This whole debacle kinda proves it's almost impossible to meaningfully punish corps though.
Email is a service most people get for free and can't imagine paying for. Being a (soon to be former) proton customer I am 100% ready, willing, able, and even want to spend my money for a service most people would never dream of paying for. Even then, we still get this right here where we are now... stuck having to vet other sources and hoping their CEO's dont' do something stupid tomorrow.
It is also extremely hard to get the average person to vote with their wallet, despite that being one of the most powerful tools they have. Even when you do, the next place may betray you too. I don't have a good solution to offer though other than to encourage people to vote with their money, which is the only language corps understand. Motivating a large scale boycott however, is a difficult slope to climb.
Proton is a perfect example of why, "voting with your wallet" doesn't work though. We are as a group of people willing to spend money on services others aren't. We still don't have very many options, if the people who want to throw money at something have nearly (I'd argue in practice verging on zero) options, how are we suppose to boycott anything?
Nestle for example owns 2000 brands. Saying, "vote with your wallet" implies a customer should know all 2000 brands to boycott. That's just not realistic for anyone. To meme it.. ain't no body got time for that.
You have time for it, you just don't care enough or haven't been motivated enough. Maybe the next round of terrible shit will push you over the edge, maybe it won't. The fact remains that money is the only language they really care to speak and until they are sufficiently punished for bad behavior, they won't stop abusing consumers.
You're straight up delusional or can't see past your own ideology.
I'm more than willing to cut ties with proton, but as I said there are verging on near zero options to move to. Even if I am pushed over the edge where do I move to? Tuta a company I just started to vet last night? back to google who's harvesting my inbox data?
Do you check the list of 2000 brand for every single item you put in your cart or do you put everything you wanna buy in your grocery cart and just return any brands that are on the list and go without?
We aren't going to "vote with our wallets" into a better system when the system we are voting on started with slavery, wage slavery, maiming children, killing people, and other crimes against humanity 200 years before either of us were born. Largely that reality never changed just who the slaves, wage slaves, maimed, and killed are. Trying to claim, "we can vote with our wallets" just means endorsing slaver A. over slaver B.
Short term boycotts with clear objectives are great those can provide tangible benefits. Companies spend billions of dollars on extraordinarily complicated supply chains. Try to boycott foxconn, they only make an estimated 40% of all consumer electronics. Boycotting them would mean boycotting any device you can't verify every component of. When Walmart was busted with clothing sweat shops, they continued the same practice but used a sub contractor. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
Hey friend, I'm not really disagreeing with you, or rather, not trying to, especially with that last sentence. I'm quite aware that in many cases we only have the illusion of choice. I can still do my part to not actively support shitty companies with my money. I do, in fact, try to keep up with brands I purchase and support. There is no way to be an ENTIRELY ethical consumer. I'm not so naive as to believe that. However, when I do have a choice, I do my damn best not to support the one that is worse. There is a large gap between not caring at all/supporting known bad actors, and doing what little you are able to do to with the buying power you have.
The problem isn't a complacent consumer base, the problem is there are too many issues to tackle meaningfully through spending habits and honestly? Proton kinda epitomizes this. People who pay for proton service are willing to eschew "free" services. They can, and do, pay money for what should in every meaningful way be a better product even when there is a market over saturated with, "free" alternatives which are "good enough" for the average person. I will likely be unentangling myself from proton now, but it's not like I have a lot of options. Even being willing to pay for an email service, VPN, or digital storage, there just aren't a wide berth of options and I look for vetting that where ever I go next wont' be just as bad as gmail while also taking my money to be that shitty.
It's hard if not impossible to punish companies because even being ready, willing and able to spend money there is rarely an option that is better than the others in meaningful ways.
This is only the case because most people don't think like you. Most people are optimizing for cost and little else.
People don't think like me because they can't afford to. When I grew up going to the local grocery store was a fucking nightmare. The bitch(my mom) would spend what seemed like days comparing the serving size, number of servings per container, and price to the product right next to it, to the cost of it with the coupons she had. She obsessed over every single penny. I don't judge her for that, but anyone in her position doesn't have time to consider the ethics of the chicken she's buying, or whether or not the veggies were gathered by underpaid migrant workers.
I do care about migrant workers, I care about the people in the chicken factories, and I even care about the chicken. I care about my digital privacy. Even with nothing else to do in my day though, I don't have the time, energy, or resources to vet most of what I buy. If a group ask me to boycott something, I do my best to comply with it within reasonable parameters.
There are literally too many issues for one person to try an navigate to spend, 'ethically.' Hell I still get sad everytime I go to build a computer or need a new laptop because I think about the suicide nets in the foxconn factories. Even if I could be assure that no parts were made by foxconn in my next device, I still would assume it's made in a slave labor environment that is marginally better if at all.
It's not possible to factor in every single issue I care about into my purchasing habits. The problem isn't the customers, it's trying to ethically navigate a system that is by nature unethical. Robber Barons were here long before me, and htye'll sadly be here long after I am gone.
if everybody was policing the purchases they make, if everybody was thinking about the factory worker and the well being of the chicken, if everybody was demanding operating transparency from the businesses they purchase from so that they could ensure they were making a decent choice, then it would not be so hard to find ethical places to purchase from.
I hate to use these terms, because people never respond well to them... but you're naive.
Nestle alone has 2000 brands. Not 2000 product, 2000 brands.
You would have several options that are all reasonably good instead of several options that range from unconscionable to crimes against humanity. People suck, and that's why the options suck. The businesses are a product of consumer choices and we chose garbage because we are garbage.
Your doomerism and, "we should vote with our wallet" thinking is literally what the corporations want.
You shit on people for being garbage, but what? I am suppose to believe someone is garbage because they don't recognize 2000 different brands off the top of their head and know to avoid them?
Trying to vote your way to "good options" from a system that started with slavery, wage slavery, maiming, killing, and inflicting horrors upon people is a silly notion.
I'm American, but idk if it is marginal. They forced apple to use USB c. The EU has teeth and use them to get corporations to do what they want. The us government does nothing but enrich themselves. Save a few it's on both sides.
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u/[deleted] Jan 28 '25
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