this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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This post is somewhat inspired by a recent post in this same community called "Is anyone else having trouble giving up Reddit due to content?"

I imagine "Reddit" will be a common answer. (And it's one of my answers.)

Another of my answers is "Hasbro." First Wizards of the Coast (a Hasbro subsidiary) tried to revoke an irrevokable license and screw over basically all 3rd-party publishers of D&D content, then they sent literal mercinaries to threaten one of their customers over an order mixup that wasn't even the customer's fault. D&D: Honor Among Thieves and the latest Transformers look really good, but those are within the scope of my boycott, so I won't be seeing those any time soon.

Third, Microsoft. (Apple too, but then I've never bought any Apple devices in my life, so it hardly qualifies as a boycott.) Just because of their penchant for using devices I own against me in every way they can imagine. And for really predatory business practices.

One boycott that I've ended was a boycott of Nintendo. I was pissed that they started marketing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (though it didn't have a name at the time) before the WiiU came out, prompting me to be an early adopter of the WiiU, and then when they actually released BotW, they dual-released it on WiiU and Switch. I slightly eased my boycott when the unpatchable Fusee Gilee vulnerability for the first batch of Switches was discovered. I wanted to get one of the ones I could hack and run homebrew on before they came out with a model that lacked the vulnerability.

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[–] ptz@dubvee.org 55 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

At this point, what am I not boycotting? lol

I guess this is the abridged no-go list:

  • Nestle (duh)
  • BP (still haven't forgiven them for lubricating the Gulf of Mexico and being like "oops, sorry")
  • Verizon (injecting tracking IDs into customer web traffic to sell to advertisers while also charging me $60/mo for 2 GB of data)
  • RWNJ-owned businesses (Chick-fil-A, In-n-Out, Hobby Lobby, Applebees, etc)
  • AT&T (After so many years, I forget exactly why, but they're just evil)
  • The entire states of Florida and Texas
  • The lottery (I'd have the same payout and more fun just setting the money on fire)
  • Microsoft (It's MY computer, not yours)
  • Apple (Overpriced hardware, control-freak walled garden, everything needs a damn $29 dongle, etc)
  • Reddit, Facebook, Twitter (also blocked in firewall)
  • Amazon (except the 2-3 times a year they give me a free month of Prime and I buy all my stuff, take the free 1-2 day shipping and cancel before they bill me)

Late additions:

[–] ExLisper@linux.community 9 points 1 year ago

BP (still haven’t forgiven them for lubricating the Gulf of Mexico and being like “oops, sorry”)

Same. Started avoiding them after the disaster and never had the need to go back. I drive electric car now.

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[–] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago

nestle. man fuck nestle

[–] NewNewAccount@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Chick-Fil-A for their support for organizations that are anti-LGBT. Apparently these donations have stopped but I’m stubborn.

[–] pizza-bagel@kbin.social 25 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I haven't paid attention for a couple years, but the last time they "stopped" they just started donating to a charity they made to cover up that they are still donating to the same places. But they didn't do it directly so it doesn't count.

And the owners themselves are still donating to anti LGBT shit regardless, at least one of them has been funding an organization that has been assisting with putting out all these recent anti LGBT+ bills.

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CFL, Hobby Lobby, anyone who donates to anti LGBTQ I'm actively avoiding. It's mid 2020s everyone, let it go already

[–] Yo_Honcho@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I honestly don't get their popularity. Not because of politics but I can honestly get a better chicken sandwich 5 min drive away.

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[–] marty@discuss.tchncs.de 31 points 1 year ago

Meat, as it's carbon footprint is just too high.

[–] andyMFK@reddthat.com 31 points 1 year ago

Amazon. Fuck Amazon.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago

I'm boycotting everything from Nestlé, which can get difficult since that evil octopus of a company has so many goddamn tentacles!

As for boycotts I've ended, I used to boycott the Lotus brand of toilet paper and paper towels because they were made by a Koch Industries subsidiary but then they sold the brand off to a socially and environmentally conscious Swedish company so I started buying them again.

