Why SpaceX? I hate Musk and do not support any of his other... anythings. However, rocket go zoom then land without boom is fun to watch. I am genuinely curious why SpaceX is bad.
I completely agree about everything else you mentioned.
However, rocket go zoom then land without boom is fun to watch.
Yeah, Musk is a true innovater by having them blow up the concrete launchpad on launch instead...
The government got more money from the patents NASA got then it cost to fund NASA. Privatizing space hurts everyone except the rich asshole who gets the parents.
For example they "decorated" our night sky with thousands of their satellites. Never asked permission. Astronomers around the globe are pissed because their work & results gets worse. Other people who own satellites are pissed because they don't behave up there.
Because Musk is a vocal ass and so many on Lemmy can't distinguish the good some of his companies do from the jerkoff owner.
Nestle does evil and is run by evil. Tesla is pushing the automobile industry in the direction it needs to go, but it is majority owned by evil. It's not as simple as a keyboard activist response, so I'm looking forward to the downvotes as I point this out again.
Good luck ever trying to defend Tesla and Space X on Lemmy.
Autism Speaks. It has a pro-eugenics mindset, so you'd think everyone would be boycotting it, right? Nope, in fact it's partnered with the Jim Henson company.
It's founded and ran by two boomers who have an autistic grandson and were very very upset he had autism. That's the generation that would actively try to avoid diagnosis and help because they thought the label was worse than the disease, preventing an entire generation from getting assistance.
So its less about empowering people with autism, and more fearmongering how bad it is and that someone with autism shouldn't have any agency or choice in their lives.
I didn't dig very deep, but yeah, I could see how that organization does a bunch of problematic shit
I've been on Linux exclusively for a decade now and I am super excited to get an HDR monitor when it gets implemented (there was some major work being done by redhat and others).
In the meanwhile, I am still having fun with games, hdr or other fancypants features won't vhange that.
Comcast / Xfinity. Have been forced to use their services for years until a viable alternative arrived in my neighborhood, paid $110 a month for internet to be down at least 2 days a month when my wife and I both work from home. All calls and tickets and emails were met with "you're not using out router and we don't see issues on our side, sounds like a you problem".
Almost left for ancient Century Link pipe when internet was out for 17 hours one day, called 3 times and finally got a competent person on the line not saying the above. Instead said they had done maintenance in my neighborhood and when they sent someone out to look at the uplink it was magically working again. Filed for a service refund thing since it was way below the promised availability and I had to reschedule meetings because my hotspot was slow and they gave me a $1.35 refund to my $110 bill that month.
Cox too; Comcast's evil twin that never gets as much hate. They do the same bullshit Comcast does, and get away with it. They even put a freakin' data limit on a hardwired connection so that they can charge you more money.
Yep, those datacaps are complete nonsense and they know it. My bill was so high because I had to pay for unlimited data because 2 people working from home and streaming videos almost everyday always goes over their cap.
I'm so glad T-Mobile 5G covers my area now. Before that Cox had a monopoly and I was paying almost 200 a month. Now it's 40 and faster download speeds. Ping times are similar.. I'd recommend seeing if any wireless providers support home Internet near you
ATT covers something like 99.9% of my city and my street is one of the few that isn't covered while being within the city's incorporated area. I can literally walk to city hall. I know that a lot of fiber was laid with government grants and I'm very tempted to see if they were obligated to cover my street and didn't and try to get them too. I'm pretty sure it won't go anywhere but I'm tempted to. As shitty as they are they're way cheaper (with fiber) than Comcast's Xfinity is.
Sorry if this has already been mentioned in the 224 (so far) comments... but another bad guy worth hating is
Hewlett Packard.
Their
"Hey, you need to have our proprietary ink cartrige in your HP inkjet printer plus scanner to print AND to scan as well. The scanner won't work when you are out of ink"
energy producers that still don't use renewables exclusively
private hospital corporations
cruises companies
unsustainable agrarian producers
All of these are literally killing children. Not directly and immediately but according to the IPCC report we have 1,5 to 2 years time to get to ZERO emissions, else we got some tipping points and risk turning earth into a Venus-like planet.
