What brands do you avoid at all cost? I don’t keep up with the news all that much, and many of the reasons to avoid something don’t make it there anyway. So I’m asking here to make a big list of things to avoid. It could be anything from bad security practices to really frustrating packaging. Working as a cashier myself, I definitely know there are plenty of brands I avoid purely on the basis that their product is a pain to stock.
On the flip side, what’s the alternative? If you avoid Pepsi, for example, what do you turn to instead?
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Literally all of them. Any big company is doing evil things, and I doubt there is an exception to that rule. Shop local, grocery shop at a co-op, eat local, prioritize products you know are actually made in your home country. Most importantly; just buy less. Repair the things you own, take care of them, borrow from friends. Never buy something “surprisingly cheap”.
Obligatory: fuck Nestle
Fair enough. They’re so big I need an app just to keep track of if something’s made by them or not.
Which app? Is it on f-droid?
Nestle, Microsoft, Reddit, Roku, Meta, X, Google (as much as possible). I would boycott so many of them if it was possible, but I particularly avoid those because I especially hate them.
Apple for their poisonous followership.
Canon for being assholes.
Microsoft for their shitty products that only survive due to the mass they have acquired during the years running largely unchecked.
Facebook/Meta/Twitterx/Tesla: see Apple.
What’s wrong with Canon specifically? The rest I am already aware of their sketchy dealings.
Usually Canons camera selection is quite good, was there a scandal or is it just shit support for their printers or help in general?
Canon printers. Back in the time, I bought a large canon printer - for 60cm wide paper, with large ink tanks on the side. It cost a rather substantial amount, but printing under Linux was meh, as there was no special driver for this model. I asked for a manual so I could write such a driver myself, but their position (back then, I never bothered to recheck) that Linux and open source in general was theft of intellectual property.
Apple & Meta. I try to boycott Amazon in lieu of other online sellers but I don’t always succeed. All non-union Starbucks. The latter is the one that has impacted my life the most because I used to spend my days studying at Starbucks. I Struggle to focus and concentrate on formal work of any kind while at home. We do have two unionized locations in town. They usually don’t have any sitting room left, though because they are so close to the university campus.
Nestle
HP
Apple
Tesla
There are more but those are the first that came to mind that I don’t have to go dig up a list.
Epic Games until they continue developing UT4. Motherfuckers.
Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Starbucks.
I gave up trying to maintain a principled list of companies because globalization and supply chains make it too hard to really find a single asshole.
Your chocolate was picked by slaves. Your clothes were almost certainly made by exploited workers. Does that toy have a lithium ion battery? You’re not going to like how many of the raw materials were extracted. The name of the company on the sticker of the shit you bought is just a small piece of the rot.
The saying “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” is pretty true for most of us right now. The oligopoly we have going on makes it extremely difficult to consistently do the right thing. The only real way forward is to regulate the shit out of these products. If only we had another Upton Sinclair to scare the general populace into giving enough of a shit to demand unilateral action.
Tony’s Chocolate …
My chocolate is fair trade actually. You can find good options. Although, yeah, I’d probably struggle re clothing
After spending some time volunteering in Ukraine I concluded that probably the best option to ethically buy clothes might just be to buy the Made in UA clothes from Ukrainian local stores tbh.
Samsung; just a lot of general very anti-consumer behaviour.
LG; a “do not sell my data” option on a TV that’s turned off as standard? No, thanks.
ASUS; has become pretty unreliable in my experience and their RMA shenanigans haven’t helped.
Apple; overpriced and anti-consumer, I wouldn’t mind getting a MacBook as a gift or something, though…
HP; cheap garbage that’s obsolete the moment you buy it and becomes e-waste after the warranty has expired. Their business line is marginally better but there are far better options out there.
Huawei; see above.
Nestlé; do I really have to explain? They’re pretty much the worst company to ever exist.
Spotify; endless price-hikes to enable the CEO to buy more soccer teams and firearm manufacturer shares, pay artists almost nothing per stream, disabled their car thing after two years, lied about Spotify Hi-Fi…
Oh you can add so much more on Apples entry. For a fun read, I suggest doing a web search for ‘Apple anti-suicide nets’. Apple and nestlé are among the top of my list for companies I morally cannot support due to human exploitation.
I’d like to know the alternatives, especially for Samsung, I still think it is the best smart phone company
This might be a bit controversial, as Google is obviously also known for their fair share of not so good stuff but I really like their Pixel line of devices. Especially for that stock android experience (doesn’t Samsung even pre-install TikTok nowadays?). Sony phones are also pretty decent from my experience.
As for laptops, the business lines of both Dell (Latitude & Precision) and Lenovo (ThinkPad) are pretty solid. Especially Dell’s support is just amazing, I deal with them regularly at work and they’ve been really great.
As for ASUS; I haven’t had to buy a mainboard in a while but I heard some good things about Gigabyte.
Tidal is a pretty good alternative to Spotify; I think they pay artists the most per stream out of all music streaming services, they offer true Hi-Fi quality for the same price Spotify charges for their base tier and they even upgraded all Hi-Fi members to Hi-Fi Plus for free recently.
Nestlé is a big enough campany that you just have to live with not buying their products I guess… Although there are pretty good alternatives for stuff like frozen pizza (Dr. Oetker is pretty good if that’s available where you live) and chocolate (Tony’s Chocolonely ftw).
I was asking only about the technology stuff actually so huge thanks, mom likes Nestlé’s milk for some reason, me not, their products are always of higher price even water.
I keep hearing good things about the pixel, but the problem is that Google doesn’t make that much phones, while Samsung has devices for every price (As, Js, Ss, …etc) and even if you’re screwed it’s not like Wiko (traume intensifies). I don’t hate TikTok specifically but yeah I hate bloatware on my devices, I used to have even Youtube and Chrome uninstalled back when I had a smart phone (J4+ was my brother’s choice for me)
Motorola for phones. Does everything you need with a near AOSP android. Affordable too. good official support, and good community support with lineageos
Bad dragon, my tiny rose petal still gets sore on rainy days
Many store-brand foods because they’re made with half garbage.
HP - their printers and subscription models pissed me off so much that I want nothing to do with them.
Apple - 'nuff said
HiSense - they make appliances and they’re junk
All bottled water - no one needs them and it’s plastic that’s here forever
Temu - disposable shit
Bath and Body Works - the creators of microbeads (plastic) hand soap
Teflon - poisoned my town’s water
Chick-fil-A - evangelist food, no thanks
All bottled water - no one needs them and it’s plastic that’s here forever
Depends on where you live. It’s a bit ignorant to say “no one needs them”. Also sometimes you have no choice, like maybe in an airport.
Yes yes, exceptions.
I live in one of the worst cities regarding lead in the drinking water though, thanks to old pipes, but a waterfilter solved all this.
LG, Nestlé, Coke-Cola, Amazon, TikTok, Temu, any big brand bank, ASUS, Johnson Outdoors brands (jetboil, scuba pro)
Edit:forgot Tyson foods and Hormel. Their fucking over chicken farmers.
Why ASUS? I used to have one of their routers but aside from that I don’t know much about them.
Walmart and Sam’s Club.
You know you’re probably dealing with the baddies when the Criticism and Controversy section of your main article on Wikipedia grows to the point where it links to another Criticism of Walmart main article.
For some companies, I wish they didn’t name it “criticisms” or “controversies”; it could literally just be “crimes”. Like Chiquita fruit funding death squads isn’t really controversial. Same thing with child slavery for chocolate companies.
