Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

It's something I've been seeing since at least 2015/16, yet it's something I have yet to fully grasp or understand. I'd like to get a better picture of the circumstances that would lead to this massive friction between companies and customers, and why we have reached a point where buying or liking a product made by a corporation has to be politically charged or have moral weight to it.

(That, and I don't want to go on r/OutOfTheLoop to get this question answered.)

Large corporations often times get involved in some pretty shady shit, including child slavery, forced labour, or literally stealing water.

At the same time corporations hide behind a facade of friendliness and moral integrity, paying lip service to whichever social cause is currently in vogue. Of course, this superficial "support" for social causes is laughably insincere. The "morals" of companies are flexible and fluid, they'll support whatever appears financially expedient to them.

Needless to say, companies don't have your, the consumer's, interests in mind. Planned obsolescence etc make this evident. Increasing monopolisation by megacorporations, such as Disney's hold over the entertainment industry, are also to the consumer's disadvantage, since it undermines healthy competition.

In summary, companies will sell you garbage produced by foul means, while lying to your face with a big smile.

they are a huge part of the reason the economy is so shit nowadays as well.

A lot of companies are starting to look like monopolies, which can be disruptive to the ideas of competition and meritocracy necessary for a free market.

Adding to the above, companies also have a high amount of power in democracies, and as special interest groups you must have heard of them influencing lawmaking. Overtly by 'lobbying' where's it's allowed, or by corruption or pressure where it isn't. All of that influence, and yet very little accountability, as you rarely see jail times for executives responsible for an environment disaster, or the financial crisis we had in 2008.

TLDR:
Profit and power, but no responsibility. Companies are currently disrupting the free markets and democracies they live in, and they'll bring them down without regulation.

That's why they're hated, and why it's an imperative that they're brought to heel for our current society to survive.

It's honestly heartening to see left wingers (capitalism, exploitation, fake wokeness, corruption w/ gov't) and right wingers (crony capitalism, globalism, wokeness, consoomerism, corruption w/ gov't) unite in hatred for the same top megacorporations (though in different instances and for different but often overlapping/adjacent reasons). If only we could aim our shared hatred at them effectively and actually change things.

This is more answering the friction part, but in some cases companies don't even care about hiding their utter contempt and indifference for the consumers.

How many times have we seen a higher-up go "if you didn't like our product, you're not an actual fan of it, you're just ____!" or otherwise phrased things in a way which blames consumers for not liking something.

And no, I'm not just talking about wokeness or politics or anything like that. Think about things like lootboxes where they often won't even acknowledge concerns beyond some vague, pre-made lip-service which would work for just about any situation. Or look at crunchyroll, which for a long time had a dismal website and decides to ignore those issues (while also going "piracy is bad for the industry, guys!") . Or Warcraft: Deforged with….everything.

This is going to sound biased since I generally despise capitalism in general but I do understand why it exist. It was made to allow for people to get ahead faster and to make more money. Capitalism is a great system for people who are motivated and want to get ahead. It also allows for people to start their own businesses and become successful. The issue lies in how companies took such a system, and loophole abuse it to submission.

The reason I hate megacorporations

1. They are motivated by profit and not the public good. This often leads to them slashing jobs, offshoring jobs, and cutting corners on safety and environmental regulations.

2. They are too big and powerful. They can bully smaller businesses, workers, and consumers.

3. They are anti-competitive. They use their size and power to monopolize markets and crush competition.

4. They are corrupt. They often use their power and influence to bribe politicians and get special favors.

and additionally, in cases of disney, sanitized anything until no rough edges remain. I dread it everytime disney has gotten a whole of another entertainment studio because it means all the good, dark, and interesting bits are going to be scrubbed away and replaced with a safe and bland product. I'm not saying disney should release edgy R-rated arthouse films, I'm just saying most of these big companies aren't interested in risk and only things which produce the top dollar.

so to answer your question, the reason a lot of people regardless of political alignment despise big companies is the result of them being a fluke that exist to affect the rest of the free market ecosystem. Monopolies are the antithesis of capitalism and should be turned down a peg.

Also they literally can't be "good", people liked Nintendo for a while then they pull off more and more scummy shit and now they are…divisive to say the least. They are literally incapable of moral restraint even when it's partially on their own benefit like in the case of Nintendo they could have avoided their reputation tanking…but they literally can't.

How can you like them if that is the case

The same reason why most of internet these days is such a sterile, conformist wasteland filled with consoomerist drones and/or people trying way too hard to be "different" that they turn into frothing partisan nutjobs in a desperate attempt to gain clout from the political spectrums

You don't have to look far; just look how every social media and YouTube's content turned into utter shit within the past five years or so, and it's still getting worse

Just as an aside, how can you tell if something put out by a company is garbage?

Bro, large corporations are directly responsable for the internet becoming that

That's exactly what I'm saying. Corporate overreach, especially on online media, has become so pervasive that no one dares to stray out of what I call the "safe zone" (i.e. the most profitable approach to things)

This also leads to unethical practices like YouTube heavily copyright-striking videos willy-nilly for playing 10 seconds of a pop song and yet allowing inflammatory content from grifters and click-farmers because it generates the most engagement

Companies are incentivized toward profit, but not much else. The reason why the internet hates companies is because the Silicon Valley mindset of technolibertarianism is too naïve for the current political climate. It’s not the mindset itself that’s wrong, but when social media try to appeal to their userbase’s political views, the contradictions create conflict between the companies running the show and its users.

There is also the priority given to short-term over long-term gain which is bad for the environment which people are concerned about, but the burden is erroneously shifted to the individual level despite the fact that companies have a bigger impact. That’s not to say individuals are powerless, because the world is not zero-sum.