I just visited my fourth location looking for a Sodastream exchange. One had only the wrong kind of connector, and the other three were either out entirely or didn’t sell at all at that location, no matter what the web said. I have other options, but I was thinking of whether I’d rather walk two blocks from the office to a store I know probably can help (also taking up lunch break time) than resort to DEI cowards Target.
Then I remembered my difficulties finding obscure or old books anywhere but Amazon, and it got me wondering how far I’d go to not put money into the pockets of those I think undeserving. Would I do without first? Even if I just want it, not need it, I don’t know; does that make me morally deficient? How much more would I pay for a “clean” source? Again, I don’t know.
What about y’all? Where do you generally draw the line?
My wife and I have been boycotting Google, Amazon, and Target, since about, oh, late January of last year. What I’ve mostly found is that whenever some little whim strikes to make a purchase, not being able to just go to Amazon results in not buying the thing at all, more often than not. So money is being saved!
More recently, we added Home Depot to the list. This one is a bit harsh, because there’s a Home Depot about two miles from where we live, while the nearest Lowe’s is eight or ten miles away. But it’s fine, we’d prefer to make the trek to Lowe’s over giving Home Depot our business.
I was angered enough at NCSoft shutting down City of Heroes for no good reason* that I swore to never touch another of their products, and I’ve kept that promise.
I despise Amazon for all the well-known reasons, and so use it as little as I can get away with.
It had long since paid for itself, and MMOs in that situation are basically a license to make money indefinitely. Even much older ones are still going years later, it’s not normal to just shut down a paid-for MMO like that. Somebody, somewhere had an ulterior motive of some sort.
I haven’t shopped at Walmart for many years (except for that time when I picked up a prescription for a friend who’d just had surgery) and I refuse to use Amazon since they disabled my own third-party seller account 3 years ago, without telling me why until about 6 months after the fact.
Not far. We’re inconsistent in our approach here. For example, we don’t go to Chick-fil-A due to their problematic issues with inclusion and religious overtones, but we occasionally visit In-n-Out, even tho they print Bible stuff on the cups and packaging. I am sure if you dig hard enough you can find something objectionable or out of line with your values in every business. As long as it makes one feel better, but avoiding something is making no impact on the business either way. That said, I try to buy from local businesses and do in-store purchases when possible, mainly because I want my local economy to do well.
I’ve had the same experience. Amazon has done a great job making themselves seem irreplaceable, but I don’t miss them. You simply do not need to order cheap stuff that often.
It’s probably the case that every big business is run by sociopaths to some extent. However, when said owners broadcast or even revel in their sociopathy then it’s easy to put them on the no-go list. Chick-fil-A, Hobby Lobby, Tesla, Home Depot, Goya, Harry Potter, Wal Mart, they’re easy enough to avoid. Especially so when patronizing a business is virtue signaling hatred and bigotry (thinking specifically of Chick-fil-A here) or where the sociopath in question says that continuing to buy their products is an affirmation of their beliefs (J.K. Rowling). I don’t think there’s much value in discarding anything you may have purchased before finding out, but if it helps your mental state go for it I guess, but that doesn’t bother me.
Disagree. The impact may be small, but as with anything the snowflake never thinks its responsible for the avalanche, you’re not stuck in traffic you are traffic, one vote never made a difference, etc. Spreading the word helps too. I’ve shut down invites to Chick-fil-A for office lunches and wasn’t afraid to say why. Elon Musk is reaping what he’s sown. The snowflakes have spoken and Tesla has become a market laggard instead of a market leader.
I don’t boycott Amazon, but I don’t buy nearly as many hard-to-find books from them since I discovered www.bookfinder.com They collect information from many sellers of new and used books and list them for you in ascending order of price with shipping included. For new books, Amazon is often the cheapest but the next cheapest is usually competitively priced. For used books, Amazon is almost never the cheapest option when shipping costs are included. One drawback is that they only track physical books, not ebooks.
It’s blurry. How badly do I need the thing? How badly do I want the thing? Can I get it somewhere preferable? Is there a price difference and if so how much and exactly how broke am I this month and can I put the purchase off to some other month?
