[vakkermans]

> Newspapers are a business and have to give their customers what they want.

I really want to challenge this idea. Businesses can have missions quite distinct from what the majority of their prospective customers would want.

If I had practically unlimited money I wouldn't ever think of funding a news organisation and then only have it produce content that customers wanted. I would have a purpose for it, stemming from my own ethics.

I think it quite naive to consider Bezos has not done the same and that this decision is simply in line with his personal political interests.

Neoliberalism is a really poor substitute for personal morality and accountability.

[lapcat]

> Businesses can have missions quite distinct from what the majority of their prospective customers would want.

Failing businesses.

> I would have a purpose for it, stemming from my own ethics.

I never said that business is inherently in conflict with ethics, and I, as an entrepreneur myself, believe that ethics are necessary for business: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41951447

> I think it quite naive to consider Bezos has not done the same and that this decision is simply in line with his personal political interests.

I claimed that his decision is simply in line with his personal interests. Whether those are financial interests or political interests is difficult to determine. Nonetheless, the decision was bad for The Washington Post. Compare to Twitter/X: Elon Musk is indisputably using the social network he acquired for his personal political interests, and that has indisputably been bad for the business, driven away users and advertisers, and his creditors have vastly downgraded the value of the investment.

> Neoliberalism is a really poor substitute for personal morality and accountability.

This seems like a nonsequitur. How is "Neoliberalism" relevant? Is that what you believe I proposed? If so, you're wrong.

[vakkermans]

I quoted the bit I wanted to react to, namely the idea that businesses have to give customers what they want. I read that as strongly influenced by an economically driven - rather than morally driven - world view.

Leaving money on the table does not necessarily mean a failing business, except for some extreme definition of 'failing'.

I meant to argue against your first assertion, not your second; I'm not concerned with whether it's a bad financial decision or not.

[lapcat]

> I quoted the bit I wanted to react to, namely the idea that businesses have to give customers what they want. I read that as strongly influenced by an economically driven - rather than morally driven - world view.

It's simply practically driven. You can try to give people what they "need" rather than what they want, but in a free country and a free market system, people cannot be force-fed. They can choose whether or not to buy what you're selling. All the good intentions in the world will go nowhere if nobody is listening.

> Leaving money on the table does not necessarily mean a failing business

True, but I wasn't referring to that. Ruthless profit maximization is not the same as giving the majority of prospective customers what they want. The former isn't required, but the latter is usually required to sustain the business.

Imagine if a grocery store stocked only healthy food and got rid of all the junk food. It would go out of business, because people want their junk food and will go elsewhere for it.