I'm happy that so many HN readers are anti-SEO, because that's less competition for me.
I'm happy that so many HN readers are anti-SEO, because that's less competition for me.
>Your job as a business owner is to bring as many customers to your business as you can. To suggest anything else is absurd.
Technically your job is to generate as much profit as possible. Volume of people in the door is but a single coefficient in that equation. It's a common failure point, yes, but suggesting that it is the only one is disingenuous.
This is not to say that I actively work against what's best for society. My point is that I will do what's best for my business, with regard to nothing else. I think that is what makes a good business owner. Another trait of a good business owner is the belief that his business provides the best value in its market. If you truly believe that, then by engaging in SEO to rank your business at the top of its market, you ARE doing what's best for society. If you suggest that engaging in SEO tactics to rank your business at the top is BAD for society, then you are inherently suggesting that your business does not provide the best value to its market.
First, claim the reasonable principle that law should guard morality, and business should attend only to business. It's in principle correct, so it gets accepted by everyone. So, if child labor were allowed, business owners would be in no moral fault for hiring kids to mine ore -- to pick a extreme example.
Second, claim that economic progress is good for everyone. Again, very reasonable. Then, organize as a political class (say, in nowadays Republican party) to get some legal concessions that were morally abhorrent in the past legal framework, in more or less degree, but would bring economic progress (for some definition of it). Say, legalize child labor. Voilá.
Now, it's obvious that capitalists should be, of course, allowed to organize politically. But, I argue that we live in a world disproportionately controlled by capital (specially the US), for various reasons. It's disingenuous, thus, to be a capitalist and have your mindset. You, as member of a class, have certain privileges that other classes in our society would consider unfair. Our current legal framework is loaded in your favor, after all.
Much of the world inhabited by HN'ers is not like this. If you have a typical software or web product, then a competitor would have to spend substantial resources developing code that duplicates your functionality, and then they have to worry about the head-start the first mover has in branding and network effects.