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The problem with boycotts (excerpt from a larger blog found here: http://www.raikoth.net/libertarian.html):
2.7: But governments don't just overregulate environmental issues. They also regulate for so-called "moral" reasons. For example, they might ban the use of sweatshop labor. But in a real free market system, people who disliked sweatshop labor would boycott the companies that used it, and those companies would change of their own free will.
Actually, the same game theoretic complications occur during a boycott as during aquaculture.
Let's say Wanda's Widgets has one million customers. Each customer pays it $100 per year, for a total income of $100 million. Each customer prefers Wanda to her competitor Wayland, who charges $150 for widgets of equal quality. Now let's say Wanda's Widgets does some unspeakably horrible act which makes it $10 million per year, but offends every one of its million customers.
There is no incentive for a single customer to boycott Wanda's Widgets. After all, that customer's boycott will cost the customer $50 (ze will have to switch to Wayland) and make an insignificant difference to Wanda (who is still earning $99,999,900 of her original hundred million). The customer takes significant inconvenience, and Wanda neither cares nor stops doing her unspeakably horrible act (after all, it's giving her $10 million per year, and only losing her $100).
The only reason it would be in a customer's interests to boycott is if ze believed over a hundred thousand other customers would join zir. In that case, the boycott would be costing Wanda more than the $10 million she gains from her unspeakably horrible act, and it's now in her self-interest to stop committing the act. However, unless each boycotter believes 99,999 others will join zir, ze is inconveniencing zirself for no benefit.
Furthermore, if a customer offended by Wanda's actions believes 100,000 others will boycott Wanda, then it's in the customer's self-interest to “defect” from the boycott and buy Wanda's products. After all, the customer will lose money if ze buys Wayland's more expensive widgets, and this is unnecessary – the 100,000 other boycotters will change Wanda's mind without zir participation.
This suggests a “market failure” of boycotts, which seems confirmed by experience. We know that, despite many companies doing very controversial things, there have been very few successful boycotts. Indeed, few boycotts, successful or otherwise, ever make the news, and the number of successful boycotts seems much less than the amount of outrage expressed at companies' actions.
The existence of government regulation solves this problem nicely. If >51% of people disagree with Wanda's unspeakably horrible act, they don't need to waste time and money guessing how many of them will join in a boycott, and they don't need to worry about being unable to conscript enough defectors to reach critical mass. They simply pass a law banning the action.
2.7.1: I'm not convinced that it's really that hard to get a boycott going. If people really object to something, they'll start a boycott regardless of all that game theory stuff.
So, you're boycotting Coke because they're hiring local death squads to kidnap, torture, and murder union members and organizers in their sweatshops in Colombia, right?
Not a lot of people to whom I have asked this question have ever answered "yes". Most of them had never heard of the abuses before. A few of them vaguely remembered having heard something about it, but dismissed it as "you know, multinational corporations do a lot of sketchy things." I've only met one person who's ever gone so far as to walk twenty feet further to get to the Pepsi vending machine.
If you went up to a random guy on the street and said "Hey, does hiring death squads to torture and kill Colombians who protest about terrible working conditions bother you?" 99.9% of people would say yes. So why the disconnect between words and actions? People could just be lying - they could say they cared so they sounded compassionate, but in reality it doesn't really bother them.
But maybe it's something more complicated. Perhaps they don't have the brainpower to keep track of every single corporation that's doing bad things and just how bad they are. Perhaps they've compartmentalized their lives and after they leave their Amnesty meetings it just doesn't register that they should change their behaviour in the supermarket. Or perhaps the Coke = evil connection is too tenuous and against the brain's ingrained laws of thought to stay relevant without expending extraordinary amounts of willpower. Or perhaps there's some part of the subconscious that really is worry about that game theory and figuring it has no personal incentive to join the boycott.
And God forbid that it's something more complicated than that. Imagine if the company that made the mining equipment that was bought by the mining company that mined the aluminum that was bought by Coke to make their cans was doing something unethical. You think you could convince enough people to boycott Coke that Coke would boycott the mining company that the mining company would boycott the equipment company that the equipment company would stop behaving unethically?
If we can't trust people to stay off Coke when it uses death squads and when Pepsi tastes exactly the same (don't argue with me on that one!) how can we assume people's purchasing decisions will always act as a general moral regulatory method for the market?
