Correct. The point is that if you just try to go about your business without taking sides you will get the spotlight put on you and forced to take a side. You will either crush the minority customers in your business/platform or the majority will crush you. Being apolitical is no longer an option.

Do you have real examples of this? Any time I see someone complaining of political blow-back, it’s because they chose to air their thoughts on social media or donate to specific causes publicly.

The one person I know that felt put in this position, due to his lifestyle business, felt pressured by competitors to aim his thoughts, not by his customers. He only faced pushback when his thoughts, that his customers hadn’t asked for, came off as selfish and tone deaf. He shot himself in the foot.

Probably the largest incident in memory is when someone tried to use the customer-only restroom at Starbucks without making a purchase, refused to leave, and then was arrested. This was a national scandal that resulted in Starbucks closing its 8,000 stores for racial bias training.

Do you remember when Chic-Fil-A was getting boycotted and harassed for the owner's donations to evil homophobic charities? Those charities were The Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Seriously, that's who it was. The Salvation Army and youth sports. Not exactly top of anyone sane's list of "problematic" charities. Chic-Fil-A caved.

Every few weeks I see blue check Twitter going after some nobody to get them banned, but I don't keep track of those things.

> Probably the largest incident in memory is when someone tried to use the customer-only restroom at Starbucks without making a purchase, refused to leave, and then was arrested. This was a national scandal that resulted in Starbucks closing its 8,000 stores for racial bias training.

It's worth noting that the company's official policy was and is to allow people to stay as long as they like without making a purchase, and that witnesses to the event described white people in the store doing exactly that at the same time the black man was arrested.

A reasonable response would have looked like firing the at-fault employee, compensating the victims, issuing an apology, and sending a memo to other employees clarifying policy. This would have been an appropriate apolitical response to such an event.

Instead they closed 8,000 stores and put their employees through critical race theory inspired implicit bias training.

The Salvation Army has a long history of feeding and clothing people in need, including homosexual people.

Actually yes, salvation army is considered pretty bad due to a number of homophobic and anti-homeless tendencies.

You’re right, we are net positive if they don’t help anyone at all.

(Also, they are neither homophobic nor anti-homeless)

> Being apolitical is no longer an option.

My purchasing power says otherwise. I'll take my business to the company that sticks to its job and doesn't preach at me.

This would only work if, let's say, the video hosting market consisted of 10 competing companies having comparable shares. Different players would then take different sides, and the market forces would sort it out.

With the present-day monopolies/oligopolies it's different. If your financial well-being directly depends on Google listing your site, and Visa/MasterCard processing your payment, they can de-facto decide what is acceptable and what's not. And to force you to pretend that you share their views under a penalty of completely destroying your business.