Duly noted, but then I talking about an entirely different animal.  While Stardock may have a majority share of the 'customising' market, it is still a small business in the greater scheme of things. True, it may be bigger than most ma and pa businesses, but it is still a sardine in a sea of sharks.  The kind of animal I was referring to is more the corporate-type of mongrel who would steal his mother's purse and sell it back to her empty just to turn a profit, which funnily enough, is something I heard a former employer say... that he'd steal his mother's purse.  After he said that I had no respect toward him whatsoever and was soon working elsewhere.

I've worked for small family-type businesses where the owners have been the most decent, fair and honest people one would ever wish to meet, so yeah, I should have clarified that in the above post. 

People always have choices... they may not perceive them, or those people may be the products of privation... but it largely depends on the person going into the situation, I believe. If the person stops for a moment and perceives the situation and the choices, most elect to do the right thing, which isn't necessarily the profitable or exploitive one.

So much depends on what one knows is right and if one is strong enough to do what's right (or the greater right). It's easy for some (even many) to assume a synthetic identity to do something else and justify it with some situational system of norms. It's harder to remain true to what one knows deep inside is right and wrong (or a more fundamental right): The stuff one learned from parents and the stuff one learns in Kindergarten. In the end, so much depends on conscience.

Sadly, there are people, usually members of the corporate wheel, because it's driven into them at their induction to the firm, who see profit as their only reason to get up in the morning... and so you have all these corporate climbers ready to stab one another in the back [as well as anyone else who gets in the way] to get ahead. So no, we ordinary folk don't put profit before all else, but those who do were indoctrinated by the system they serve and love without question.  Yes, like it or not, there are former human beings who think this way, and I know first-hand because I've met some... people whose own mothers don't even like them for their lifestyles and business choices.

Yes, I've been talking about them for yonks [ages], those corporate/business world climbers who once knew right from wrong, but grew another set of values and see no reason whatsoever to justify anything to anyone.... and that, I'm sorry to say, is the situational norm.

Exactly, which is why those induction courses to corporations are so successful in training new recruits/applicants, because they show them just how much easier it it to exist without a conscience.  I know because I lasted just two days into one and realised that I would lose my very soul, the essence of who I really am if I continued. 

Some of the stuff they said we'd be expected to do made me sick to my stomach, and when it was revealed that we would often be sent out to sign people up to agreements they could not afford, I walked out in disgust.  When asked why I said it was because I could never work for a company that put profit before families being able to feed and clothe their children.  The response to that was even more sickening, that "when you live in the lap of luxury with boats, cars and holiday homes, that simply isn't a consideration." 

I'm not normally a violent man, but I so desperately wanted to punch that bastard in the mouth, if only to give him an inkling of what it's like to suffer.  Fortunately for him, me as well because he would have called the cops, I stuck to my non-violent manner and walked away, much wiser for the experience.  So yeah, it does depend on what your parents taught you, and for me it's about not compromising my values, those lessons my parents gave to me. 

So strong are my beliefs, I once got out of a truck about 180 miles from Sydney in the middle of the night and commenced to walk the rest of the way.  Why?  Because my then boss told me that he was going to "root one of the secretaries at the depot" we were heading to, that he had had multiple affair and sired several children behind his wife's back, and he was so blase about it, too, so I made him stop the truck and I got out in the middle of nowhere.  Luckily, another truck came along about 20 minutes later and dropped me off at the depot ahead of my boss.... and roughly 30 minutes after that I was hired by another contractor doing a similar Brisbane -Sydney run.

Yeah, I know, it was stupid to get out of a truck in the middle of nowhere in the pitch black of night, but at the time it was the better alternative.  Back then I had a very nasty temper, and when lost my non-violent ways would go right out the window, which would have been catastrophic for him.  Anyway, all's well that ends well, and I'm glad that age has mellowed me.