2.7: But governments don't just overregulate environmental issues. They also regulate for so-called "moral" reasons. For example, they might ban the use of sweatshop labor. But in a real free market system, people who disliked sweatshop labor would boycott the companies that used it, and those companies would change of their own free will.
Actually, the same game theoretic complications occur during a boycott as during aquaculture.
Let's say Wanda's Widgets has one million customers. Each customer pays it $100 per year, for a total income of $100 million. Each customer prefers Wanda to her competitor Wayland, who charges $150 for widgets of equal quality. Now let's say Wanda's Widgets does some unspeakably horrible act which makes it $10 million per year, but offends every one of its million customers.
There is no incentive for a single customer to boycott Wanda's Widgets. After all, that customer's boycott will cost the customer $50 (ze will have to switch to Wayland) and make an insignificant difference to Wanda (who is still earning $99,999,900 of her original hundred million). The customer takes significant inconvenience, and Wanda neither cares nor stops doing her unspeakably horrible act (after all, it's giving her $10 million per year, and only losing her $100).
The only reason it would be in a customer's interests to boycott is if ze believed over a hundred thousand other customers would join zir. In that case, the boycott would be costing Wanda more than the $10 million she gains from her unspeakably horrible act, and it's now in her self-interest to stop committing the act. However, unless each boycotter believes 99,999 others will join zir, ze is inconveniencing zirself for no benefit.
Furthermore, if a customer offended by Wanda's actions believes 100,000 others will boycott Wanda, then it's in the customer's self-interest to “defect” from the boycott and buy Wanda's products. After all, the customer will lose money if ze buys Wayland's more expensive widgets, and this is unnecessary – the 100,000 other boycotters will change Wanda's mind without zir participation.
This suggests a “market failure” of boycotts, which seems confirmed by experience. We know that, despite many companies doing very controversial things, there have been very few successful boycotts. Indeed, few boycotts, successful or otherwise, ever make the news, and the number of successful boycotts seems much less than the amount of outrage expressed at companies' actions.
The existence of government regulation solves this problem nicely. If >51% of people disagree with Wanda's unspeakably horrible act, they don't need to waste time and money guessing how many of them will join in a boycott, and they don't need to worry about being unable to conscript enough defectors to reach critical mass. They simply pass a law banning the action.
2.7.1: I'm not convinced that it's really that hard to get a boycott going. If people really object to something, they'll start a boycott regardless of all that game theory stuff.
So, you're boycotting Coke because they're hiring local death squads to kidnap, torture, and murder union members and organizers in their sweatshops in Colombia, right?
Not a lot of people to whom I have asked this question have ever answered "yes". Most of them had never heard of the abuses before. A few of them vaguely remembered having heard something about it, but dismissed it as "you know, multinational corporations do a lot of sketchy things." I've only met one person who's ever gone so far as to walk twenty feet further to get to the Pepsi vending machine.
If you went up to a random guy on the street and said "Hey, does hiring death squads to torture and kill Colombians who protest about terrible working conditions bother you?" 99.9% of people would say yes. So why the disconnect between words and actions? People could just be lying - they could say they cared so they sounded compassionate, but in reality it doesn't really bother them.
But maybe it's something more complicated. Perhaps they don't have the brainpower to keep track of every single corporation that's doing bad things and just how bad they are. Perhaps they've compartmentalized their lives and after they leave their Amnesty meetings it just doesn't register that they should change their behaviour in the supermarket. Or perhaps the Coke = evil connection is too tenuous and against the brain's ingrained laws of thought to stay relevant without expending extraordinary amounts of willpower. Or perhaps there's some part of the subconscious that really is worry about that game theory and figuring it has no personal incentive to join the boycott.
And God forbid that it's something more complicated than that. Imagine if the company that made the mining equipment that was bought by the mining company that mined the aluminum that was bought by Coke to make their cans was doing something unethical. You think you could convince enough people to boycott Coke that Coke would boycott the mining company that the mining company would boycott the equipment company that the equipment company would stop behaving unethically?
If we can't trust people to stay off Coke when it uses death squads and when Pepsi tastes exactly the same (don't argue with me on that one!) how can we assume people's purchasing decisions will always act as a general moral regulatory method for the market?
