Some are or at least start that way, but they exist in a competitive market.
In our current regulatory and economic environment, it appears that mission-driven, long-term oriented, ethical companies are typically out-competed by finance-driven, short-term oriented, greedy companies.
The article describes the struggle of using a search engine in 2025. Which is to say, using Google in 2025. Search engines benefit greatly from huge economies of scale, and most websites are optimized for Google SEO and for their ad network. Sure, the folks at DuckDuckGo (my search engine) or Kagi appear to be your good sort of company, but the revenue and popularity of those companies is a rounding error in comparison to Alphabet, Inc. They can't afford the crawlers and infrastructure of the big finance-oriented players, they can't convince most websites to optimize for their engine, and most people don't even know they exist.
Sure, there's a handful of people running the equivalent of a small-town grocery with local farm-sourced produce and hand-selected general goods as a passion project, working long hours and slowly chewing through their savings. And there are a handful of people who feel that the existence of such a place is important, and shop there out of principles in spite of the incentives and penalties associated with that behavior. But most of the country is overrun by Dollar Generals and Wal Marts.
Anyway, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Companies were told that this was the way to make money, and that they were in fact obligated to operate this way, by an economic school with ulterior motives. Companies began behaving this way, and lobbying to create a regulatory environment conducive to that behavior. However, it's not natural or even optimal. Many companies treat their employees, customers, AND investors well, and it takes a concerted effort by bad actors during a temporary moment of weakness to shift their policies to the "norm" (not because it's more profitable in the long term, but because such companies represent a threat to the others that would rather enrich investors at everyone else's expense).
Suffice it to say, the idea that the inevitable end state of a corporation is a glorified leech is terminally cynical. And also wrong. And the best way to keep it from happening is to recognize the myth as such, because the people who wish to pervert the common mission of business - provide things and help for people - require that others fail to notice their subterfuge.
In our current regulatory and economic environment, it appears that mission-driven, long-term oriented, ethical companies are typically out-competed by finance-driven, short-term oriented, greedy companies.
The article describes the struggle of using a search engine in 2025. Which is to say, using Google in 2025. Search engines benefit greatly from huge economies of scale, and most websites are optimized for Google SEO and for their ad network. Sure, the folks at DuckDuckGo (my search engine) or Kagi appear to be your good sort of company, but the revenue and popularity of those companies is a rounding error in comparison to Alphabet, Inc. They can't afford the crawlers and infrastructure of the big finance-oriented players, they can't convince most websites to optimize for their engine, and most people don't even know they exist.
Sure, there's a handful of people running the equivalent of a small-town grocery with local farm-sourced produce and hand-selected general goods as a passion project, working long hours and slowly chewing through their savings. And there are a handful of people who feel that the existence of such a place is important, and shop there out of principles in spite of the incentives and penalties associated with that behavior. But most of the country is overrun by Dollar Generals and Wal Marts.