This kind of thing isn’t new. [Here's a clip](https://youtu.be/Zh7eAG2jJkA} from Three Amigos from 1986. The background characters are just a static painting.
Because we live in a system where paying more for doing the right thing will get fired and sued for lost profits as a CEO. If you run a publicly traded company, you are legally beholden to make the decision that yields the most profit, full stop.
I don't know where you live so I can't quote your local laws to you, but in this age of information you can Google terms and they will present relevant links. You should try it sometime.
Your phrasing was "legally beholden" which suggests to me that a law exists requiring directors and officers to choose the most profitable path. The wikipedia page you linked does not mention any such law. It describes a type of lawsuit that investors can bring against those running the company.
Perhaps they didn't use the right words. Iirc the correct term is 'fiduciary duty'. A publicly traded company has a fiduciary duty to create value for shareholders.
The duties of some fiduciaries have been codified, for example, the statutory duty of skill and care which is imposed upon trustees by section 1 of the Trustee Act 2000 (TrA 2000) and the relationship between company directors and the company under the Companies Act 2006
Good find. I did some quick googling on this (so take it a grain of salt) and found the following:
A breach of fiduciary duty occurs in a variety of situations, such as when the fiduciary puts his own interests before the company and shareholders or when the fiduciary engages in other behavior that could be detrimental to the company and shareholder interests, such as embezzling company funds.
I have not dug too deeply, but what little I've found says that the fiduciary must act in the best interests of the company and shareholders. As a cynic it is easy to interpret this to mean 'make as much profit as possible', which is kind of the point of investing. A look back at history sadly reenforces this.
But fiduciary duty doesn’t give one a free pass to break other laws like child labor or slavery. Yes many companies still do as evidenced by sweatshops around the world. But if one is acting in the best interests of the company, one should not be doing such things even though they are obviously profitable.
But if one is acting in the best interests of the company, one should not be doing such things even though they are obviously profitable
Agreed. But then, you and I aren't CEOs... maybe it's just a meme but I'm sure there was a study that found CEOs have a much greater proportion of psychopaths than the background rate. Maybe they just don't consider ethical stuff the way we do!
They are only legally beholden to do what their shareholders collectively want. While it's not necessarily just for profit, if the shareholders are only demanding more profits, that's how the company will behave.
I wouldn't want to deal with additional background characters either even if they played the role for free.
It's just more contracts to be signed, more people on set, more potential things that don't go as planned. Its a lot of extra work and organisation needed for something that pretty much no normal viewer would notice if done at least semi professionally.