vansmith
Senior Member
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2008
- Messages
- 19,924
- Reaction score
- 559
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Queensland
- Your Mac's Specs
- Mini (2014, 2018, 2020), MBA (2020), iPad Pro (2018), iPhone 13 Pro Max, Watch (S6)
Absolutely. And, as you mentioned, for profit corporations seek profit for the sake of profit, non-profit seek it for the purposes of fiscal solvency. Apple is very much the former in that it seeks profit for the sake of profit.Businesses are (or rather, need to be) profitable because it's impossible to run at a loss indefinitely. Even non-profits / not-for-profits have to actually turn a profit regularly to stay operational. The difference in those is that all profits go back into the company, not investors.
I know you weren't saying that and I agree. Apple does a lot of work that doesn't have direct connections to profit production. That said (and this might be where we disagree), I think that everything Apple does is at a minimum indirectly driven by profit. Green initiatives? It buys them publicity for the sake of increasing positive corporate exposure.We may have to agree to disagree, but I think you are misreading what I am saying. I never said profit was not a motive, or even the major motive, it just isn't the only motive. None of us as individuals are totally one-sided, why would we expect that of groups.
If something is made public by a corporation, I have a hard time believing that the public disclosure wasn't strategic. This happens for all corporations and happens in really common ways. Take for example same-sex marriage (see here for a list for example): many that supported it showed their support through advertisements, perfect symbolism for how support for causes get tied back to the promotion of a product.
I'll end with this question, do you truly believe Elon Musk is solely motivated by ROI?
At least partially. He wouldn't have sold off PayPal for ridiculous sums of money nor would he have made Tesla public if he wasn't. He also wouldn't be selling Tesla cars with a 32% profit margin (source). Does he do some interesting stuff that isn't motivated by profit? Sure but he does a substantial amount of for-profit work.