> Corporations run on a form of code – financial regulation and accounting practices – and the modern version of this code literally prohibits corporations from treating human beings with empathy. The principle of fiduciary duty to investors means that where there is a chance to make an investor richer while making a worker or customer miserable, management is obliged to side with the investor, so long as the misery doesn’t backfire so much that it harms the investor’s quarterly return.
Source https://locusmag.com/2015/07/cory-doctorow-skynet-ascendant/
I can point to examples that validate my point.
1. Facebook: https://apnews.com/article/facebook-whistleblower-frances-ha...
2. Apple: https://www.ifixit.com/News/82493/we-are-retroactively-dropp...
3. Youtube: adding more and more advertisements to each video even after they became profitable
4. Purdue Pharma and Pharma in general: The opioid crisis in the US
5. Volkswagen: Dieselgate
I can list many more, but I think you see a pattern.
No company owes anybody being a company of a specific sort.
And it's a nigh impossible battle to argue in favor of an order of magnitude less profitable business model if there are more profitable alternatives.
One reason I always said Apple's lock on the App Store was a few down quarters from being seriously abused to the detriment of users.