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Comment by cmsonger | Hacker News Reader

"For profit organizations are not your friend" is usually true. It's not restricted to tech companies or silicon valley.

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I agree, but I think companies who build a product where the end user isn't the customer unsurprisingly tend to be worse.

"Tend to be worse" is open for interpretation, but I think energy companies, telco companies, defense companies, finance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and many others would beg to differ.

I dunno. I personally love having all the world's information at my fingertips for free. I recognize that doing so means that they have another set of constituents they need to please whose interests are not necessarily aligned with mine, but I'll willingly take that bargain.

It sounds like you "have nothing to lose/hide" now but consider the cases where others will be or already are in a position to lose big from the actions of malevolent actors.

I'd be more general and say "organizations of more than 10 or so people are not capable of being friendly" Sure your interests may align for a possibly indefinite time period and deliver similar results to friendship but the larger a group is the more it acts like a sociopath.

Agreed. I don't know why limiting the skepticism to for profit organizations makes sense.

Some orgs, but not a majority, are larger than 10 and still my friend. Here are some:

- ProPublica

- my local farm co-op

- REI

Just trying to say it's not a law. I do agree with your point though.

Non-profits too.

A more accurate worldview might be "Your friends are your friends. [1] Everyone else might be an ally, an enemy, a competitor, a customer, a business partner, an Internet acquaintance, a relative, a romantic partner, a dependent, a bedfellow, or most likely just someone you're indifferent to. Know who is which."

[1] Technically, a good portion of our friends aren't actually are friends either:

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/05/half-of-your-friends-pr...

Perhaps I'm just naïve but I spend a lot of money on sporting goods and the companies I buy from seem like friends. Sure there's a profit motive, but I think our interests are pretty well aligned.

Friends sometimes let you borrow for free when some trust exists. (My friends let me borrow a lot.)

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