I really appreciate this question. Illuminated my cognitive dissonance.

My mind didn't even think to ask it as I was reading the GPs comment and thinking about that small company as scummy.

A big corporation is usually seen as an inanimate monolith that you can't "blame". It's not a person and it has no morals. Just like a soldier's morality is mostly obscured by the "morality" of the whole army. But in small companies you can "see" the people behind them. You can suddenly directly assign blame for what they do. It's no longer a giant doing what giants do, it's no longer a blame split between 10.000 anonymous employees, it's a handful of people being scummy.

It's easier to assign blame and judge morals the smaller the group is, all the way down to an individual. You can put a face to the crime.

Great example! Reading your comment and politics immediately jumped to mind. Specifically taxes, and paying local (a handful of people) vs. federal (the monolith).

E.g. paying property taxes for schools vs. federal tax dollars allocated to defense spending. School levies can get particularly heated and draw lots of activism on both sides while the same doesn't seem to hold for defense spending. [this is USA specific]

I tried replying to your comment previously, but it seems you're unaware of it. Your e-mail address posted in another one of your comments isn't working, as well as the official "Contact us" e-mail address on the same website.