MonstaMunch: See, this is the part that you're not understanding. The manufacturer is not the only person who profits from your purchase, and often their margins are significantly lower than the retailer who sells the products.
I don't think you're reading here? I'm not denying what you are saying.
What GR said is that he'd rather support a small company because large companies often use (sometimes slave) labour to make the products and some of this money often goes back overseas. He is confused. Walmart i.e. for the most part does not make their own products. They buy them from suppliers / distributors. The chain goes as follows:
Raw materials
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Manufacturer (this is the level where the alleged foreign slave labour takes place)
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Distributor / supplier (manufacturers do by the vast majority not have their own distribution networks)
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Retailer (i.e. Walmart)
Basically when a company buys it's product, it doesn't buy them from the manufacturer, it buys them from a supplier. Most manufacturers don't have distribution networks. Walmart buys from the supplier. Local SME buys from the supplier. The source of the labour is no different (for the vast majority of cases).
Therefore, if the original product was made through the use of slave labour, it doesn't matter whether you buy it from a large or small retailer. They both get their supplies from the same place.
Using your IWD example. DD is slightly different because the supplier level is not there, you go directly from publishers ("manufacturers" in this case) to retail (Steam ("large"), GOG ("small")).
Therefore if Bioware made IWD through the use of slave labour, it doesn't matter which retailer you buy it from because the source is the same. This means that if you pick a smaller retailer over a large one because you are opposed to slave labour, then you haven't thought your shit through.
Not that hard really.
MonstaMunch: So it was just a statement you made without any supporting facts? Sounds groovy.
Yeah. Don't see why you keep banging on about it since it has no relevance whatsoever to the discussion at hand.
edit: PS I read your argument when you first posted it. I'm not denying that, what I was doing was criticising GR's arguments, not yours.