Generally isn't it considered fairly ineffective to boycott if it's individual as opposed to an active campaign your boycott is part of?
I avoid rideshare except when I have no alternative, but I bit the bullet recently and re-upped Amazon Prime after planning and failing to cancel a year ago.
It's really hard to watch Rockford and Columbo without Prime.
2: I think that's right. I both strongly disapprove of Amazon and don't make much of an effort to avoid it.
The company I strongly avoid is AT&T, but that's only because I got the world's shittiest customer service during their brief stint as my internet provider and I hold a real grudge over it.
I definitely won't book a flight on JetBlue ever again for similar reasons.
I worked in a warehouse years ago. I don't recall anyone getting hurt very often. We had quotas but you didn't need to go very fast to make them.
The big standardized industries, and cell phone providers and major airlines definitely count, just don't actually have meaningful difference between them to the point where I think holding a grudge really makes sense. There's just no difference between JetBlue and Delta and United when it comes to customer service. (There are some differences more broadly, Delta is anti-union but unrelatedly also more likely to have on-time flights because it doesn't snow in Atlanta.) Spirit is a different story, they're awful. All the 3rd party booking services (e.g. Expedia) also different and awful. Airlines are actually better than most industries in terms of customer service because they have a lot of rules and so you have a chance of getting something done if you understand those rules, but if you don't understand the rules then it's opaque and frustrating, and if you want something reasonable but not covered by those rules then it's also frustrating. I am incredibly skeptical that there's a meaningful difference between AT&T and Comcast for ISPs, it's just that the industry has standardized around being the worst. All ISPs are worse than all Airlines.
There's just no difference between JetBlue and Delta and United when it comes to customer service.
Oh god, literal days of my life last summer will STRONGLY contest this point.
A United flight attendant once gave me a free whiskey.
I sat on hold for four hours. Never got off hold. I emailed and did anything I could think of. Never got through. The horror stories online I was turning up were an order of magnitude worse than what I'd found elsewhere.
Last March I booked us flights to Nantucket for the wedding in September. In June or so, they re-booked us. Except our new departure flight left after our connection flight.
I could change it, but I'd have to pay through the nose or else have a day layover. They ostensibly gave me the option to cancel, but the "cancel" button just straight up didn't work. Like there was no way to click on it - it was grayed out as if it was waiting for you to supply more information, but there was no field for it.
I did every possible thing to connect with someone that you can imagine. I never was able to talk with a soul or get any sort of response. Zero.
And I hadn't booked through a credit card, because it wouldn't take my credit card back in March for some reason, and so I'd payed through PayPal. Fortunately, PayPal took all this documentation and canceled the flights and refunded my money. (Which surprised me. Go PayPal!)
Anyway, they are a NIGHTMARE. (My brother-in-law also had significant problems with their tickets, IIRC.) All I could figure is that they were moments from bankruptcy, but they still seem to exist 12 months later.
I just contend that there's a difference between waiting in line for hours and finally getting to talk to a person, versus waiting in line for the rest of your life and never getting to talk to a person, and JetBlue's model is the latter.
There once was a flight to Nantucket
And the airline decided to fuck it.
The flight was so long that they said "suck it".
Huh, yeah, that sounds like weird covid-specific stuff. Maybe you're right and I should shift them from the normal category (American, Southwest, United, Delta, Alaska) and into the questionable category (Frontier, Spirit, etc.). That's very weird, the computer system shouldn't even let something like that happen. The vast majority of times I hear these stories they're normal stories that happen at all the airlines, but you're right that that sounds very strange.
The grudge I held for a while, but haven't been able to keep going with, is AirBnB. We had a horror story where our host never gave us the checkin instructions, and then it turned out airbnb *didn't even have a contact phone number for them* and were essentially unable to help at all (they'll let you cancel and rebook, but not at the original price). But there's some circumstances where it's just too difficult to find non-airbnb ways of getting places.
I've never stayed in an AirBnB in my life. There was just a shooting at one locally. Kid gets mom to book place, throws BYOB party for $5 announced on social media, and it goes poorly.