Governments like the UK that insist prohition is a better alternative to harm reduction but continue to profit from poisons like alcohol.
How does one boycott the government? Would I cut up my ID and declare myself a sovereign citizen? As much as I agree with the sentiment, I don't think it's as easy as that haha
Let's boycott the gaming company that we disagree with! Also I guess that company that's using literal child slavery for their chocolate. Quite the disconnect here, I don't think the people making Mario games deserve the same punishment as the people buying up all of the housing market because they can in order to rent out said houses to the same people who were originally trying to buy them
Let's boycott the gaming company that we disagree with
You mean the ones promoting gambling mechanics to children? Not as bad as the chocolate industry I agree but still willing to kill their audience if it means more returns
Right? While entire families sleep outside, let's make a corporation whose sole purpose is to buy up all the cheap homes to make Air BnBs out of them. Totally the same thing.
I think as louis rossman said in his video its generally for the best although I would like for Rossmans software to be fully open sourced it's not like he doesn't have his reasons for not fully open sourcing his software he doesn't want his software to be modified for illicit gains and used to spread malware on storefronts which I think is a good enough reason for not open sourcing his software although there are probably some better ways of handling this situation
All the major meat producers. And fast food chains.
There's been so much publicized in recent years about their treatment of animals, their lobbying efforts, how they treat their employees, how they're ruining the environment, how they fix prices and force farmers to "get on board" or else. It's really bad but we don't care so much because it's hidden beyond our periphery.
I know no one wants to be told to reduce or complicate doing the things that bring you joy, but reducing your meat consumption and shopping at local producers is something we could all take small steps every year towards doing.
Here's my list that I avoid if and where I can. As with everything, things are nuanced and complex, and it's not like every company I personally boycott is outright bad or good all around. I wasn't going to write down the reasoning for each and every one, but ask away if you want to know about the reasoning behind particular ones. I'll also note, this is 100% not in any order (other than as they came to mind), it was time consuming enough making this vs. ranking them all!
Disney
EA
Volkswagen
Tesla
BMW
Audi
NVIDIA
Nintendo
Google
Apple
Facebook
Shell
Microsoft
X
Discord
Reddit
Old Spice
Costco
Netflix
Spotify
Nestle
Toyota
Tencent
Blizzard
Uber
DuPont
Fountain Tire
Walmart
Boeing
Brave
Princess
Moxies Group
Hewlett Packard
Amazon
On the flip side, companies that while not perfect, I think overall are doing good things that I try to support when I can (if only with word of mouth in some cases):
Valve
Framework
Firefox
Pine64
Raspberry Pi
Hyundai
Lucid
System 76
A&W
Trail Tire
Plex
Amanita Games
iBroadcast
Volvo
Napa
Fairphone
There's probably more I'm missing, I'm a pretty strong believer that companies rule most of the western world and that if individuals want the world to meaningfully improve, we have to vote with our wallets as diligently as we vote at the polling stations.
Get the fuck outta here putting them in the good category. They got rid of immobilizers which led to thousands and thousands of cars getting stolen - mine included. Then when my car was recovered, the repairs took 5 weeks and they told me to pound sand when I brought up how the remote start THEY installed when I bought it didn't work anymore.
You should really include your reasons instead of waiting for people to ask. I just reread your list and it seems extremely arbitrary
That would be a TON of writing, which nobody would read. Thanks for pointing that out, as with anything, these are my opinions and I hope you form your own as well. My opinions aren't perfect, and none of these companies are outright "good" or "bad".
Their immobilizer issues (also see the fire issues with the Telluride and Palisade), are definitely a pretty dark mark on them recently, and I can't account for every individual's. It sounds like your views towards them are entirely justified, my main reasons (I have this above in more detail) for supporting them are because I've always gotten utterly exceptional customer support from them (again things vary), but primarily because they've been a leader in electrication, they continue to make smaller vehicles and not road hogging mega-SUVs only, and all around are making very good products right now despite some issues.
I think there's a definite media/perspective bias with vehicle manufacturers, for example Toyota is on my naughty list which would probably surprise alot of people, but they have had some of the largest (and indeed the very largest) vehicle recalls in automotive history in the last 10 years, some causing death and injury (see floormat recalls, Takata airbags, etc.) and yet they have so much hush money and such a "good reliable brand" reputation that nobody seems to care.
