Two recent news stories brought me back to basics:
In New York City, the renown men’s store Barneys is filing for bankruptcy. It’s not making enough money. Rent on its flagship store went up to $27.9 million. Buyers use the internet more and more. In short, the company is not meeting consumer demand in a way that produces a profit.
Secondly, America’s two largest chains of print newspapers are merging. Ad revenue is no longer enough to sustain them as separately profitable businesses. The rise of the internet with “free” news and entertainment articles for many customers has cut readership for newspapers. If the old print newspapers can’t make money, they too will go out of business, like Barneys.
More than 2,100 newspapers have closed since 2004 and now Google and Facebook are expected to take in 51% of all digital advertising revenue in the U.S.
So, no matter how much we should be concerned with ethics, responsible stakeholder relationships and the social and environmental footprints of companies, if they can’t make a profit, they have no claim on our charity for keeping them going with subsidies.
That is a hard but necessary reality of capitalism – every tub on its own bottom.