Yeah googling indeed shows that JetBlue fell off a cliff, you're right to hate them and now I won't fly them either. I've been a little out of touch with airline news during the pandemic. Still very skeptical that there's a meaningful difference between AT&T and Verizon or between United and American, regardless of individual horror stories.
I haven't lived in a city with JetBlue for 10 years, and 10 years ago they were great. I apologize for making assumptions, you're completely right here.
Which companies do you still avoid
Koch
Walmart
Johnsonville sausages
AT&T
U-Line
Smithfield
See Judd Legum's reporting for a list of those that deserve shunning
isn't it considered fairly ineffective to boycott if it's individual
I don't see how this could possibly be wrong. Of course Amazon isn't materially affected if I don't give them business. I really do try to buy books in particular elsewhere, but sometimes it's unavoidable. (It doesn't make a difference to Amazon if I don't buy a new academic book from them, but it does make a difference to the local bookstore if I buy it there, and I deeply love bookstores and want them to survive, mostly for selfish, idiosyncratic and unprincipled reasons that I hope are not too antisocial.)
The canard about how there's no ethical consumption under capitalism always makes me wonder what "ethical" actions are considered valid under capitalism, on this account. (Is it just "there's no ethics under capitalism"? Can't be, surely, even if the thought has occurred to me in dark moments.) But the straw socialists don't talk back when I inquire.
I should avoid Amazon, but it's hard.
UK specifically, I avoid Wetherspoons due to their poor treatment of labor and the jackass activist owner.
I do try to avoid Amazon some and not just for worker rights issues. I like supporting my local bookstore when possible. I just bought a grill, and I looked at Yale Appliances and Ace. I went with Ace, because they had the best delivery options (it came assembled). I didn't consider Amazon for that purpose, because I was worried they would just leave it.
As far as injuries goes, 2018 is interesting to me. Amazon got a little bit better, but everyone else got worse. Noise in the data or was there something statistically significant?
AT&T disconnected my service (at the street) when connecting a neighbor but insisted on mailing a new cable modem instead, which took two days and of course did nothing whatsoever, and then couldn't get somebody out for 5 whole days afterward.
22: There's a sign at the bookstore in PDBS which seems to be staffed by retired school librarians which says "If you saw something here or want to buy it, because we recommend it, please don't go and buy it from Amazon." I try not to for the same reason lurid articulated.
25: Now that's a story where I feel very confident that Comcast has done exactly the same thing a hundred times.
I did air b n b in Portugal. Only time. I stayed in a farmer's cottage on a large estate near the beach.
My aunt rented a house on the south shore of MA. I do wonder if this is country specific. Like, I've taken Uber 3 x in the US. Once it was just a way to get a limousine car from the airport, and the other 2 times it was not great. In Portugal, the Uber drivers were basically professional taxis, and it was really convenient, because I could communicate where I wanted to go even though I can't speak the language.
I absolutely agree that affirmatively supporting local small businesses (like bookstores) can help them in a meaningful way. But that's distinct from not, e.g., ordering cat litter or laundry detergent on Amazon.
I mostly avoid Amazon, but that's not saying much bc AB does more purchasing of that type than I do. But I usually try to find something locally, or direct from the manufacturer, before acquiescing to Amazon.
Anyway, the only not-easy boycott I maintain is the local mini-donut store that's run by a vocally online homophobe who I'm sure is a hardcore Qanon type now. I know I patronize other stores with awful owners, but this place in particular was boycotted by a gay friend of ours who has since passed, so maintaining it is a (tiny) form of memorial.
And replace 2018 with 2017 in 24.
But that's distinct from not, e.g., ordering cat litter or laundry detergent on Amazon.
See, this is the online ordering that bugs me most. Setting aside your personal, car-free lifestyle, these are products readily available from nearby stores, and even a national chain like the nearby Target does far, far more good in my community with that $$ than Amazon ever could (and our main local grocer is unionized, as is fairly common). Between Amazon's employment practices and VMT, I can't remotely justify having things like that delivered.
