[docmars]

Comparisons, analogies, and metaphors are useful tools to increase understanding and draw parallels to ideas that are challenging to navigate and naturally, lead to a variety of thoughtful outcomes or interpretations.

Crying "whataboutism" is as fruitless as you've described above. It is often used to steer a conversation towards a single direction of bias when those comparisons lead to inconvenient conclusions/possibilities that fall outside of what the person claiming it has accepted. Just sayin'. ;)

[nuerow]

> Comparisons, analogies, and metaphors are useful tools (...)

Whataboutism is neither. It's a logical fallacy employed to avoid discussing the problem or address issues by trying to distract and deflect the attention to irrelevant and completely unrelated subjects.

[wanderingstan]

I found it an apt comparison, highlighting how something we might accept in physical space (Walmart) yet be critical of equivalent action in the online space. It’s a thoughtful and coherent argument, even if one disagrees with it, not whataboutism