Huh? Why are you trying to call people 'communists' now? Please don't try to turn this into some sort of political mud-slinging contest.
The bottom-line in this discussion is that Zappos's culture and customer service was the thing that set it apart from other retailers. It was the reason that people wanted to shop there. To try and marginalize the effect this has on Zappos' bottom-line because it can't be easily quantified in terms of dollars and cents on a quarterly earnings reports by calling it a 'social experiment' or 'insignificant' is short-sighted at best.
> Allocation and management of capital is a bit harder than throwing money at things and expecting it to stick, as millions of American investors have discovered over the past two years.
That may be true, but investing money in a business does not make you an expert in that business's core competency.