[–] nik282000@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, TikTok. Most people I work with think I'm totally out of touch with reality because I don't use any of the big social media platforms and then they watch the same 12 ads and 3 videos on 5 different apps.

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[–] GreenMario@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago

Facebook. Never had an account. In the early days I was afraid id lose job opportunities because something I'd post or others post with me in it, like smoking a bong or maybe just drunken 2am rant.

Now I don't like it cuz it converts sweet old people into Nazis. Among everything else.

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

I don’t buy Nestle products.

[–] davidgro@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I used to boycott ATI before AMD bought them, because the driver support on Linux was so bad. I got a laptop with a GPU they didn't support until almost a couple years later, and then as soon as it worked, they dropped support because it was too old.

Now they have the open source driver and better GPU support than Nvidia.

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[–] AnyProgressIsGood@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

BP. For their incrediblely bad environment and safety record

Nestle for their baby formula shenanigans

Goya and at&t for their trump support

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[–] Bizarroland@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I recently chose to release my boycott on home Depot. I found that the one of the founders of home Depot was supporting Trump and since I'm anti-trump it doesn't make sense for me to support his supporters you know?

The friend of my enemy is my enemy after all.

But then I looked into it and found that home Depot had actually disavowed association with the guy and intentionally and willfully does not support any presidential candidate.

I'm still boycotting Walmart and Amazon and Chick-fil-A and hobby lobby though. Walmart and Amazon are some of the largest companies in the world and they can afford to pay their employees living wages and they choose not to in the name of greed.

Chick-fil-A and hobby lobby are companies that sell things that people might occasionally like but at the same time they use their profits to support anti-gay and anti-trans and anti-bodily autonomy movements, and even though I'm not affected by any of those three movements, I'm not going to let my money go into the pockets of people who are spending that money on hate.

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[–] Staiden@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 year ago

EA, since 2013 when they fucked up sim city.

[–] Nusm@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The gas station down on the corner. When I first moved here, I went there all the time because it was convenient. Gas, bread, soda, you name it, I would swing through there and pick it up. I stopped every single work morning and got coffee on the way to work. I started bringing my own insulated cup, so they charged me less. Then it was bought by a new owner, and he wanted to charge me more. Okay, it was still cheaper than if I used their cup and more convenient than making it at home - they provide the coffee, sweetener, creamer, and there's no clean up on my part. One day I went in with a new cup that was the same capacity as the old cup. A different shape, but it held the same number of ounces. The owner said, "that cup's bigger, I charge you more." I tried to argue, but he didn't budge, and he charged me the same amount as a large coffee in their cup. Now, I'm not stupid, I've worked in retail before, I know the largest cost to a cup of coffee is the cup, but I paid it, walked out the door, and never set foot in there again. That's been eleven years ago, and I don't plan to go back. I hope the few cents he greedily wanted over coffee was worth all the other lost sales.

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[–] pikmeir@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago

Boycotting In N Out for being anti-vax and more recently anti mask. Shame because their burgers are pretty good for the prices they charge.

[–] Custoslibera@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Blizzard. After the Blitzchung incident I uninstalled every one of their games and haven’t played anything Blizzard since.

Once the merger is complete with Microsoft I’ll probably start playing them again.

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[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Any state that voted for Trump. Especially if they did it twice

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Inkjet printers are pretty much a scam, and HP is particularly shameless about it. I do not buy anything from HP.

Dell sold me a lemon laptop and it took 6 months for them trying to fix it before I demanded a complete replacement, and they replaced it with a different model with fewer features. I wouldn't buy a Dell if civilization depended on it.

I'm avoiding pretty much any large video game studio. Kinda baffles me that anyone anywhere does business with Activision/Blizzard, EA, Bethesda and the like. They treat their creative staff like shit, they treat their customers like shit. Looking down my list of games bought in the last 10 years, I'm not sure if Unknown Worlds Entertainment (developers of Subnautica) or Coffee Stain Studios (Goat Simulator; Satisfactory) are the largest studio I buy from. Valve themselves don't count per "in the last 10 years."

