[djcapelis]

I created my HN account 2884 days ago and this comment is the first time in a long time I’ve felt this forum has had some serious conversations about the conflicts between ethics and profits. I am so glad to see people questioning the means leading to financial ends. Thank you for directly bringing the dynamics of how financial incentives are impacting the reality we live in into the conversation. I sorely hope the person you responded to manages not to feel too attacked and gives a frank and truthful answer on where their line is with respect to not wanting to profit off a corporate scandal. It is going to be important to understand. Activism is going to have a tough road of making an impact on corporations if there’s no market response or impact to help dissuade when companies engage in immoral, unethical or downright bad dealings.

[Z1nfandel]

>I sorely hope the person you responded to manages not to feel too attacked and gives a frank and truthful answer on where their line is with respect to not wanting to profit off a corporate scandal.

Nope, never felt attacked. Takes a lot to get me riled.

I don't go seeking companies that break laws to enhance profits.

However, I did notice a long time ago, that constant publicity will have an effect on stock price. This is fairly common knowledge. Bad publicity and "public outrage" will frequently result in lower stock prices. So I take a look at their underlying business, see if its sound, then make a bet (buy shares) that the public will move on shortly.

Is that profiting on corporate scandal, or market (public sentiment) overreaction? Up to you to decide.

[aaron695]

> Is that profiting on corporate scandal, or market (public sentiment) overreaction? Up to you to decide.

Who cares? What's wrong with profiting on evil.

Here's a crazy idea, how about worrying about not supporting and fighting evil rather than getting drawn it these philosophical debates.

[necessity]

Except Uber didn't do anything deserving of a boycott.

[will_brown]

May be, but may be not. So I'll take a purely Florida example, in many counties Uber was operating illegally, to the extent they trained drivers how to evade police detection, in some instances they even recruited drivers out of counties that they were operating legally to counties they would be operating illegal (unbeknownst to drivers) resulting in the arrest of drivers (criminal records). In Miami Dade county for example, if you were to have been pulled over you would have gotten two civil tickets resulting in over $2,000 of fines, a third citation converts the charge to criminal charges, Uber would fire driver for not evading authorities effectively enough.

Uber also had a secret program that in part helped them break the law by denying rides to users suspected of working with law enforcement (called Greyball). Another issue is Uber provided a lawyer for drivers (not an actual traffic criminal lawyer, but a Uber lobbiest), in legal terms that is a conflict of interest, plus very few of these fines have been paid after years and last I checked Uber (drivers) still owe millions to the county.

Again I'm not saying this is a boycott I would pursue, but perhaps it's worthy of discussion, and at minimum I could see boycotts getting Uber to take responsibility and pay these fines.

Here is a link that includes a copy of the Uber email instructing drivers to more effectively break the law: https://uberpeople.net/threads/welcome-to-miami-internationa...

[swang]

what exactly would be deserving of a boycott?