Boring take that shows up in every HN thread. I worked for years in Risk/Fraud and what you're saying is just not true.
There are always tradeoffs to be made, we will always mistakes (hopefully rarely), and 99% of the time the people behind the curtain are trying very hard to reduce harm for the good actors.
I think most actors are genuinely acting in good faith. The problem comes when the machine gets so big that people don't understand that their good faith actions lead to overall bad outcomes. It's not so much evil corps as I think it sometimes is clueless corps.
Thanks for that. Evil Corp narrative is strong on HN.
Years working in corporate and I am yet to see people who are “serving shareholders” and “squeezing customers”.
There are strategies that fail, and sometimes there are people who maximize personal gains at all cost. Exact same way as for any other kind of organization.
Big problem is scale. Cost of mistake and collateral damages for big org will always be higher and more impactful due to size. 0.1% of customers for Amazon is 300 people.
As Tim Ferris shows brilliantly in his famous book (four hour workweek) "Firing customers" can be greatly benefitial to all.
Or, to stay in your analogy: striving to make a food that is 100% safe for 100% of the people will result in bland, poor food. It's fine to use gluten in your bread, or peanuts in your sause, even if x% of potential customers will get sick and can die, if they eat it.
Fire those customers. Be clear: this is not for you. It makes the other customers happier. And consequently your stakeholders happier.
There are always tradeoffs to be made, we will always mistakes (hopefully rarely), and 99% of the time the people behind the curtain are trying very hard to reduce harm for the good actors.