The key is 100% boycotting all services provided by a company. Wikipedia’s list of Amazon product/services as reference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_products_and_services).
Incidentally, I know entire neighborhoods that don’t have other grocery stores besides Target/Whole Foods, not to mention that AWS is the cloud computing industry standard… As a personal example, my vet-prescribed cat foods are manufactured by Purina, a subsidary of Nestlé (needless to say, a separate but also extremely evil large corporation)
Considering how much of the Internet is now backed by AWS… yeah good luck with a full, 100% boycott, unless you’re willing to install a plug-in to let you know which parts of the web are on AWS and specifically avoid them.
That being said, a 100% boycott is borderline puritanical. It’s very easy to order nothing from Amazon, and if enough of us do it will make a noticeable dent in their profits.
There is never a perfect solution. Just boycotting them in any way you reasonably can will go a long way.
A direct boycott of Amazon and its subsidiaries? Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
But boycotting services that happen to use Amazon? Impossible!
Any business may use products ordered from there. Your local toll gate may use AWS. Unless you are a major client nobody is going to let you audit their supply contracts.
Yeah, AWS is ginormous and largely invisible. You can usually figure out when something’s in AWS if you can traceroute it, and sometimes by IP, but that requires knowing the IP of the server in question AND having the know-how to use and understand those tools’ output.
I’ve spent years now trying not to consume products from companies I consider immoral. There are a lot of them and, realistically, you won’t make a big dent or bring the company down. The average person is, by definition, average, so a boycott based on people doing the good thing at the expense of some personal discomfort will always fail.
But that doesn’t mean it’s pointless. Companies like Amazon are almost impossible to compete with because of their size. The most important impact you can have as a consumer is not that the lack of your personal revenue is going to keep the likes of Jeff Bezos up at night. It’s that you’re providing revenue and a user base to alternative businesses that are struggling to exist in a world where most people just use Amazon.
You can make a real difference this way! Focus on growing competitors rather than hoping the bad company will go away because of your abstention. Kind of like using Lemmy instead of Reddit.
“The most important impact you can have as a consumer is not that the lack of your personal revenue is going to keep the likes of Jeff Bezos up at night. It’s that you’re providing revenue and a user base to alternative businesses that are struggling to exist in a world where most people just use Amazon.”
I agree! I think we should frame boycotts this way, I can’t stand companies abusing their chokehold on the market. It’s also a more feasible and tangible goal.
Yeah, I don’t struggle with boycotting Amazon. The only times I’ve really used Amazon in the past have been for PC parts, audio headphones, and a random thing or two. I do my absolute best not to buy needless things as it is, and I know that there are plenty of other websites to use if I really need to get something online. (I knew this was gonna come in handy one day ha.) Here’s a website called amazonalts.org. It’s curated websites/online stores for the ethical consumer in mind. The categories are Food, Home, Clothes, Beauty, Books, Electronics, and Miscellaneous.
100% is unattainable, but tbh even 10% would hurt them
No modern boycotts have been shown to be effective.
The last genuinely effective “boycott” was the bds movement focused on SA, which created real pressure.
BDS movements have been effective because they go well above and beyond boycotts, and in some ways, its easier to target “all” of a national economy than it is to single out singular companies. That action also took place in a world of reduced globalization.
More broadly we should all be considering the relevance of individual versus collective action. There was a real propaganda effort to drive peoples thinking to be focused on individual action as a means for creating social change. Be the change, recycling, changing your habits, etc. It shifted the focus from the responsibility being on those creating the damage to consumers, and it had a range of outcomes.
One of the most important is that individual action, while basically meaningless, acts as an analgesic towards further action. Its a way to create a sense of relief that something has been “done” while nothing meaningful has changed. If this psychological pain reliever prevents the escalation to the use of force or more extreme actions, its done its job to protect the system. There are very good reasons why the system accepts individual actions, are supported almost exclusively over collective or more extreme behavior.
Being poor and living on the edge paycheck to paycheck taught me that there are a whole lot of things you can live without that you didn’t think you could.
You can literally cut all subscriptions out of your life and eat nothing but groceries you buy cheap at a food co-op and you’d be surprised how ok you are.
There’s a LOT of fat you can cut out of your life. And it makes things simpler and simple is peaceful.
The most plausible way is a short-term boycott for like 2 weeks at the end of their fiscal reporting period. You want the rebound not to be reflected in the quarterly report so it fucks with the share prices.
A lot of the time, asking local businesses what they can do/order for you helps a lot. Just because they don’t have it doesn’t mean they can’t get it. Some local grocers offer delivery services. If you have the time, seed money and patience, you can grow a lot of food in a small amount of space.
My cat has a special diet, too. I asked if I could use pet food from an independent brand - since it was a food allergy, just a matter of excluding chicken and grain - and the vet said it was fine.
AWS is harder to avoid, but if you have to use a service, there are other companies who will put the effort in to take part of the pie from amazon.
If you strive for perfection you will always fall short. Just do what you can. I started actually going to stores instead of buying things online, but sometimes that is not feasible. If I absolutely have to buy something from Amazon, I canceled my Prime and just wait longer for my packages. As for the other services Amazon provides I have no idea. Look for alternatives as best you can.
The goal is more about giving as little money as possible to Amazon. You don’t have to go cold turkey and cut it all out if it causes problems for you. Use this time to research alternatives for the future as you pivot away.
I have a hard time believing Purina makes some kind of special pet food that nobody else makes. Ask your vet about alternatives.
My cats need prescription food and I buy Royal Canin.
I completely boycott Amazon, Google, Walmart, Target, Starbucks, Nestle, the list goes on. It takes a tiny bit of effort. Most people aren’t willing to do even that.
They don’t. Let’s just say that I chose the closest vet to where I live for convenience & I just needed someone to issue them travel certificates in a few months, but they are themselves a VC-owned nightmare… I’m moving out of the US in a few months and will likely change their diets anyways. I’m trying to find better alternatives as well
Boycott is the wrong word.
Permanently change your spending habits. A temporary change a company can ignore, but permanent change in spending will affect them.
You can’t avoid everything 100% of the time but simply closing your Amazon account and not ordering their trash EVER AGAIN will make a difference.
Every one of us needs to change permanently to not empower this oligarchs any more.
It’s very effective when a lot of people agree and follow suit, these companies panic and now REALLY quickly when they no longer have a functioning business model. You have to have consumers willing to buy from you.
Its only vialble if there’s a organized critical mass of people doing it.
