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Re:SpaceX hits $100B valuation after secondary share sale by TeMPOraL on Friday October 08, 2021 @04:02PM (#28803553)
I'd argue the biggest glaring exception is advertising. I'd also add all kinds of rent-seeking behavior, a prime example of which are business models relying on abusing intellectual property regulations. And then you have a whole laundry list of business models and tricks that are socially negative but yield nice profits - various incarnations of "razor and blades" model, or the distressingly common in appliances sector - and now in computing hardware too - practice of replacing parts of a product with lower-quality substitutes in subsequent batches, without changing the SKU.

My own opinion is that profits and social value have become mostly misaligned a few decades ago already.

Re:SpaceX hits $100B valuation after secondary share sale by whatshisface on Friday October 08, 2021 @04:23PM (#28803772)
Arguably you could go back to the unsanitary meat packing plants of America's industrial revolution to find the first widely known US example of business doing things that they shouldn't to make more money. Someone with more knowledge of world history could go back farther.