My understanding from consumer branding research is that consumers have a strong preference for established brands. The average person is much more interested in drinking Coca-Cola than Neo-Cola, even if Neo-Cola is said to taste just as good, and offers a 10% discount.

If you assume that purchasing decisions are also affected by scandals -- which would make sense -- then the overall consumer purchasing algorithm could be summarized as "buy whichever brand has existed for the longest period of time without a scandal". So businesses are rewarded for minimizing their scandal rate.

Top story on HN today:

"Since we launched PlasticList, we’ve been heartened to have quite a few food companies reach out and ask for help interpreting their results and tracking down and eliminating their contamination." https://x.com/natfriedman/status/1874884925587087434

Warren Buffet said:

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently."

"Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless."

And also:

"The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient."

Overall, I think there's a case to be made that doing the right thing is actually the most profitable strategy in the long term. It's not flashy, but it works.