The best Rubbermaid spatula, which doesn't seem to be sold by anyone in the city of Pittsburgh? That's another story.
30: If the price on something is the same, I do usually order directly from the manufacturer. I believe I did that when I bought a vacuum.
I have vague misgivings about AirBnB, but for the most part we don't use it anyplace it's displacing housing for locals, and furthermore we use it largely because I tend to cook anyplace we stay for more than a single night, so motels are not remotely a substitute.
During our last European trip in '19, we got AirBnBs in Berlin and Strasbourg (for 5 and 6 people respectively) and got substantial use from the kitchen facilities. I'm not really sure what else one could do.
32: I get paper towels shipped from Costco, and I buy my dish detergent from Target. A lot of that stuff is much more expensive on Amazon compared to Target. I don't buy food at Costco, so I find it overwhelming to go in person. I also do ship-to-store with Target. Post-COVID, I still find it hard to be sure that I can get laundry detergent reliably when I go to the supermarket, so ordering online and picking up at Target is really convenient. Also FINISH works better than Cascade in our hard water, and Wegmans doesn't seem to carry it.
Follow up to 21. Walmart was a hard NEVER, but we did buy BINAX Now COVID tests from them.
Food/produce/agricultural products is another of these areas where I'd think that consumption choices can make a difference somehow, but it's very thorny. I have very few consistent policies and have recently become more price-sensitive, and the overall trend does seem to be in the "everything's bad" direction. I agree with the OP that 10-20 years ago was a period where a lot of myths accumulated around pseudo-ethical consumption, and they've been slow to die even though, in the Age of Misinformation, I think there is more good info out there about what's beneficial and what's not.
In general "fair trade" regimes all seem to be bullshit. It sucks.
A couple years ago I made a conscious decision to minimize ordering from Amazon and mostly order things that are difficult (or significantly more expensive) to get elsewhere. I doubt it affects them, but it feels better. I still use Amazon all the time to check reviews.
I am mostly car-free so I do sometimes order heavy items delivered (like the push mower I ordered last year) and mostly don't feel bad about the VMT -- I'm not sure that it's worse environmentally to have the delivery compared to my making a single-purpose car trip. I'm open to being convinced either way on that one.
In general "fair trade" regimes all seem to be bullshit.
Really? I have several brands that I appreciate because they appear to do fair trade right, but I haven't looked at whether "fair trade" in general is meaningful. I would be very sad if it isn't.
Amazon takes 1/3 of revenue from sellers.
https://ilsr.org/amazons-toll-road/
Amazon uses seller data to identify product lines which it can produce profitably, destroying the original producers.
https://www.inputmag.com/culture/shocker-amazon-succeeds-by-overwhelming-copying-competition
Both of these are classical monopoly behavior. But antimonopoly regulation is socialism, so that's bad, this is just the inevitable face of the glorious free market in the 21st century.
41: We had a post about it a few years ago, thanks to Mossy. It was really depressing. Not sure how easy to find it now...
It is interesting to look at something like this: https://www.fairtrade.net/impact/monitoring
Is it a good or bad sign, for example, when they report that 7.7% of Fairtrade certified households in Ghana were living on less than $1.90/day compared to 13.3% for the country as a whole?
I mostly use Amazon for very specific things that no one sells locally and for which the manufacturers don't ship to Alaska. (This most recently came up with vacuum parts.) I'm not thrilled about it but there's often not really a practical alternative.
I wish I had the willpower to boycott Nestlé and Mars. Sadly no.
That many injuries should be a pretty good lawsuit thing, no?
The idea that withholding your support from a company is only impactful when a bunch of other people also do it at the same time is total cope. It makes the same real-but-extremely-small difference regardless of what other people do. Waiting for the Official Boycott to start is fair-weather fandom.
Having typed that out, I'm not totally sure I believe it. I guess one value of the Official Boycott is it makes the signal you're sending clearer.
There was some company I got so mad at years ago that I swore to them that I and all my descendants for seven generations would never give them another cent of business. But it's been so long since I ordered from them I forget which company it was.
