Why should business owners be anonymous? Honest or not is irrelevant, the public should be able to find out who owns those companies, be it a local restaurant or a giant multinational corporation that owns stores and property through 18 different holding companies.
Ironically businesses with more than 20 employees and 5 million in revenue are excluded from having to report ownership information in America (well, starting 2024).
A service address isn't sufficient to, for example, easily piece together that one private owner has quietly purchased 70% of some town's resources, especially if they've done so via a collection of shells. And most legal actions against such abuse generally start grassroots; regulators aren't aware there's a problem until people complain.
Hiding information from the public makes it harder to notice abuse.
Flip the script: when an individual has incorporated and is enjoying the legal protections of being a corporate entity, why do they need their name hidden? What value in the society of granting them that privilege when they are enjoying legal protections and privileges not enjoyed by all members of society?
When an individual has registered a car and is enjoying the right to operate a 6000 lbs death machine on public roads, why do they need their name hidden? What value in the society of granting them that privilege when they are enjoying legal protections and privileges not enjoyed by all members of society?
The real question you have to answer is “Why is it necessary for company ownership to be public information?”
> A service address isn't sufficient to, for example, easily piece together that one private owner has quietly purchased 70% of some town's resources, especially if they've done so via a collection of shells
What’s wrong here? Even with a perfect UBO registry that private owner could just get together with a couple of their buddies and divvy up that 70%.
What legal action are you going to take? Owning 70% of a town’s resources is generally not against the law.
Given that corporate charter is a grant by the government acting on behalf of society at large, the question is not whether company ownership being public should be necessary, but whether it benefits society. There's no natural right to form legal entities distinct from one's person with no strings attached.
> When an individual has registered a car and is enjoying the right to operate a 6000 lbs death machine on public roads, why do they need their name hidden?
It's not. They carry a driver's license and law enforcement can reference their name by license plate.
Other users of the road do most of the enforcement. The police often get involved only at the behest of another user or if certain levels of misconduct are breached. It sounds like this transparency allows other citizens to do the low-level enforcement: organizing against an unwanted company buying that attempting to acquire more ownership your town might be analogous to honking, tailgating, etc.
There are several points. One is to signal to the community that it's not ok to post like this. Most people don't want to get banned and do genuinely want to use the site as intended. Leaving a public trail of moderation comments and actions helps regulate community behavior, even if it doesn't have that effect on you.
Another is that I prefer to (try to) persuade users that it's in their interest not to abuse HN. HN is only interesting because there is a somewhat* higher quality of discussion and content here. When you post aggressively, violate the site guidelines, and so on, you're damaging the ecosystem and contributing to destroying HN as an interesting place. That is not in your interest.
I assume that you wouldn't drop a lit match in a dry forest, or dump engine oil in a mountain lake, or throw trash in a park that you enjoy. Why do the equivalent here?
(* I don't want to overstate that—a lot of posts also suck. But it's all relative, and there aren't many places on the internet to have the sort of discussion that, at its best, goes on here.)
The legitimate purpose is choosing to not trade with a company owned by a particular person. And that facility should be open to anyone without having to jump through hoops.
I really can’t see how your interest in not doing business with companies owned by people you like could possibly outweigh every business owners privacy interests.