Hyundai (like alot of Korean companies, coughsamsungcough) has pretty heavy ties and influence over the government which is also kinda sketch, but perhaps you're right and maybe they better deserve to be in just a neutral category for myself.
I won't tell you to get the fuck outta here for your differing views on Hyundai, but as I noted, none of these companies are perfect and their recalls and issues with this pale in comparison to those recently with Toyota for example, as much as I know this has personally harmed you directly.
At least half of these are the “Why he say fuck me for!?” meme. Costco actually treats their employees well, has razor thin margins, keeps profits low to maximize value, and pays living wages. Also, $1.50 hotdogs in 2023 is bordering on insanity as far as value is concerned.
I also have no idea how you truly avoid all of these without living like Ted Kaczynski.
I replied above if you want more context for my reasoning. It seems to be one of the more controversial takes on the list, perhaps something for me to reassess!
Sure, thanks for asking, as with anything, these are my opinions and I hope you form your own as well. My opinions aren't perfect, and none of these companies are outright "good" or "bad".
Toyota because of their heavy lobbying against electric car technologies simply because they sunk so much money into Hydrogen technologies and wanted to be the winner. Also they have had a slew of absolutely colossal recalls lately for avoidable stuff, and people have died (see drivers floormat issues).
Hyundai because they've been a leader in electrification of vehicles, have always given me exceptional customer support, and all around are just making quality stuff right now.
Volvo because throughout there history there's few if any automotive companies that have shown more of a commitment to doing the right thing, they pushed for safety regulations back in the day and the implications have ripples to today, and still are, alongside also doing well with electrification.
Amazon is one of the most evil companies on the planet and yet it's not on your list but Costco is? Gonna have to completely disagree with you. Costco is probably one of if not the best company in the fortune 500. They operate and live by their code ethics to do the right thing. They've never ever had a lay off of employees, they treat people right.
You called them out for a subscription model, yet don't understand what they are offering at all. What store can you shop at that offers products at zero margin? Costco's yearly net profit is the number of members times the membership cost. Their entire business profit is only the $100 membership fee per person. That's all they want to make from each person.
Edit: And then you have Amazon. Where they use people and dump them. Have a vulturistic operating model. They literally have meetings and design their software to trick people into buying at a higher cost. They'll manipulate anyone anyway they see fit to make as much money as possible from them. They sell stolen and counterfeit products and they know it, they just let it happen because validating products would cost them money. They'd rather just say sorry if you catch them and give a refund.
Wow I must have totally spaced there, thanks for catching that! As I note in an above reply Amazon probably makes my top 5 most hated companies, I absolutely 100% do not shop there or use it, I can't believe I missed that on my list, my apologies.
I did not know that their only profit is on their subscriptions, and I'll look into that as I'm doubtful of that (I could be wrong though!) Thanks for the info there, but I still fundamentally take issue with subscription based models, as well as other issues I note in replies above with them like business displacement, bad personal experiences, and the urban sprawl they create. Again I'll reiterate that no company is outright good or bad, and Costco is definitely pretty low on my bad list (perhaps deserving of being viewed more neutrally by me), the general view definitely seems to vary from mine so perhaps it's worth reassessing.
As to your notes on Amazon again, I 100%, utterly, could not agree more, I just apparently missed them on my list and have since edited them in! Definitely an awful awful company, it astounds me furthermore how virtually everyone is unanimous on this, but nonetheless virtually everyone seems to use them anyways. Some others in the comments swayed my views on Hyundai to change, but I believe my views on Costco stand, based on the replies of some others, it seems the policies of Costco vary somewhat where I live vs. other countries (e.g., using bouncers instead of machines at the door, disallowing people from using even the food court without a card, etc.) so that might factor into why my views on them are different. Thanks for your input, I'll be looking into Costco more about their profit model!
Last minute addition: I did a bit of looking and it seems we're both partially right, while Costco offers some items at cost or at a loss, they do indeed turn a profit off of actual sales in store(again, perhaps this is different by country, and might not be the case where you live?), as well as membership fees, and profit margins on eCommerce sales as well.
