How to make companies act ethically

→ comment on Slashdot concerning Unexpected methods to promote freedom? [1]

Was it really Apple who ended DRM? Would they have done so without the protests and evangelizing against DRM? Without protesters in front of Apple Stores? And without the many people telling their friends to just not accept DRM?

That “preaching” created a situation where Apple could reap monetary gain from doing the right thing. You see how they act when the stakes are different.

What you can do to make companies act ethically is to create a situation where they can make more money by working ethically than by ripping you off. The ways to do that are

(1) Laws (breaking them costs money when you get caught),
(2) Taxes on doing the wrong thing (i.e. pollution),
(3) Offering your work in ways, which make it easier for people to make money ethically than unethically (that’s what copyleft licensing does),
(4) Trying to convince people to do 3,
(5) Trying to convince people to shun products which are created unethically (that’s what you call preaching),
(6) Only paying for products which were produced ethically.

RMS does 3,4, 5 and 6, so he’s pretty much into gaming the market - and “preaching” is only one of the tools in his box. Though what he does is more convincing than preaching: He gives us reasons why unfree software is bad - and the mental tools to resist the preaching from the other side (for example via analyses of speech-tricks, like calling state-granted monopolies “property”).

Never trust a company

Answer to a thread in the Gnutella-Forums [2] where people bashed LimeWire for putting money first.

They are a company, and you don't trust companies. Not because they are evil, but because they have to think of money first and foremost.

If they do not put money first, they go down and others come up who do - and their employees will lose their job. At least as long as people still buy products without regard for ethics.

I hold them in very high esteem for GPL-ling LimeWire and for standing up against the lawsuit.

They are a company, and that makes them non-trustworthy, but because they are a company, they can fight a battle which none of us others could fight.

Never trust a company, but don't judge them down for thinking money before morals or ethics from time to time, as long as they don't do it all the time. You only know they are going down a dark road, if they even do harm where it is against economical sanity [3].

And never ever deal with... - a Shadowrun saying :)

PS: Also keep in mind that a company in the stock market might actually be forced to do unethical but profitable things, because the CEO is liable to the stakeholders and could personally face legal action when refusing them. If it is not in the stock market, the company has a responsibility to the employees. Which is why you as customer can never trust it even if the owners are all well-meaning folks — though they might act in your interest most of the time, so expecting betrayal all the time would also be wrong. They would have to be very strong in ideology to put your well-being over the well-being of their employees (judge for yourself whether they would then actually be good).