[notafraudster]

The three possible target audiences for saying something are yourself (i.e. getting catharsis by articulating one's beliefs), others (i.e. that there is a network effect to him convincing you and you convincing others and shifting a social consensus), or the subject of the speech (i.e. Amazon will read Hacker News and make decisions based on the extent to which the comments flatter them).

On that basis, is the implication here that hearing anonymous and vague internet praise actually tips the utility calculus of the company in some way?

Because if not it's hard to know why anyone should praise them -- as opposed to acknowledging the decision, or silently mentally updating one's assessment, or not engaging with the news at all, or criticizing them for not doing more.

[darawk]

> On that basis, is the implication here that hearing anonymous and vague internet praise actually tips the utility calculus of the company in some way?

In aggregate, yes. You seem to be trying to reduce this to "who cares about silly comments on the internet", but of course, that isn't the point. The point is about where our moral sentiments ought lie, collectively. And yes, the rollup of all the individuals making throwaway comments on the internet actually do synthesize much of our collective worldview. So yes, I do think that anonymous and vague internet praise actually tips the utility calculus of all companies. If you don't, then you haven't been paying much attention for the last decade.