I avoid Microsoft as much as I can. They're just straight-up bad people and have been since before I was born.

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[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago

Nothing. I've given up.

I am too small to make a difference, unable to convince others in my life to join, and the companies I want to boycott have grown so big that their brands are everywhere and it's exhausting to try to keep track of them all. Plus, boycotts are pretty ineffective these days. Even in the most extreme cases, companies now know they only have to wait ~2-3 months before the masses stop caring and move on to something else.

Now I just live my life. I support causes I believe in, try to treat everyone I meet with kindness and respect, and do what I can to give myself and my family a happy, comfortable life. That's all I can do, it may not be enough to save the world, but it's enough to save me and those I love

[–] Roundcat@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 year ago

If I can help it, I try to support local businesses over Walmart, Target, Amazon, or any other near monopolistic retail chain.

Chick-fil-A, and Hobby Lobby. Owners have been vehemently antiqueer and antichoice, and have funded such organizations and politicians through their business.

Activision/Blizzard and Ubisoft. Both have been accused of large scale sexual misconduct, and neither company has completely dealt with the issue.

Twitter and Reddit. It's not just that I hate the direction both sites are heading, but I want to fully back and support the open source alternatives that have grown during the migrations of both sites. Besides, Musk has made it to where I can't even lurk on Twitter if I wanted to.

JonTron. He's living proof that as long as you're funny, people will forgive and forget anything. (Look up his history with racism and antivax for those in the latter camp, cause I'm tired of answering the "what he do" question)

The Harry Potter franchise. This one hurt the most because I had just starting to get into the Harry Potter series as the pandemic hit, and I was halfway through Prisoner of Azkaban when Rowling started her campaign against trans people. I Also used respect Rowling a lot because she's a master at world building, and I had gotten into reading Harry Potter cause I wanted to take inspiration from it for my own work.

Ruroni Kenshin, and Nobuhiro Watsuki's other works. I can get why people would forgive JonTron and Rowling to an extent, but defending Nobuhiro's pedophilia is a bridge way tf too far for me.

[–] kelvie@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago

Surprised I don't see this one, but slave trade chocolate (which unfortunately is most chocolate).

There are some lists out there, but we try to avoid all chocolate unless we are sure it isn't harvested with slave labour, even partially.

[–] derpgon@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago

Apple - while their products are undeniably good quality on both HW and SW sides, I hate their business practices, overpriced products (monitor stand for $1k ?!?!?!?!), and being anti right to repair.

Epic Games - partially owned by Tencent (a money hungry Chinese company), PC exclusivity deals, anti consumerism

Elon Musk - nuff said

Andrej Babiš - a Czech politician who used to be in the communist party back in the day (and denies it), a millionaire, a liar, a thief, and in general piece of shit. I will never buy any products made by companies owned by him (sure, they are not "his" per-se, because they can't legally be, but I am sure he still profits from them through money laundering).

Tik Tok - app by the Chinese, with tracking and information gathering throughout, and an ultimate time sink. Stupid trends start there, and it does absolutely nothing for the humanity.

[–] Mugmoor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Apple. I wouldn't use their products if they were free.

Roblox. As a parent, I'm not about to support a casino for kids. As a hobbyist game developer, I won't support their exploitation of developers either.

Lotteries. Im not against gambling in general, but I sure am against emotional manipulation, and taking advantage of those who don't understand math.

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[–] resin85@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Any products that support Koch Industries. Horrible people.

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[–] axemurber@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Blizzard/Activision after all the scandals.

Google music after it changed to youtube music and changed all the music I bought and downloaded to a file format that only could play on YouTube music and you had to be online every day to validate your music. Fuck em

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[–] megsmagik@feddit.it 10 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Fast fashion companies

I buy on Amazon only if I got some gift card (because im broke af and those are free money) but never with the fast shipment

Fast foods, Starbucks and similar

Delivery companies like Uber eats or Glovo

Meat

I don’t buy not-reusable products (like toothbrushes, razors, cotton) with a few exceptions, where I can I buy the eco or tech versions

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[–] chudified@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sony - When the ps3 came out it had the OtherOS feature that allowed users to install Linux. This was the main reason I bought a PS3 instead of other systems. From the beginning, it turned out that Sony crippled the OtherOS by restricting resources that were available to it.