We just recently booked flights on Frontier to go to Puerto Rico next February. They had perfectly timed flights, direct midday. They also have this discount club where you pay $80 up front but make that back in as little as three tickets, and since we have many kids it was worth it for just this trip. Then next week they sent us a flight change, suddenly we were connecting through Miami at 3:30 am in one direction and through Orlando with an overnight layover on the return. We had the option to cancel but of course not the $80 discount club membership. So I'm suspicious they just float nice looking cheap flights far in the future to get the fee and then routinely cancel them. We did get everything back after threatening to block it with the credit card issuer.
48.2 isn't a minor point. For example, everyone in America has a reason to boycott Disney, but I would suggest now is a poor time to start.
I've taken a dozen Spirit and Frontier flights and though I've gotten screwed a couple times it was worth it overall.
One time I took a bus SF > LA from some startup that was trying to create a sleeper hotel atmosphere for overnight journey. Trip down was great, but the trip up, the bus never left (it was there, but they claimed it was broken) and they had to buy everyone flights. A couple of strangers and I ended up getting them to pay for an Uber for us instead (LA to Bakersfield on the clock, Bakersfield to SF off).
21: I'm not sure how to boycott Koch, other than not voting for legislators that they have purchased.
AIHMHB, my boycott of the neighborhood MyPillow store was successful
I don't want to brag, but we do buy our kitty litter from Target.
48 is worded as if the stakes are individual authenticity and integrity, which is clearly how a lot of people see political action, but I'm not sure what broader metrics you use for cope and fandom. I think I believe something like the opposite: if you think scrupulously boycotting Amazon, or Walmart, for twenty-five years is more than .00001% of doing your part for economic justice, "cope" is a much milder word than the one I'd be inclined to use. Should you do it anyway? You know, I don't care. I've never shopped at Walmart and generally have avoided Amazon, and I think my pseudo-ethical consumption patterns are exceedingly well priced into the global system of economic exploitation. I'm even disinclined to say that 30 years of pretty strict vegetarianism have done anything whatsoever. Reduced car use for most of my adult/driving life? Nothing. None of it matters, but I guess I still do it because my motives haven't changed, and it is now part of the (terrible) status quo.
53 made me lol.
Comcast is the worst. I had a hilariously bad customer experience with them over a period of weeks that culminated in a trip to their office. I stood in a line with other people, including a gentleman who was walking up and down the line cussing about what miserable sons of bitches Comcast was. In any other situation, this would have been alarming, but we all understood.
I came to the office, at their instruction, to get a modem replaced. The person behind the counter told me they didn't have a substitute. When I got to my car, I realized I had an additional question. I went back, talked to a different person, and found out that they did, in fact, have the modem I was looking for. It still didn't work.
55: It definitely matters! Just like you said, your consumption patterns are exceedingly well priced into the global system of economic exploitation. By being vegetarian for 30 years, let's say that's 200 factory farmed cows you didn't eat, you shrunk the factory farming industry by 200 cows.
At least it's an ethos. Which reminds me that I still have the Comcast wire running across the ground in my back yard. Probably on fourth year of that.
I did have one weirdly good interaction with Comcast. I came in to their store and said I wanted them to set me up with a cable package where I could watch the Oscars and wasn't subscribed to Fox News, and they gave me a great option.
Store-bought kitty litter is fine if that's the best you can do. We get ours from a local artisan who makes it from local clay with a foot-powered granulator.
There was some company I got so mad at years ago that I swore to them that I and all my descendants for seven generations would never give them another cent of business.
Not 7th Generation?!
60: I guess that's fine if you're a plebe. We have your artisan come and crap in our kitty litter.
I'm not sure that it's worse environmentally to have the delivery compared to my making a single-purpose car trip.
Probably not*, but for us, at least, single-purpose car trips are vanishingly rare. Like, I don't think that's really the relevant metric. Frex, when AB takes the dog to the dog park†, that's when she stops at Target for things that are too heavy to carry on a walking trip (the Target is a bit more than a mile round trip) and any of a few other stores that make sense as part of that route. I am absolutely loath to do any drive out-and-back.