This 100% is NOT an ordered list, maybe I'll edit and make that clear. I just didn't have the time or energy to order this properly, if you're curious though my top 5 might look something like 1. Facebook/Meta, 2. Apple, 3. Google, 4. Nestle, 5. Amazon. There's of course companies that are obvious that I didn't included, virtually any gambling company, tobacco company, gun companies (although that's less universal depending on your views on gun laws which is another can of worms we perhaps don't need to open here), oil and gas company, etc. Thanks for pointing that out so I can clear that up!
Sure, thanks for asking, as with anything, these are my opinions and I hope you form your own as well. My opinions aren't perfect, and none of these companies are outright "good" or "bad".
Haha, you're closer than you think, chemical burned my wife. This one is fairly personal obviously rather than an overarching issue, but there was a class action lawsuit maybe 8ish years ago over a faulty batch, my wife was unable to be involved for compensation since the class action was in the US, but we were applying gauze and antibiotics, and watching her skin goopify and have to peel it off her screaming in the shower, it was pretty awful. Despite reaching out, all we got was a resounding "deal with it bud" from Old Spice. I refuse to ever use their products again.
I was hoping someone would mention that :) Man, their devotion to continue just making outright pieces of art, with incredible passion, and a seemingly small niche fanbase is something I can't not respect the hell out of. No gimmicks, no DLCs, no selling out. They've just been doing what they love since their days of browser games, and never stopped making those types of games. Good guys.
I agree with almost all on your 'bad' list. I'm unfamiliar with a couple, so have no opinion.
Your 'good' list is good. I disagree with several, such as Hyundai, Plex, rPi, for example, but I don't think they should be boycotted to oblivion, either. Except maybe Hyundai, who can crawl under a rock and die. I'm never buying another Hyundai car as long as I can.
I've definitely had some good discourse on Hyundai above and have learned alot, I still wouldn't put them in my bad list, but they might not be in my good list anymore either?
I'm curious as to why you disagree on Plex and rPi? My knowledge of them to be fair is far from exhaustive, but to massively simplify they're on my good list because of (plex) how open, flexible, and ownership of your own media focused it is vs. every company buying out shows from each other and subscription feeing users into oblivion, and (rPi) their education focus for kids, tinkering and repairing attitude, and making open useful little chips without being part of the hellish behemoths of other tech companies. Thanks for sharing!
The thing is that Nestle owns fucking EVERYTHING, so it's really hard to boycott all of it. I have managed so far, but I don't expect everyone to go through the effort
I think, to truly boycott something, is to actually be invested in it. To really NOT buy or use a service or product, no matter the situation. To look for other products and services that are more moral and to start using them instead, even when the costs would be higher.
What is important to you?
You can hate the system, hate someone, a thing, product, service. Something. But it's your choice, will you actually do differently or still just follow the path they made for you as an option to follow. And sometimes it may be the only path available.
There's a few that fill non critical roles, but generally once you're publicly trade, things go to shit chasing the quartiles. You can't simple exist as steady state and cater to your employees and customers while living slightly more then modestly.
This isn't an ideological boycott, this is stuff I avoid bc it's not great.
ATT (I get better cell service in a subway than I do in my house and I'm on it because my MVNO switched from T-Mobile to att)
HP (worlds shittiest hinges)
Comcast, Spectrum (parents have comcast, it sucks. My friends have Spectrum, it also sucks)
Boycotts aren't going to kill a company. They are to influence them.
I did boycott ChikFilA when it came out they were supporting homophobic asshats. And once they announced they were dropping those charities, I stopped boycotting.
I use CVS over Walgreens as long as I can get my prescriptions at CVS due to Walgreens stances against women's health. If Walgreens ever cleans up, I would happily use them more often because they are more convenient and inexpensive for me.
I only go to Shell gas stations as a last resort because they blast ads at you while pumping gas.
They're still run by evangelical Christians, so I wouldn't expect a Pride month advert campaign coming from them any time soon.
