Ask HN: Is ethical business even possible?

[mathix]

I'm 23 and used to think business ethics was possible. Now I feel like this was just a naive dream. There were so many tech companies I trusted that are now just all about profit. I'm building my own company for a couple of years and have started to feel how much harder it is to compete with evil corps without falling into their practices.

What are your opinion on business ethics?

[r0ckarong]

> There were so many tech companies I trusted that are now just all about profit.

And what did you think they became "companies" for in the first place? If it was all about writing cool stuff and changing the world, anyone can just open source their code and feel the gratification of seeing a cool community build around it; and then someone else walk off with the added value.

I think you're confusing "ethics" with "making money bad". The problem is not making a profit, the question is HOW you make that profit. You can make money ethically even as a company. Wow, go figure.

Trusting companies was a no-no in the first place. You trust people you know, personally know. They at least have some relationship with you. Everything else is parasocial stockholm syndrome.

[mathix]

> You can make money ethically even as a company.

That's what I'm talking about, there is very not that much successful companies making money ethically. At one point or another they seems to make a decision that will trade ethics for money.

> Trusting companies was a no-no in the first place.

I meant "trusting" a company like Cloudflare to host my code/being my CDN.

Or for example when you take a flight with a Boeing plane, you're somewhat trusting the company that your plane will not lose a door...