After a few years, they removed the OtherOS feature, because someone hacked it, which could possibly lead to pirating ps3 games.

They sold me a PS3 based on a specific feature and then disabled that feature. I will never knowingly buy a Sony product again.

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[–] pH3ra@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago

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

[–] random_character_a@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Microsoft, Apple, anything Nestle, Meat products that don't tell you where the animal was raised and claim it's origin is domestic (too often bs). Pet food from the big global players.

Semi-boycotting digital stores like Epic Games and Ubisoft. I already have Steam and GOG and I don't wan't any more bloatware or their launchers on my system. Plus others don't seem to give a shit about Linux players.

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[–] Zikeji@programming.dev 9 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Coke, for assassinating union organizers.

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[–] DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com 9 points 1 year ago (7 children)

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
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[–] furrious09@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Chinese products. After living there for a decade, I now actively try and avoid buying products made there—or Chinese companies—at the least.

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[–] USSEthernet@startrek.website 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Reddit obviously. Pretty much any corpo controlled social media in general though. Deleted my FB account about 5-6 years ago and never looked back. Deleted my barely used Twitter account after muskrat took over.

Blizzard. Haven't played a Blizzard game since 2012 ish. I was deployed and would play WoW in my downtime until a major update came out and completely broke me, blizzard was no help in the multiple tickets that I submitted. Tried every fix I could find on the internet at the time. I asked them if they could send me an install disc, I'd even pay for it. Hard no from blizzard. It was clear they didn't care about a long time player like me. That was it for them. Now over the years we have seen all of the scandals and games rampant with microtransactions. I'll never play another one of their games unless I pirate the shit out of it.

I'm becoming increasingly intolerant to all of the tech price increases so I've been ramping up my self hosting capabilities. I just need time which is a hard commodity to come by for me anymore. This is really the only thing preventing me from cancelling Netflix right now because Netflix is easy for my kid to access across devices.

I have wanted to cancel Amazon for months now, but that's a battle I've lost to the wife. She gets everything on there. I've tried the argument that we can just order stuff when we have a cart over $25 for the free shipping. I've mentioned about how many late shipments we've got over the last few months. 2 day shipping has become a straight lie at this point. We don't watch Amazon prime video at all.

[–] abcxyz@mastodon.social 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@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

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[–] redballooon@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Animal products.

Have been boycotting those for 7 years now, and I can’t imagine ending that.

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[–] Akashic101@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago

A little bit different, but Caseking will never get my business. They have a booth at Gamescom right now where you can race in a simrig and try to get the best time of the day. There is also a time of a pro which you can try to beat, and if you do and are the fastest at the end of the day you get a 200€ discount on Moza Racing.

Here comes the problem though, they ran the wrong game for more than half a day (AC instead of ACC) and when telling them that with the configuration of the circuit (Nürburgring with the slower chicane as the last to last corner) the time was simply impossible to beat. They just laughed at me and making it look like I had a skill-issue and am simply not good enough to beat the time. When I came back in the last hours they switched over to ACC but were driving a wrong, slower car making the challenge still not beatable. I tried to tell them this once again but they continued to just laugh and ignore me. If you ask me they dont want anybody to win the coupon and are just ripping people off

[–] moonleay@etaorion.org 9 points 1 year ago

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.)

[–] RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Mugmoor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm boycotting them because they haven't made a good game in about 20 years.

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[–] yojimbo@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] Treczoks@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

I'm boykotting Canon and Birkenstock. The first for being total idiots, spurting "open source is theft of intellectual property!", the second because I know the owner family (the son was in my class) and they are assholes that would make Trump proud.

[–] Dax0Lotl@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I'm boycotting too many things to count. I have an entire website where I just list things I think should be boycotted for the sole reason of I hate capitalism

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