*although I think that delivery traffic is becoming a real issue in cities, especially since Amazon, at least, seems to have altered their system to lower priority on reducing trips--where I used to see basically one visit/day each from UPS, FedEx, & Amazon on our street that isn't really connected to the grid**, I now see Amazon here 3-5 times on some days.
**IOW, it literally makes no sense for any vehicle to use our street that isn't stopping on our street--it's not a direct route between any 2 points that aren't reachable via major streets (that are much, much better paved) along routes of identical length
†I hate the idea of driving to the dog park, but it's a 5 mile round trip, they've destroyed our park, and this dog, unlike the last 2, can't restrict himself to the boundaries of a non-fenced park. Had we an e-cargo bike, that trip, along with ~90% of all non-work trips, would no longer be via car.
But antimonopoly regulation is socialism
This was one of the areas where HRC was quite vocal and outside the mainstream*, and one where I was super-excited to see what she'd do. I don't know if she got it from Warren or what, but I was pleasantly surprised.
*that is, her rhetoric, at least, was very different from Generic Democrat's, indicating it's a place where her nomination as opposed to eg O'Malley
I'm a fan of pine or newspaper litter-- clay can mess up their kidneys over the years when they clean the dust off of themselves.
My cat has had digestive trouble recently, so when I saw that there had been a productive visit to the box, I texted my gf (who loves the cat, worries) an informative message consisting of the poop emoji.
Less meat and less dairy I think has some economic meaning, also means a market for alternatives.
I feel like my cat hasn't had trouble with clay litter because I've been very careful and because it's imaginary.
The best thing about imaginary cats is they have spectacular bowel movements. Like a curled biscotti but better smelling.
oh good, I have been actively trying to truncate detailed conversations about this all week. I thought it was funny that there was a context in which the poop emoji was useful-- probably new parents have similar exchanges.
https://twitter.com/ClubPhotos_/status/1512143212453908487/photo/1
Incidentally, some quotes from the OP article (Firefox Reader pulled it up after I put it in reader mode and then reloaded):
"To meet the promise of two-day delivery, the high pace of work is pretty consistent throughout the facility," ergonomist Richard Goggins, who has inspected multiple Amazon warehouses for the state safety regulator, previously told Insider. Amazon workers are compelled to move so quickly, Goggins said, that when inspectors tried to measure workers' risk of musculoskeletal injuries at Amazon's flagship warehouse in Kent, south of Seattle, "it broke the model."
In response to what inspectors found in Kent, regulators this month issued the most severe workplace safety violation in Amazon's history. The violation was classified as "willful," signaling that regulators believe Amazon is operating with "intentional disregard or plain indifference" for employee safety or federal law. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment for this article, but the company has said it disagrees with inspectors' findings and will appeal the citation.
Reading that I am appalled, and it reinforces my inclination to not order from them. That also sounds like the sort of problem that should be addressed by regulators, not consumer action.
That also sounds like the sort of problem that should be addressed by regulators, not consumer action.
Yes, that, and unions. That's not to say that consumer action doesn't help, but, historically, that's just not how workplace safety measures and improved conditions for workers have been achieved. Unions and the power of the state.
The grape boycott achieved some victories for workers, but I think they may have evaporated longer-term.
I stick with AT&T because it's union. (All cable companies suck anyway.) I also get a super good deal on fiber internet because I called several days in a row (about different and relatively minor things). That apparently sets off a "she's about to cut off service" warning, so I got transferred to the fancy customer service and they seemed to think they needed to give me a "please don't drop your service" kind of deal even though I never threatened to leave.
I don't find it difficult to avoid Amazon except when I order something not from them and that doesn't say "fulfilled by Amazon" but then it comes from Amazon anyway. There have been I think 2-3 other things in the last 10-ish years that I haven't been able to find anywhere other than Amazon.
