Economics may not be everything, but for a profit-making company with employees to pay and shareholders to satisfy, it is almost everything. So it is extremely important that for most companies, acting in a customer’s interest is nearly always going to be economically beneficial for the firm in the long run, even if it costs the firm money in the short term.

What is the difference between USAA and the other financial services companies we all know about? Many of those companies, with names familiar to customers around the world, are not bad companies. On the contrary, their officers are ethical. Their legal departments make sure they do not break any laws. They issue privacy policies and policy statements of all kinds, and then for the most part, they do exactly what they say they are going to do. And yet none of us—not even the executives of these well-run institutions—could imagine customers refusing to take refunds from those companies. The companies are lucky if a customer keeps doing business for several years, and they do not even think about multigenerational loyalty. What is the difference?

Most businesses today consider themselves to be trustworthy, and by yesterday’s standards, they are. They post their prices accurately, they try to maintain the quality and reliability of their products, and they generally do what they say they are going to do. But that is as far as most businesses go, and by tomorrow’s standards, it will not be nearly good enough. Not even close. The fact is that far too many businesses still generate substantial profits by fooling customers, or by taking advantage of customer mistakes or lack of knowledge, or simply by not telling customers what they need to know to make an informed decision.

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