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.
I don’t know if I boycott. I refuse to do business with certain companies, if that counts. I suppose that’s what a boycott is.
There’s probably more I’m not thinking of. Generally speaking I use all FOSS software, always buy things used from a person who owns it, don’t buy processed food and cook my own 99% of the time, don’t use chemical products on my skin or in the shower, buy clothes used and use cash for everything. For Amazon, which I do use, I get gift cards.
You’re adamant enough in your ethics to boycott all banks, but still use Amazon? How do you reconcile that?
Cash on delivery exists. Also, we can buy Amazon gift cards with Monero.
But yes, boycotting all banks seems impractical.
Amazon delivers value to me, banks are rent seeking middlemen that want a cut of every transaction and control of all capital and deliver no value whatsoever.
I may use banks in the future if I have a better reason than “debit card” but I’d probably use a credit union if I needed more than that anyway.
The bank takes the cut anyway, it is by and large offloaded to the vendors. The bank takes a nominal “service fee” that I generally “get back” many times over in creditcard cashbacks etc, plus it ensures my purchase. Hard to actually see the benefit of using cash only.