@tekbunny
ours? who the fuck is ours? I'm just as much Destructoid as anybody else on here. I was here before Jim and I'll be on here after, so don't give me that 'our' bullshit. I'll bitch about whatever I want, clearly you do...so stop playing the victim. There are reasons people dislike EA (outlined here, everyday) and there are reasons people dislike Jim. That doesn't mean we have to agree on either, but don't tell me what I can and cannot complain about...especially on Dtoid.
ours? who the fuck is ours? I'm just as much Destructoid as anybody else on here. I was here before Jim and I'll be on here after, so don't give me that 'our' bullshit. I'll bitch about whatever I want, clearly you do...so stop playing the victim. There are reasons people dislike EA (outlined here, everyday) and there are reasons people dislike Jim. That doesn't mean we have to agree on either, but don't tell me what I can and cannot complain about...especially on Dtoid.
This is disgusting behavior regardless of the company, but it's especially sad considering EA's old motto: "We're an association of electronic artists who share a common goal. We want to fulfill the potential of personal computing. That's a tall order. But with enough imagination and enthusiasm, we think there's a good chance for success. Our products, like this game, are evidence of our intent."
Disappointing indeed that they are continuing with this nonsense, especially now with BF3's Battlelog/Origin tie-in being even more intrusive. Just was reading a discussion over the weekend about an individual who claims to have been banned over his avatar and was forced to repurchase the game. These 'isolated incidents' are turning into a scary trend.
"One guy was banned for talking about teabagging, another banned for linking to a network troubleshooting blog that EA itself has linked to in the past, and the final guy got banned for replying to somebody else who used the term "e-peen" while using the term "e-peen" himself. The latter has been banned permanently for repeated abuse, despite this being his first offense. In all situations, EA's customer service has refused to help anybody, rarely deigning to even discuss the matter. "
How do you know any of that's true? Link or it didn't happen
They were probably all trolls and deserved bans
How do you know any of that's true? Link or it didn't happen
They were probably all trolls and deserved bans
" They were probably all trolls and deserved bans"
And that has WHAT to do with the games they paid money for suddenly not working? Are you one of those clueless assholes that think the use of the word "troll" somehow makes ripping off paying customers okay?
You're probably a troll too. Let's ban you and shut down all your games.
And that has WHAT to do with the games they paid money for suddenly not working? Are you one of those clueless assholes that think the use of the word "troll" somehow makes ripping off paying customers okay?
You're probably a troll too. Let's ban you and shut down all your games.
It doesn't matter if they deserved the bans or not, or if they even were banned or not, the fact is that being unable to play a game you purchased because EA banned you from their forums is not right. That is the real issue, not the validity of their ban stories.
Also, to all the people yelling to boycott EA, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but fuck off with the trying to rally me behind you. I play games because they are my hobby and I enjoy them, not as a form of activism. If EA publishes a game I like, why should I deny myself that? Because faceless people on the internet told me to? To feel good about myself, because I stuck it to the Man? When I feel that EA or any publisher has crossed my personal Moral Event Horizon (which is different for every single person) then I will make the decision to continue supporting them or not. Not you.
Also, to all the people yelling to boycott EA, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but fuck off with the trying to rally me behind you. I play games because they are my hobby and I enjoy them, not as a form of activism. If EA publishes a game I like, why should I deny myself that? Because faceless people on the internet told me to? To feel good about myself, because I stuck it to the Man? When I feel that EA or any publisher has crossed my personal Moral Event Horizon (which is different for every single person) then I will make the decision to continue supporting them or not. Not you.
I know a guy got charged 3 times when he was buying BF3 and couldn't get his money back. Then he got banned for "harrassing customer service".
Lol fucking EA.
Lol fucking EA.
@mighty_marcos: Yeah EA being dicks doesn't keep me from playing their games, it does however keep me from buying them at full retail price. As much as I want to play ME3 to finish the series off, EA's history of destroying their own games is really beginning to show itself. Be it the game itself might be good, but the bullshit they tack onto it isn't. With that information and with just as much compelling titles around the corner to keep me busy, waiting for ME3 to drop in price won't bother me in the least.
This is the kind of story that you should be asking EA to comment about, and if they don't then you put that EA refused to comment on the situation.
couldn't care less....I'm sure 3 users are a representative fraction of the whole. don't buy EA games if you don't like them, I won't buy the ones that don't interest me but I'm having a blast with BF3 right now. I'm here to play games. If EA had failed ME (like they did with these guys) I'd stop buying them altoghether, but until then... by trying to boicott EA you'd only be missing out on several great games out of some imaginary moral superiority you certainly don't have. The same applies for activision..... (and I really HATE those guys)
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