing the right thing and succeeding under late stage capitalism.

I don’t understand how you can claim the market system is structurally broken but the big company you like is “one of the good ones”.

I just think their branding is more appealing to you, combined with a more pessimistic view of companies you don’t use.

> Paying their employees above average wages

Their reasons for having higher wages are well-documented and they are equally self-serving.

> Stocking products that enhance their customers' lives instead of optimizing for profit margins and nothing else

They are one of the most aggressive profit seekers in existence! Often that presents publicly in their deals with supplier.

It's pretty easy to see the vast difference in attitudes of Costco employees versus Walmart, etc. It turns out that if you treat people like humans, they'll return the favor. Costco knows this and uses it to everyone's advantage.

If this is your idea of "appealing branding" then call it whatever you need to.

I'm glad the marketplace has created a provider you like.

So am I, at least for when it comes to groceries. I can't say the same for other domains.

Unfortunately, experience shows these rare gems are often one generation away from going to shit when the principled types retire and are replaced with backstabbing money grabbers who think the only way to win is in a race to the collective bottom, because "that's what everybody else is doing."

>Their reasons for having higher wages are well-documented and they are equally self-serving.

The bottom line is that they are paying their employees much more than their competitors would. You're going to pass that off as "self-serving"?

Their biggest competitor is owned by a family whose combined net worth is half a trillion dollars that derives from founding a megacorporation worth a trillion dollars....yet for some reason can't find the money to pay their employees a living wage, so they instruct their employees to go on government assistance.

> much more than their competitors would

They have a different business model than their competitors.

> You're going to pass that off as "self-serving"?

Yes. Their model allows a few employees to serve many customers in a high-volume system. They have advocated for minimum wage laws increases in the past to deter competitors who have different models.

> yet for some reason can't find the money to pay their employees a living wage

eye roll.

You failed to mention their skin based hiring bonous where leadership is paid a larger bonous for hiring people who match a certain superficial factors.

If thats the right thing and were really in late stage capitalism, I'm extreamly worried about the future.

Personally I think concepts of DEI had a purpose (long before that term existed) and then at some point became gradually less relevant or needed to be adjusted to the point that it was counterproductive in many ways. It was a bandaid hack which ended up creating new problems, sort of like how unions cover for some of capitalism's flaws while creating a new set of problems to contend with.

So on this point I agree with you, but it does not substantially subtract from my overall view of Costco as a company in every other regard. I trust that in time they will revise whatever needs revision in order to be fair to everyone involved. Oddly enough, at least in my area, this doesn't seem to have resulted in a disproportionate amount of one race or another.

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