Wouldn't this put US registered corporations at a disadvantage by allowing foreign competitors to analyze their cost structures and finding their weaknesses?
On the whole, yes, but not for all consumers.
If some people lived near a beautiful meadow and river, and everyone else lived in the desert, then competition (e.g. opening up a direct train to the meadow) would hurt the ones living in the meadow.
One reason for this is that people make choices to beat their competition rather than to provide for their customers. Often short term thinking leads to quality losses in order to capture market share and sometimes the competition devolves into direct sabotage of competitors. This intense competition can result in higher costs for consumers as it becomes more difficult to bring products to market.
Even without that, you can have price competition which, while theoretically leading to a low cost for consumer in the short term, can price out high quality goods in a price conscious market.
Flooding the market with cheap, low quality goods can lead to overall quality drop and a decrease in investment in the area. Even though consumers prioritize cost over quality when given the option in some markets, it doesn't necessarily mean they are making the correct decision.
Also, what you're describing would foster competition because other companies would be better able to identify profit centers.
Some of the things I read on HN are jaw-droppers. Then I remember that people these days confuse opinion and lack of context with facts and reality.
My wife often repeats a saying that goes something like this: Your Google search isn't equivalent to my medical degree, residency and decades of experience afterwards.
Absolutely true. Yet that does not turn them into a doctor. The statement I made is very specific.
Personal note: My mother is going through pancreatic cancer at the moment. She is reading everything in sight. Good. Bad. Ugly. She is not intellectually equipped to understand and evaluate it. She is not a doctor.
Well, she is driving her doctors insane. She is refusing certain treatments and asking for bullshit treatments. One doctor has already refused to work with her and asked her to switch to a different doctor. Her current doctor is pretty tired of burning valuable time with this google nonsense.
So, yeah, in general terms, informed individuals --in any field-- are better than the uninformed. The twist, however, is in the meaning of the term "informed".
The internet has created this paradox where millions of people believe they are "informed" or know something, when, in reality, they live in deeper ignorance of facts than before they became "informed" by google and social media.
It's the difference between "Practice makes perfect" (which is a lie) and "Practicing correctly makes perfect".
I think it's also important that people can make comments on large social issues such as corporate transparency without feeling like they need to be experts. In fact, nobody can be an expert on these sweeping issues, because these laws affect such a wide variety of entities.
I don't think the doctor comparison holds water. With a lot of work, someone can be recognized as a medical expert, but it's still a specific field that one can be qualified in.
C'mon.
Agreed, though I see the value of expertise partly in how it allows those with it to explain why they see things differently, rather than simply point out that they know more.
What? You should be profitable if you provide a good or service that people want for a price they can pay. If you're not profitable, you'll go out of business. The idea that you must always be improving can be really, really negative.
>If you're going to stagnate and stay profitable by hiding your process, it might as well be run cheaper by the government
Sure, the government should take over running KFC because they won't publicize the herbs and spices.
These are ridiculous statements.
Not really - I'm actually in the restaurant business, so it's funny you use that as an example. There are consistently profitable businesses that have made things the exact same way for many years. Keen's steakhouse, for example, has been famous for their mutton chop for 130 years, and the pipes in their collection are just as old. Competition amongst NYC steakhouses is very steep, but they don't need to constantly improve to stay profitable. They just need to maintain a high degree of excellence, which they do.
Sure, to be on the cutting edge of the industry you need to change things, but not everyone wants to "improve" barbecue, for example.
When a restaurant coasts, you're really not talking about them making the same great dishes over a long period - you're talking about them cutting corners.
To me, the idea that you must constantly be changing to be profitable is ridiculous. The idea that the government should take over any business (and that it could run it cheaper!) that doesn't want to share its process is ridiculous. Neither is a particularly bold idea, they are simply bad ideas.
It's about this statement: "You should only be profitable if you make constant improvements." - do you think that restaurant deserves to be profitable?
So if they said "You should only be profitable if you make constant improvements." Then that is what they meant. They didn't say "You should only be profitable if you make constant improvements or if your product is good or if you serve a genuine need or if...etc."
In fact, the OP said "The constant need for improvements is why we use capitalism at all." Which leads me to believe that they meant exactly what they said. It happens to be false, but totally conforms with their absolutism about profitability.
I obviously don't agree. There are many companies that make good products and are profitable and I believe should remain profitable without the need to change the products they make. You seem to agree. That is good, because "You should only be profitable if you make constant improvements" is a ridiculous statement.
That's my point. I don't know what's bold about it or why anyone would agree with it generally and I think logically it's easy to counter.