I am completely untroubled by companies pursuing profits even if it results in schlock or garbage. But there are many ways to try to make money, not just one. The 'need to make money' thing doesn't completely fly.Brontoburglar wrote:It's not 100 percent defensible, or 100 percent ethical. But when you have media companies that need to make money you have to go where the clicks are.mister d wrote:I can't stand the "hey, people keep watching/clicking" justification. More people would watch early basketball if the first free throw resulted in cheerleader tits with a make and a free opposition ballshot with a miss. Let's do that too.
'Slightly better odds to make money' is what I think is really going on. That highlights the reality that corporate leaders are willing to do sleazy things for modest increase in the odds. Certainly no guarantee of making more money; just an edge. They prefer to cover over this simple truth in favor of a story of how they just could not survive otherwise. As if the competitive corporate world was this simple.
Is it okay to make this trade-off? For me, it's a slightly complex question. It depends on the odds differential and how sleazy the strategy is. No givens in my world. If it would slightly raise the odds of my family's survival I'd gladly sell weapons to African dictators. I think that's true of almost all of us, everywhere on the planet.
But it's not a way of looking at the world that leads to happy thoughts. So corporate defenders claim that they have no choice but to do what they do, and their more aggressive attackers claim that the corporate sleazeballs are uniquely unethical (unlike, say, the noble attackers).
On and on it goes, the little dance.
