Asklemmy

Back around the start of the millennium Napster became a thing and suddenly every song was fair game. I cannot stress how cool it was to be able to find a song and hear it on demand.

I did however feel some guilt about taking songs for free from my favorite bands at the time. So I came up with some ethical standards I could live with. One of them being "If I downloaded more than 3 songs off a single album, I should buy that album." After that I took stock off my mp3 collection and began purchasing CD's to back fill what I'd downloaded.

The first band I started purchasing albums from was Metallica, and then they sued Napster.

I haven't spent a dime on them or listened to their music since. At first it was a conscious decision, but then after a year or so I realized I just didn't care about their music much anymore so it was easy after that.

Coke, for assassinating union organizers.

• DRM because it is feudalism, theft, and a disgusting violation of the fundamental unalienable human right of ownership.
• Autodesk I experienced Eagle. -Extortionists
• Subscription software

99% of my media consumpion (movies, tv series, books...) is, how do I put it, "free of charge"... so techincally I boycott anything that is not my local movie theater/library

I'm not sure "boycott" is the right word, but I refuse to pay for games that have microtransactions in them.

I also won't have anything to do with Hasbro in general and D&D specifically until they issue a public apology for the halfling art in 5e. I'm only half kidding.

I have a local grocery chain I only go to when I'm desperate because the president of the company is an absolute shit bag of a human being, and because they have armed guards confronting shoplifters, which is really fucking dystopian if you ask me.

Cars - Even if it makes my life extremely difficult in today's day and age, I've decided to try my best not getting/buying a car. I'm in Europe, so this is much easier to do than in US, and I want to see how far can I go with a bike or public transport only.

Blizzard, Bungie, Activision, Bethesda (at least titles developed by them) - anti consumer practices, even though some of the games are definitely good. As for Bethesda, I still would be down to buy games published but not developed by them, though the only one I've ever gotten was Dishonored.

Google and Microsoft - terrible privacy, tries to monopolize things. Actual evil companies and I don't really like them, switched them out completely from my daily desktop life and I couldn't be happier.

Boycotting is hard, because "no ethical consumption (etc).

That said, I boycott Wendy's and highly, HIGHLY encourage everyone else to do so as well because they still won't sit down with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and join the Fair Food Program.

-> Nestlé (obviously)

-> Nintendo, despite their friendly appearance and their quality games they are one of the worst game companies of all time. They openly spit in the face of their fans and persecute anyone trying to make something good out of their creations (Melee, Pokemon uranium) or breaking their DRM filled proprietary walled garden (looking at gary bowser). Im a huge pokemon fan but i only play on emulators or foss projects like showdown so as to carefully not give them anything.

-> Amazon literally the devil and symbol of exploitation/over consumerism, never forgetting the working conditions of their employees in my country and everywhere else.

-> Tencent, Lenovo, Oneplus, Huawei, and all the others. Obvious.

Sweatshop clothes. Except for show merch but as most shows I go to are punk shows, they're usually pretty good about ethically sourced merch.

Lol - wonder if this thread makes us a bunch of Karens.

In no particular order:

• Reddit (obvious reasons)
• My local KFC (three strikes on really, really shitty order fulfillment via Uber Eats, no fucks given when complaints lodged)
• A pizza chain here in Australia - La Porchetta - for sucking people into a loyalty program where the points couldn't be redeemed via their shitty app
• All social media sites except LinkedIn (there's still moderate value in professional networking) - I've even extended my boycott of Shit Tok to banning it on my home network (much to my teenagers' chagrin)
• G2A.com because they fucked me over on a Xbox Live 12-month key after alleging my PayPal account was deemed a "payment risk", yet they still spam me with emails on a weekly basis
• Netflix after they said they'd still charge me for password sharing when my stepkids use our account at the dad's place, even thought they're part of my household

Boycotts I've ended:

• My mother (not a nice person, but my daughter deserves to have a relationship with her last living grandparent)

Boycotts I wish I had the strength/ability/motivation to implement:

• Big tech
• Nestle
• (my daughter's use of) Roblox

The state of Florida. They don't need my tourist dollars right now. When they can figure out state government again, I'll consider spending my money there. They have no shortage of tourists, but I know it's not my money propping up that insanity.

Fast food. It's all disgusting fucking garbage, the customer service is horrible, delivery services rip you off non-stop, and their business practices are completely unethical and cruel. So I decided, "fuck them all" and started cooking for myself. Nowadays I make food that's leaps and bounds ahead of that pig swill I used to gulp down, even comparable to a lot of restaurants.

You don't actually need most businesses to survive, especially food service. Food service is arguably the easiest aspect of society to gain true independence from.

My longest ongoing boycott is Nestle. I've probably bought a Nestle product by accident at some point or another, but if I see the logo or know it's a sub brand it's a no go. My newest boycott is LTT/LMG (Linus Media Group).

I left Reddit but I'm not sure if I would qualify that as boycotting. I don't browse there but I still use the search terms for niche information like I did in the past. Reading this thread I see a lot of boycotts that I agree with, but I wouldn't qualify as my own since I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary. Take Hobby Lobby, I've never had cause to go there so I've never gone there. If I had cause to go there, I would find an alternative but it's not like I'm actively going out of my way like I do to ignore Nestle products.

I still get Chick-fil-A occasionally, it's one thing I feel guilty about. Not often mind you, like once every few months, but growing up I had fun memories there with people I won't be able to make new memories with, so I find it comforting.

