Nobody cares about HQ2 outside of certain tech circles.

My point is people care more about where their cars are made, and they don't even really care about that.

If nobody cares about HQ2, then why is it all over the news? You're underestimating it's reach.

Even if people wouldn't normally care, they will care now because of the publicity and bidding process that has taken place. People in cities who do not win will be upset when they lose, and people everywhere, including places that were never in the running, will be upset if they put the office in Canada. You must not have heard of the "America first" line of thinking that got trump elected, in part.

Oh, you think people read the news. You're overestimating how much that matters.

This will blow over in months and be totally forgotten.

This is false. This whole process has been huge news. It's front page on sites like Washington Post, Philly.com, and the IndyStar and I've just checked multiple non tech forums where it's one of the busiest topics today.

A single day of news is not "news". Everyone's already moved on to the US government shutdown and more nonsense about emails and ISIS.

I wouldn’t be so sure of that. My parents, who are both in their 60s and not the least bit affiliated with technology, are both aware of Amazon’s headquarters search and brought it up with me when I was visiting over the holidays.

Part of me says that if they wanted to set up shop in Toronto they would have just done it, and not gone out of their way to attract attention like they have.

But on the other hand, if they want to run a PR campaign on the basis of "we seriously considered many US cities, and Toronto was a better option", they're certainly putting in the groundwork for that.

It's probably just going through their "due diligence" so they can pull the pin on a non-US but "North American" location. If they want to hire the best in the world it's easier to get visas for working in Toronto, and the path to citizenship is pretty straightforward.