| HappySqurriel said: I know, I was mostly being sarcastic ... I don't really understand it, but (for some reason) oil companies seem to be hated by almost everyone; and, in almost every way, face a double standard from the public. |
I think the big difference is that buying an Apple product is a choice. There isn't an Apple product that you must have or that you can't find alternatives to.
When it comes to energy, though, people don't feel that they have any choice. If you want to travel, ship items, or heat your house, you don't have very attractive alternatives to buying fossil fuels. Because these energy companies pretty much have us over a barrel, people resent when they make a tidy profit, even though their margins are only around 10%.
The sense is that a successful Apple has won by appealing to the customer, while a successful Exxon has won by exploiting the customer's dependancy.
And then there's the failures. The negative PR of "antennagate" or endemic Chinese labour practices just can't compete with spectacular catastrophies like Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon.
"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event." — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
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