But it’s definitely part of my considerations when I go to buy something. Or to not buy something.
And there we have the limits of my knowledge. I got the machine secondhand and didn’t think to look it up; I expect it’s because I figured on some level that they’d be too small to have done anything major. So now what? Something to think about.
And I still do drink major brand sodas, so that’s another thing I didn’t think of before.
If anything, I think it makes my original question that much more relevant.
Pretty much this. We add Lowe’s to the list because they’re not much different than HD. Instead, we drive across town (actually, to another town) to patronize a locally-owned hardware store as much as possible. We don’t drink Coke. We avoid Amazon unless absolutely necessary. The only Trader Joe’s we’ll patronize is unionized. We try and vote with our wallets as much as possible. It’s usually pretty easy, although sometimes we slip up.
Sigh, many of my small businesses are MAGA sympathetic at the least, but I have ferreted out a couple that are not (local restaurant is one, small bookstore is another). Even the thrift stores are Maga (one actually had a Trump sign on their door, and the other one has the local Christian station blaring, as well as the staff possess an unfriendly attitude). I have to go into St Louis for a truly no-MAGA experience, which I will do. I should move to IL, only an hour’s drive away, but it is Southern IL, so just as bad as where I live.
What are your motivations for boycotting Home Depot and Lowes? HD because of their cooperation with ICE and Lowe’s because they scaled back their DEI?
I’m asking because from your post I thought the reasons for the two companies would be the same, but now I’m not sure. Or did Lowe’s cooperate with ICE too?
Not arguing or anything here; genuinely want to learn.
One, I agree with @snowthx in that most large companies aren’t going to notice if I (and 100,000 people like me) do or don’t shop there.
Two, not everything has to be political. Sometimes, it’s just an exchange of goods or services, and it’s kind of absurd to make it a political issue.
Three, in light of the first two, it feels a lot like auto-virtue-signaling, and self-flagellation. It seems more like self-harm or being smug to forego Wal-Mart and go somewhere further afield and/or more expensive so they don’t get the benefit of my ONE shopping cart worth of stuff.
For me it’s the streaming services that are going to hurt the most. There are some shows and movies I really want to see, and I don’t get out much anymore. :sigh:
If I’m honest with myself, everything I really need to get by I can get from CostCo or a decent grocery store. Most of the other “stuff” is irrelevant. But the lack of choice irks.
I did recently have this conversation with a friend over some dog toys and puzzles I want to buy. They were all available on Temu at half the cost. Thing is, the reason I don’t use Temu is because the factories they buy from are sweat shops. But the other stores all have the exact same items; so nothing is gained by paying more elsewhere. I suppose I could hunt out an Etsy snuffle mat and pay three times the price to support a small business though. Y’all are making me think!
Hertz. I’ve been boycotting them since 1969 when they refused to rent me a car. I had just gotten off a plane from Vietnam, in uniform, and needed wheels to go see my girlfriend. I didn’t have a credit card, but had a wad of saved cash. No dice. Fuck them. Went down the street to Dollar, who were happy to help me out.
I’m not actually boycotting them, but I never go to most fast food franchises, other than Jersey Mike’s once in awhile. Bad food, poorly prepared: a poor use of my dollars.
Not picking on you specifically, but what are the trade-offs with this sort of strategy? You end up giving more money to the evil oil companies, right? Buying gas is something we all need to do, yet I am not seeing anyone getting rid of their car because “big oil”. Is there an ethical oil driller that only uses free-range, non-GMO, organically sourced oil? So we skip Hobby Lobby because the owners are a bunch of intolerant religious nuts, but, well ya know, we do need gas in our car, so, uh, we can tolerate some environmental destruction. Where is the line drawn?
I’ve never eaten at Chick-fil-A either. I always found their name stupid (they were in the food court at a mall I used to shop at decades ago.) I didn’t know then about their various bigotries (?) but their food didn’t look that good anyway. I know In-n-Out is supposed to have bible verses on cups or something, but I’ve never seen them or looked for them
We used to have two local independent hardware stores – we’re down to one – but I much prefer them to either HD or Lowes. The indies had knowledgeable employees that outweighed any cost savings (of which there was usually not much).