> It’s just a way of punishing a company for layoffs, probably a good thing because you want companies to be scared of layoffs.

Why? Because that makes the average editor pleased with themselves? I'm sorry but I can't eat or wear that as a hat.

Personally I don't want companies to self-sabotage by not laying off people when they need to. Worst case you'll have companies file for bankruptcy en masse after turning human resources into hot air useful to nobody: now we've really fucked up. The more efficiently labor is allocated in an economy, the better everyone will be off.

And yes, I recognize that high churn through frequent growth and contraction phases is also inefficient, but bad leadership is a tangential issue at best.

I do, I want them to consider reducing executive pay, reducing overhead by letting people work from home, using more open source software to reduce vendor costs etc. before jumping straight to layoffs.

In a modern tech company, all of those things you mention are virtually inconsequential compared to employee salaries.

But more importantly, layoffs are rarely just about cutting costs. They're often called "restructurings" because that is exactly what happens - usually whole departments or positions are let go when a company decides to exit business lines or make a significant change in direction.

Layoffs suck, but keeping folks around when there is basically no useful work for them to do isn't a solution either, it's just kicking the can down the road.

I don’t think companies shouldn’t layoff people, I just want to force them to consider all options rather than defaulting to it on a whim. Company buildings and vendor/licensing costs are a huge portion of a lot of companies.

Good leadership is not going to default to it on a whim - they understand the value of institutional knowledge and the upfront investment new hires represent.

If that sort of firing happens you have bad leadership and the company is screwed anyways.

Which of the recent high profile layoffs were amazon/google/etc exiting business lines and not management choosing to gamble positions chasing money on a recent temporary event (covid)? And did they not have other new products they were starting near the time of the layoffs?

You're not going to iron out inefficiencies, fix bad leadership, and help them identify the correct course of action by indiscriminately applying fear to everyone. That's complete nonsense. The most likely outcome of that is people getting to use open source software from home - while searching for a new job at a company that wasn't stupid enough to give into that kind of pressure and go tits up. Every time you inflict another inefficiency upon a company, it's more likely they'll get out-competed by another that couldn't care less about your attempts to cancel and shame them on twitter.

Anthropomorphizing a company, or even a role at a company, usually doesn't lead to expected outcomes. I concede your point, that negative public sentiment is an input we can leverage to sway outcomes, but ultimately, I believe it's a weak one given the current climate.

No companies will ever be 'scared' of layoffs, especially when it benefits them financially (in the short-term)

I really, really doubt snarky HN comment sections are “scaring” any companies away from layoffs.

It’s not just snarky comments, it’s general societal perception that the comments are just a small part of. Comments, memes, jokes etc. all add to the global perception of something. If you’re dismissive of them you don’t understand how the modern world works.

Comments, memes, jokes etc. and other forms of slacktivism haven't exactly been persuading companies to have fewer layoffs either.