I also like to point out that the quote may have ended up supporting the behavior it criticises instead of limiting it. By spreading the idea that such behavior is actually common, it may have legitimized it.
I have no evidence to support this, but I refuse to believe such behavior, especially in the explicit form alleged by Fight Club, is anything but rare. "Corporations are people" (my friend) also implies that people make all those decisions, and individual morality does play a role.
I do have personally witnessed several instances where employees have insisted on moral behavior even when it was detrimental to the bottom line.
If it were instead: multiply by the average cost to society, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one., then this is probably the best you can do (if you're a utilitarian)
On the other hand, society does have a responsibility to make sure the incentives on the company reflect what is actually important.
I think we might finally hit a point in time where everything starts to be USB powered and not proprietary cables plugging into bricks (ha yeah right).
Unfortunately, if the corporation has better lawyers, it often doesn't.
I wouldn't expect Apple to reimburse me for lost work; that's a risk I take when I buy and depend on a computer. But that risk certainly makes me take risks like "your keyboard may stop working and take a week to ship off and repair" into considering when buying something. I wouldn't buy one of these models with notoriously fragile keyboards.
"Cost to society" is a term where I suspect various people will assign various different meanings to it.
Either we all explain what that term is supposed to mean, or, we use a different term.
In this case, I'm pretty sure the comment which started with the cost to society (speaking about the idea that an out-of-court settlement should reflect 'the cost to society') clearly meant: Take the # of laptops failing and becoming unusable due to the problems with the butterfly keyboard design, minus all people who get them fixed within 1 year warranty, and multiply it by $700, which is what owners of these laptops have to pay apple to get it fixed out of warranty.
The point that was presumably being made is that the out of court settlement should be similar enough to the internal (to apple) cost of apple's repair program, or possibly even this $700*affected number. The idea being, if it isn't, apple will simply settle out of court because it's cheaper for them to do this.
There's really no need to bring some sort of comparison between random car drivers and users of 'hippie' laptops into it, that seems unduly presumptuous of you.
Are they not a member of society?
I must admit that I find it easy to pigeonhole people into these straw-man categories too, but making the leap from "I really don't get it" to "These people have no intrinsic value, thus we can completely disregard their well-being" is a giant step towards collective madness.
Even if you don't like someone (to the point of using uncalled derogatory terms), they're still a part of the society.
But no, this will not come to pass because of Apple's cruddy keyboards.
That cost of society is what was meant.
In the case of Apple Keyboards, I doubt the rate is as high.
[1](https://users.wfu.edu/palmitar/Law&Valuation/Papers/1999/Leg...)