[jkoebler]

Apple is not required to keep society's interests in mind, that is true. But we are allowed to alert our fellow citizens about the fact that the company at best doesn't care and at worst is obstructing what may be in our best interests. I'm not suggesting in the piece that Apple is evil—I'm suggesting that the company is worth questioning on these arguably important issues it has either ignored or purposefully made worse.

[jqm]

"Apple is not required to keep society's interests in mind, that is true"

Maybe they should be?

[rarepostinlurkr]

Make sure you let the rest of the Global 500 and their shareholders know.

[jqm]

Apple certainly isn't alone in this.

If we back up for a bit and think why corporations exist in the first place, why society allows and facilitates rather than criminalizes corporate endeavors, it becomes clear the idea is that they fulfill a useful social function. And that function is the development, production and distribution of goods and services.

But they have to operate within a framework of rules which ensure (to some extent) they fulfill these functions without impacting society negatively (excessively so at least) and that their net benefit to society is a plus. These rules change from time to time.

There isn't a reason that long term externalized costs should be allowed to be pushed onto society as a whole in the interests of these entities realizing short term profits. That happens far too often and will be the death of capitalism as we know it if left unchecked. We as a society should demand better. Unfortunately, government all too often isn't the solution to the problem and the cures it provides are sometimes worse than what was attempting to be cured. But we need to keep the proper role of corporations in mind and demand a level of accountability. Not doing so leads to a very bad place.