Oh there are a lot. Nestlé and Amazon are the most important ones. I can't really say I boycott social media such a Facebook or Instagram because I do not really care about them. Boycotting includes an active action for me

I'm still boycotting Blizzard for the Hong Kong thing. Then they kept piling on more reasons.

Fast / Branded fashion - When I was at grammar school there were attempts at bullying kids not wearing branded clothes. Attempts - because those days I was not only year older and head higher than any of my peers but also one pissed off boy scout. They say violence does not solve anything - I say there are exceptions. I don't wear clothes with any form of visible branding or statement. No matter if it is NIKE or similar piece of crap or some brand no one ever heard of. My backpack is the model bundeswehr used to use till the late 80s - re-stitched so many times it is probably a totally unique piece of luggage by now. My jeans are de-branded levis or wornstar bootcuts with reinforced crotch (iron-on patches), my jackets are by Polish company Helicon Tex - they mostly supply to military / police - their models are brand less single color rugged simple and big on pockets. I love Source sandals and linen pants for summer. It should be noted that my occupation does not require me to look respectable - I look like a used fiver - and everybody loves me.

Ubisoft, EA, Epic Games, Blizzard / Activision,, etc.. All of these companies mistreat their workers. From racism and sexism to sexual harassment and unbearable crunch. Fuck these companies. (I also boycott other companies, but I havent seen these mentioned yet.)

I've been boycotting Apple for the past fifteen years. I tend to avoid any systems that are closed or proprietary by design. It's becoming increasingly difficult to adhere to this principle due to the profit motives for this practice. Notable examples of late are electric car chargers. You would imagime that there are different electrons in your battery compared with other people's but no, physics is truly universal. It's the car makers that dream up these differences and create incompatible battery interfaces. Compare that with petroleum products, one can fill a tank anywhere and it works the same, as it should do.

@TootSweet Its said a modern human can't live without using Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and f*ckbook.
They dominate that much of our lives.

Wanted to change this notion. So I don't use a single Big Tech service. Why? How about-

1. Their monopoly which stifles innovation
2. Their potential influence which can meddle in anything from politics to even your day to day life decisions
3. Worst of all, their privacy record
4. Addiction problems, especially in kids

Hope that's good enough

Pokemon go, since they upped the price of remote raids and made waaay harder for people like me out in a remote town to fully participate I’ve not been back. Which sucks because I really liked collecting pokemon with it. But I kept getting the feeling that the company hated me. Well it doesnt seem to like any of its users, but it especially didn’t like the ones in locations like mine. So I left and refuse to go back.

Also a local art shop , the owner was really snobby and said I couldnt afford the paint I was after. She was correct but still, not nice to make me feel bad about it.

EA and Ubisoft.

Most clothing brands... I'm not paying a premium to be a walking advertisement and its all made in sweatshops anyway. I'd rather some non branded stuff so I'm contributing less to that whole system.

I dont care about all of the android watch or apple airtag stuff either. The new phone can do xyz.. Great still dont care as its a tracking piece of shit that will break in a few years.. I may as well keep my current piece of shit until the wheels fall off.

Subscription services. I used to use Netflix back in the day when you only needed one subscription and changing the DNS still worked.

I use free Spotify with brave adblocking and newpipe for music. I hear sailing is lovely this time of year.

TLDR: I avoid most corporations where I can , I think valve are the only one that I dont mind interacting with.

Nestlé and big chocolate brands such as Hershey. I doubt they'll stop their human rights violations until they face actual repercussions so I'm probably gonna keep it that way.

I stopped using Apple products since the time when they convert my mp3s to an iTunes derivative. Never buying/using Apple again.

Too many to list, here are a couple of mine:

Companies that support Russia's war in Ukraine by doing business and paying taxes in Russia. Leroy Merlin is one of them, I used to spend a lot in their store. I use Zrada app on my Android phone to track these companies and avoid them.

Apple - mainly because they fight against customer's right to repair their devices. Also, I prefer devices that are easy service and upgrade and I feel they steered the industry away from that.

Reddit, Epic Games Store

Amazon - that dude has already enough money

Anything Tencent or Bytedance.

Every western country bashes Tiktok but it's owned by these companies, and their holdings are in the thousands of apps and games including Reddit and Discord.

They're just data mining companies and anywhere the CCP has access to your data is a problem.

There’s no way some of the stuff itt is actually boycotts.

Boycotts are organized and have specific goals and demands. Not buying nestle products isn’t a boycott because whats the demand, that they break up? Pirating media or blocking ads isn’t a boycott both because it’s not organized (in the political sense, not the semantic sense) and there’s no demand.

There’s nothing wrong with not buying nestle stuff or piracy but they’re not boycotts.

Also boycotts don’t work on their own. They gotta be paired with a protest movement, the more militant the better (the option of boycotting covers the non-militant bases).

Reddit, because… you know.

Walmart, people I know who’ve worked there were not treated well… and then there’s the plopping down in a town/city and hurting the local business just cause…

I'm still boycotting Wizards of the Coast over the OGL drama. In addition to being against open and shared content in their game system, I was getting tired of their half baked books with no substance coming so frequently that I just couldn't keep up with it. When they announced their own Virtual Tabletop software, I knew it was only a matter of time before you couldn't even play D&D 5e on another platform so I bailed and I'm not looking back.

Many things actually. I'm in the process of degoogling and ditching ms office. Ditched reddit. Ditched discord. I'm also ditching android apps and switching to FOSS versions if i can find them. And today i ditched Startpage. I just found this article about them: https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-group/

If you want to watch honor among thieves but don't want to support Hasbro, just raise the black flag (and your VPN) and pirate it

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