I try to minimize mail order in general in favor not just of local bookstores but any business that pays taxes and wages here and doesn't waste a bunch of packaging. I certainly still do use mail order, though, and patronize plenty of shitty corporations.
Bookstores are a problem because we would be living like hoarders if it weren't for Kindle. I haven't bought a physical book at Amazon in a decade, but lots of Kindle.
I actually buy very few books these days, other than for gifts; it's not really in our budget. Hooray for libraries!
Also, I read way less than I used to because I'm a cretin.
Someone in the house has a pulp science fiction/fantasy habit that would fill a bookshelf a month if printed books were used.
Food/produce/agricultural products is another of these areas where I'd think that consumption choices can make a difference somehow, but it's very thorny.
This reminds me that the last episode of Maintenance Phase was an excellent takedown of The Omnivore's Dilemma. I will never again be able to think of Michael Pollan without the phrase "jaunty chapeau" coming to mind.
I think on some level I believe Michael Pollan and Michael Chabon are the same (Berkeley-based?) person who wrote a bunch of novels, then branched out into food-and-drug research projects. My head is full of truly useless incomplete knowledge.
Chabon is (was) a local. There's a boiler on CMU's campus that I always "the cloud factory" because of him even though I've never read any of his books or lived in Pittsburgh during the years when it burned coal and thus created "clouds".
He didn't write "Mysteries of Contra Costa."
Apparently, it was too boring to write about.
From 85: As a child, Chabon's parents were divorced and he spent nine months of the year living in Columbia with his mother and three months in Pittsburgh with his father.
I will repeat a recommendation to read Chabon's Wonder Boys and Honeymooners by Chuck Kinder as a set. The latter is the model for the unfinished book in the former, and Kinder was a prof of Chabon's when he was at Pitt. Kinder was a pal of Raymond Carvers and the book fictionalizes the two of them from the early days.
I also think the movie was quite well done.
74: XFINITY Vomcast was the only option in my old building. I've had Verizon cell and I went with FIOS in the house. AT&T doesn't do cable here. I think Verizon is split union wise. Some parts of the company are union and others aren't.
I'm too tired to type Comcast properly.
I'm pretty stoked that Jennifer Egan has written a sequel to Goon Squad, I liked that book a lot. I'm also enjoying a lot of John Barry's Great Influenza, some places too dense, but a lot of good early 20th century US history, medical, and local.
I totally thought "Vomcast" was deliberate. I like it!
Re: physical books, over the past 3 months I worked my way through a dozen books that were gifts or impulse buys or otherwise unplanned and had been sitting around for a while. If I'm going to keep reading like this, I need to dust off my Kindle. And make sure it works at all; I have my doubts. And see about backing up the books on it (unless I've already done so? I don't remember), because if it isn't dead yet I'm sure it will be someday and I don't want to lose what's on it. But that might require piracy or piracy-adjacent steps due to DRM, and I don't have ethical concerns about it under these circumstances, but it was just a big hassle the last time I tried.
Or just go to the library more. It's not far. I'm leery about clutter and space-wasting and even I'm starting to think that e-readers are overrated at this point.
Vox has a good, lengthy article about Amazon: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22977660/amazon-warehouses-work-injuries-retail-labor
There are other options for ebooks besides Amazon unless you've already bought into their proprietary system. Barnes and Noble has one, but there's also Kobo. They m@me their own eReader, but you can download the app. If you login through the portal of a local bookstore, you can give credit to the local store.
There was a nutrition and mood book by some researchers in New Zealand that I wanted which I figured the library was never going to get and I didn't want to devote physical space to if it wasn't any good.
From the NYT:
If you are like most Americans, you think you know Amazon. Recent polling shows that 72 percent of us view the company favorably. This makes it the second-most-trusted institution in the country, after the military. A 2018 study found that Amazon is the only institution to appear among the five most trusted by both Democrats and Republicans.
Terrifying. (Also FYI, going to take a short break from commenting and the web in general, back in a few weeks maybe?)
Yes, take care. I've have to watch what I read if I want to sleep well.