Comment by acbart | Hacker News Reader

Comment by acbart | Hacker News Reader

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Well, people don't go to Costco for commentary, they go there to buy things. So a more apt comparison would be a section that sells things that certain groups may find offensive - e.g., sex toys, confederate flags, bibles, guns[1]. The metaphor holds mostly, Costco is free to do what it wants to cater to those people, but I don't think it's unreasonable for some groups to want to fight to hold on. It's hard to make blanket statements about some of the groups - of course, that's less true for some than others. I don't have any horses in this race, personally, I don't think anyone is planning on banning r/corgis or r/noideadogs.

As for profitability, I'd argue that stupid people with strong opinions and a need to vocalize them are advertisers favorite kind of people. They're probably surprisingly profitable.

[1] Don't assume I'm putting any of those on the same level as each other, just making a list of what I suspect are violatile items to some groups.

Imagine if Costco sold itself as the go to sight for all your political needs. They sold what ever political prop you wanted. They carried everything. Costco promised all parties that weren't terrorist were allowed. Most of it wasn't on the store floor in the physical buildings, but you could go online or order it to be delivered. As such, many smaller parties made Costco the go to place for all party related needs while in other cases Costco was better than the official party.

Then they decided to remove some crazy political party's items for sale. Say one of the anti-immigration parties in Europe. Then they took out the US Tea Party. Then ex-Costco leaders said a purge was coming. Now people are left wondering which party is next. That if their political party's goal doesn't align, they may be kicked out. Not a massive problem, except that Costco picked up a lot of the market share and thus has not insignificant voice in larger matters. Do now the political parties are pulling back and thinking they need to pick some other entity as their official seller.

> So a more apt comparison would be a section that sells things that certain groups may find offensive - e.g., sex toys, confederate flags, bibles, guns[1]

Not a great analogy since the subreddits that are analogous to the examples you listed are all permitted on reddit without question. There are plenty of sex/flag/bible/gun related subs and nobody on either side of the reddit debate is trying to ban them. A better analogy would be if a group of patrons meeting up in one section of the store, proceeded to roam about the premises harassing overweight customers who are there to make purchases. Naturally, store management would seek to remove these individuals from the store so that the other customers can shop in peace.

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