I really don't understand the morality of an average HN user.
There was a post a few days ago about Spotifree (which mutes your ads), and everyone took it as a personal offense, every possible negative word was said about the person who made it, and the people that use it are lowlives who don't deserve anything in life if they won't cough up $10.
But now when it's Amazon losing thousands of dollars per product, it's okay because stealing from someone rich is acceptable and they should just eat their losses and move on. Do you understand that if you scale Amazon down to Spotifies size, their losses are way heftier?
I've also learned that stealing is justified if it's a machine error. So by that logic, if the receipt machine malfunctions in a store and prints out some large number, you would pay it?
There is no "average HN user." Some people on HN hate ads, and some people on HN write ad software for a living. Some people on HN own a business and sympathize with Amazon over lost profits. Others can't afford nice camera equipment and (maybe) would prefer a society where wealth is more evenly distributed.
I personally think that this is moral. I think that capitalism is inherently immoral so it's not immoral to "steal" from giant corporations. I consider myself a very moral person (you have to take morality very seriously if you disagree with the people around you about moral issues) but this doesn't bother me.
Stealing from corporations is stealing from people. Otherwise, I could justify stealing hubcaps from your car as stealing from the car, not you, so it's ok.
Besides, if you have a moral code that specifies who it is ok to steal from, you'll need to accept another's moral code that says it's ok to steal from you.
This is obviously false if you think about it for like a minute.
> Stealing from corporations is stealing from people.
Sure, whatever. It's still not immoral. I also think it's okay to steal slaves from plantations. "But stealing from plantations is stealing from people!" Sure, whatever, it's still not immoral.
> Besides, if you have a moral code that specifies who it is ok to steal from, you'll need to accept another's moral code that says it's ok to steal from you.
Total non-sequitur. Let's try this: Marxists think that capitalism is stealing from workers. You think that it's moral. Therefore, if you have a moral code that says that it's okay to steal from workers, you'll need to accept another's moral code that says it's okay to steal from you. Makes sense, right? No.
It's awfully coincidental that your concept of legitimate ownership just so happens to align with the concept given to your by legal and cultural authorities. It's almost like you haven't actually bothered to think about it for yourself. Can you give me an example of a kind of ownership that you think is illegitimate?
There was a post a few days ago about Spotifree (which mutes your ads), and everyone took it as a personal offense, every possible negative word was said about the person who made it, and the people that use it are lowlives who don't deserve anything in life if they won't cough up $10.
But now when it's Amazon losing thousands of dollars per product, it's okay because stealing from someone rich is acceptable and they should just eat their losses and move on. Do you understand that if you scale Amazon down to Spotifies size, their losses are way heftier?
I've also learned that stealing is justified if it's a machine error. So by that logic, if the receipt machine malfunctions in a store and prints out some large number, you would pay it?