But yes, they stopped donating to a particular group of charities in 2018/2019. Part of the "then they started donating again" claim was timing and tax records, but the actual donation was made before they changed policy and stopped.
I've seen this mute mentioned, but never had it work. Is it for real? Every place has these ads now 😐 I don't get fuel on my personal vehicle very much much but I drove a lot for work and it is awful.
I do not buy from bp, and I only buy from Walmart if there's literally no other option. My go to department store is Target or whatever local store has what I need, usually it is the former is Walmart is the reason why Mom and Pop stores don't really exist anymore unless they fulfill a very specific niche.
My local Walmart does not get any of my business, if I go in, it's probably just to visit the Checkers renting store space from Walmart
Doesn't suddenly make Walmart innocent, plus unlike walmart, Amazon can actually be helpful to a small community that doesn't have specialty shops. That said I recommend not using Amazon if what you are looking for can be found on a different site, actually I recommend using Amazon to browse products, and then finding another site to buy the product. I make sure to almost never buy computer parts from amazon, because there was one time I bought a motherboard from Amazon thinking it was a reputable dealer, instead it fried out and my protection plan was fucking worthless because I actually bought it from a bootlegger who filed off the serial number of the motherboard he copied. I was able to still make it out, but tech support told me what actually happened when I came to me number.
So I buy from Newegg unless the Amazon price is just that much better.
If you look closely, they are the three largest "car" manufacturers in North America.
I have something against lobbying for creating the word "jaywalking", destruction of historical black neighborhoods, and the SUV/pickup truck epidemic caused by their lobbying for reduced emission requirements on "light trucks".
I guess you could also add Tesla to the mix, since they're making such a big deal of their cyber truck.
There's no ethical consumption under capitalism. Like others said, name companies that deserve business because I don't know how to avoid the ones that don't. Name someone who doesn't go to(off the top of my head without googling): Chick-fil-A, Amazon, Target, Walmart, Kroger, any gas station, Nestle...any giant corpo that owns a dozen others. We can pretend boycotting works so we can feel better about having a moral high ground over other exploited workers or we can massacre the billionaire ruling class.
While I agree with the general notion of this, there are still companies that are considerably worse than others. Choosing the lesser evil is still something that would overall help society and the planet.
Nintendo ruined the lives of excessively smart people that were fighting for rights to repair because of their own pettyness. If you want more information about that, look into team xecuter. Darknet Diaries episode 136.
Boycotting micro$oft till the day I die, OS monopolies (or close to it) shouldn't exist. Plus their OS is mediocre at best.
Ideally every corpo should be boycotted though. But it's quite difficult to boycott some of them (like Google, who likes to live inside every android phone, effectively having a duopoly with Apple, another really shitty company)
I do believe microsoft is doing a great job in the .NET-sphere (Core) nowadays though, after open sourcing. Everything is standardized in a way which makes it a breeze for developers to jump onto a new project using never tools. As a full-stack dev, this is something that the javascript-world could learn from lol
Because money laundering regulations in the UK (and I believe in the US and Europe) at least have made free use of one's cash pretty difficult:
Designated accounts to transfer cash so that you have at least twice as many transactions to do as necessary. Inability to remove modest amounts of cash from your own account, or even pay it in.
Corporate banks operating HFT and dark pools to significantly push up the cost of personal share dealing.
Water companies dumping sewage into rivers and failing to fix leaks whilst raising water processing charges and bonuses to the board.
BBC and their sponsor-a-paedo TV tax collected by harassing elderly people, guilty until proved innocent. Used to be wonderful, educational and funny. Now useless woke shit.
Politics. Come back Guido, all is forgiven. Thieving Boris Johnson handing out multi million pound contracts to supply PPE to his local pub landlord (who have no fucking clue about that sector) and his bunch of duplicitous cronies.
I might have got carried away towards the end. Sorry, not sorry.
I mean fucking over people is bad but surely fucking over musicians is a lot less evil than Nestlé willingly murdering habies and draining wells for profit, no?
Yarrr. I've not taken part myself, but I hear there be extremely affordable ways to obtain digital files in this age.
Spotify is a last gross gasp of the dying music industrial complex, before direct payments for early access, directly to artists, becomes the primary form of music sales.