You don't need to convince me. You need to give me good alternatives.
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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Boycotts
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Using your consumer power to refuse to feed the profits of adversaries of humanity. Marketplace baddies who cause disproportionate harm to the planet or people.
Who to boycott, why they are being boycotted (or why you personally boycott them), and how to boycott them (if it’s not obvious).
Also welcome: discussion on how to organize and track your boycotts. E.g. whether it’s a special tool or app, or whether it’s a series of text files to GREP.
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I‘ve been boycotting Paypal for over a decade. What’s the problem? Is it eBay? I boycott that whole platform anyway because eBay’s JavaScript includes a port sniffer that runs on your LAN.
I noticed Chinese vendors are sometimes Paypal-only. They simply lose my business. This was easy enough because I favor buying locally anyway (in person). On one occasion there was a particular e-bike motor I was quite interested in, which had no importers. Only an online outlet shop for the maker which was paypal only. I had to nix that product entirely because there was no way to buy it without Paypal. I did not like any of the other motors either, so I settled on a traditional push bike.
Though buying locally recently became complicated. I have run into some cashless cafe’s that use #Zettle (indeed Paypal has reared its ugly head into the offline world). I decided: fuck them for being cashless anyway. Some of them will concede and accept cash if you have exact change, then the cashier uses their own personal card to pay. To each his own but I won’t do that either because it still feeds Paypal its fees.
(edit) another tricky scenario: a merchant accepts paypal or credit card, but then how do you know whether Paypal is also the credit card processor? I think it’s often impossible to know. So in principle if a shop accepts paypal+credit card, that whole store should be nixed, if you have the discipline.
In the end, cash is the topmost alternative. Buy local. Sell local.