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Clean out your cupboards for the next week or two. You know you've got that stuff in the back of the freezer you could still eat. Buy used items when you can. Stop buying useless shit you don't need. Cancel those subscriptions and pitate shit. Pay cash so payment companies don't get a petcentage. Shop local.
Maybe we can make a list of non-shitass companies. Newegg has an online marketplace for more than electronics for example. Aldi isn't a bad company I dont think, etc.
Newegg would be on the list of shit ass companies unfortunately
Here's some other ones at https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/Main_Page A new site by Louis rossman trying to document shitty companies and their workings.
Well I ordered something from Ukraine toda but I think this is still in the spirit of this action.
I have seen several threads now on this subject here in Lemmy recently and the number of people who are against it is disappointing. Years ago my wife and I decided to let our Prime membership lapse and to no longer buy from Amazon. I mentioned this on Reddit and the responses were similar to what I'm seeing on here now in regards to this boycott.
"That's not going to do anything"
However, in the past seven years, instead of buying from Amazon, we have sought out small businesses and put money into local businesses when we can. That's money Amazon does not have from us. Think about what the average American spends on goods from Amazon each year. If more people did this instead of naysaying then the economic impact would be much better.
So to those of you wanting to participate tomorrow, I applaud you. Be the change you want to see in the world. Money is all these greedy parasites know and if we can collectively stand up, one small step at a time, then the impact will be huge.
To the naysayers, either you're a bot or have nothing to contribute to the cause because I don't see any organizing from you. Find a positive way to contribute or shut the fuck up.
Changing your spending patterns for 7 years is completely different from one day of attempted boycotting. The reality is, people already aren't spending money. Just a few days ago it was reported that the top 10% of earners are currently responsible for half of all spending. "Spending" isn't leverage we have.
I would be more supportive of a movement to cut all subscriptions, and stop spending on anything beyond necessities until things are stable again. But anyone who's worked retail during these months knows that bad days are just business as usual.
Might be a good day to cancel some of those unwanted services too.
According to recent reports, several streaming companies, including Amazon, Disney, Meta (Facebook), and Paramount have been identified as rolling back some of their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, citing pressure from conservative groups and a changing political climate as reasons for these changes.
My own take is that if you have a boycott, to have political impact, it needs to have concrete goals and agreed-upon-in-advance, well-defined termination conditions.
Without that, you're flailing around angrily. Doesn't actually do anything, since it's not as if any one party can do anything you want that has an effect in response.
I'd also add that the broader a boycott, the harder it is to do, and the more-diffuse the effect. If you don't buy anything, you're affecting all sorts of people. Many of those have no impact on your particular concerns.
If I were going to participate in a boycott:
It would not have termination condition defined by time, but in achieving political goals. Defining a termination in time specifically says "I'm not going to have an effect after this point", which encourages ignoring the boycott, and and not having concrete political goals says "nothing you do for me is going to affect what I do anyway", which also encourages ignoring the boycott.
Those goals would be achievable, concrete, and announced in advance.
It would identify specific parties who have the authority to produce the change I want and target those.
It would be limited in scope to try to affect specifically the parties who I want to act differently. Anything else, and you're expending will-to-act on impacting others and also antagonizing people whose actions you don't care about.
EDIT: What would I consider to be a more-effective boycott? The article says that one thing that people are upset about is Target rolling back DEI policy. Okay. Say "we will boycott Target until it reinstates the DEI policy that existed prior to Date X" (or, hell, adopts some other policy, whatever). That is something that Target management can very clearly institute. It has concrete political goals. It does not announce in advance that it is going to terminate at a given time. It is not impacting other parties who have nothing to do with whatever someone is upset about. The impact of the boycott is focused on the party in question.
Then repeat that with other parties if you have other things you want to accomplish.
That's also sustainable. It is very likely that you can keep doing that for a sustained period of time, because Target probably doesn't have a monopoly as a provider of household goods. There, a boycotter actually has leverage. Trying to boycott...everything...is trying to start a fight with everyone. You can get something from a different store than Target for a lot longer than you can not get anything at all.
I think that just saying "I'm going to not buy anything from anyone for a day because I'm unhappy about various undefined things" is probably not going to accomplish a lot other than maybe letting people work off a little steam. I don't expect that it will result in change.
There is value in just using something like this to break spending habits of the population.
A lot of people may find that a portion of their spending wasn’t that necessary after all, and will stop beyond the boycott. The businesses will need to improve services or lower prices to win customers back.
At least, that’s what I hope this achieves. The organizers might have varying goals.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Every vote counts.
Very glad I accidentally left the second half of my personal pizza in the fridge at work. That’ll be my lunch tomorrow.
WTF do people think a one day boycott going to accomplish?
Wtf do people think doing nothing is going to accomplish?
It's a shot across the bow. It gets people organizing and coordinating. Once people start working together on something, you can then direct that and focus long term on a boycott of, say Amazon.
Thank you. Some people don't understand that big change like this would take time to coordinate. This is a step to larger goal.
A hell of a lot more than nothing. They're starting with one day, and then increasing the number of days in subsequent boycotts
I mean the point is, it's the general flaw of like say when people tried to organize "don't buy gas on X day", doesn't actually hit them because they go by the quarter... and it isn't like they don't know you'll make up for it within the week.
lets go crazy lets do a boycott for a month... dont' spend any money for a month... what will happen? Well logically to do that you'll need to spend a boatload of money before the month.. and a ton after.
IMO an economic boycot would need to be like "no luxuries march". where we collectively agree not to pay for anything but food, rent gas etc.... Rescheduling necessities inconveniences us, not them... because they know at the end of the day we're going to buy them, and they don't care what day it falls on.
I agree with you. Fortunately, most big corporations are so shortsighted and focused on making numbers go up, it wouldn't take more than a month to a quarter to really send a message.
It's much more palatable for the general public to boycott a handful of companies in the long term, particularly those that kowtow to the current administration by getting rid of DEI https://apnews.com/article/dei-diversity-equity-inclusion-lawsuits-f2f5e9136ac95d9466ee91c97c7e3be1
We consider it a pulse check on our representatives.
I guess a little more than nothing is infinitely more than nothing; that’s just marketing though. If you’re just deferring purchases or making purchases in advance it’s not actually having an impact.
I personally feel sustained targeted boycotting is going to be more impactful than a general consumption strike.
If it accomplishes nothing people will get discouraged, which is actually less than nothing.
A hell of a lot more than nothing.
I really don't think it will.
Demonstration of organization. If they see a one day dip in the numbers--even if it's deferred spending to the very next day--then it implies there's a large number of people who are pissed off and ready to be organized.
Bottom up organizing has to start somewhere.
These companies do their financials quarterly. Even if this goes as planned nobody would even notice if they looked for it.
Meh. I wasn't going to shop anyway but this won't accomplish much. Granted, I don't even think regular protests will do the trick. Do make long term strives towards weaning off the bad stuff, though. It won't make a statement, but the only statements that'll be taken seriously are the ones that land you in a NYC courthouse wearing an unnecessary bullet proof vest.