this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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You literally cannot escape these companies, they own everything. Every brand of every everything, and you've got a large corporation in there somewhere in the shadows. That's why they tell you to separate the art from the artist, because it's been made impossible to boycott anything.
Really? Maybe true for things like Nestlé but I don't use any of these services directly and it hasn't been difficult.
Chances are you‘re using AWS by Amazon daily and likely use an Apple or Google phone too. I personally don‘t think Paypal is worse than those. It‘s sheer impossible to escape them without ditching the Internet altogether.
You can choose a different service for your own hosting needs.
The same is true of PayPal. I've been banned for years (not sure why, maybe my account was compromised?), and it's never been an issue, I just pick a different payment method. I use Venmo occasionally, but Zelle also works for most uses, or I can bring cash or a check.
I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I only have a single payment option.
But you can't pick what others use for hosting, and the majority of big corps use AWS. At least that's the nudge that I think they were getting at.
True, my point is to focus on things you can control.
Isn't Venmo owned by PayPal?
Edit: Oh shit, duh. Totally forgot what thread I was commenting on.
Yes. But was talking about PayPal brands specifically. Let's not forget musk's involvement with the early days of PayPal. That's always been a turn off for me too.
I can easily avoid every company owned by PayPal.
And use what? Mastercard? Visa? Your local bank institute?
All are deep into shit of gambling our money (financial speculation) for profit.
I don't care if companies speculate or if they make a profit.
Well...I don't see any interests arriving on my end. At best maybe 0.25%
Meanwhile 2nd yacht or whatever.
You can get much better rates if you are willing to lock your savings in for at least few months. Short term treasury bonds are 4-5% right now.
And if I don't like Visa or MasterCard, I can use Discover or American Express. In fact, I don't like MasterCard (got caught sharing data with Google), so I switched to other cards (probably just as bad, but it's about sending a message).
I wish I could say the same, I use PayPal very frequently because my credit union doesn’t support debit-visa. With PayPal I can make payments with my bank online rather than use my cc.
Ah that's interesting, all the banks around me stopped issuing ATM cards and only issue debit cards nowadays. I wish I wasn't required to have a debit card with those banks - I purposely tell my banks to disable debit/POS features on the debit card so it is only functional at ATMs.
All that aside you should consider getting a credit card or a prepaid credit card for those types of transactions. It's safer to separate your bank account from your day-to-day payments/shopping, not great when someone gets access to your debit card which then gives them direct access to your bank account balance. At least with a credit card those situations are just a dispute that never affect your actual money in the bank.
I work in a servo/convenience store and about 3/4 of our drink fridges (all 10 or so doors worth) are the same 4 brands. Probably most of the store is covered under like 7 brands.
Coke, Pepsi, Schweppes, Nestle, Unilever and there goes almost everything edible and drinkable that isn't fresh.
Disagree, haven't touched PayPal or anything related to PayPal in years without issue.
When PayPal bought Venmo I stopped using them too. And long before that stopped using Ebay back when PayPal/Ebay were tied together.
Eh, I don't even care who owns PayPal, I avoid it because it's annoying. Zelle is less annoying because it's through my bank, but I honestly just want regular ACH.
I just finished removing all my payment methods from paypal and have to wait for a transaction to complete before I can delete the account entirely. Took less than 15 minutes.
Who are "they" and who says that that is valid advice?
"Separate the artist..." is fairly accepted by any decent people I know as a way for selfish people to forgive themselves the burden of minor personal sacrifices related to their own consumer activities. The long form is literally, "Yes, Michael Jackson did horrible things to that little boy's butthole, Woody Allen molested his daughter and married his adopted child and Bill Cosby drugged and raped women for decades, but let's go buy their movie/album!" - you likely wouldn't say the long form through, would you? You would hide and obfuscate behind, "sepatate the artist..." So you don't have to say the bad things out loud.
Nobody with any integrity buys into "separate the artist..."
Also, to your point about this post, again it's a similarly lazy way to forgive yourself the burden of trying to stay aware of these things and making little changes to how you vote with your wallet. You can absolutely do something like go shop at Costco this week instead of target - as one performatively eliminated diversity programs at their company while one preserved them as a stand. That's where your opinion falls apart because yes, you can likely find something to hate Costco as well (because they are all garbage companies, but there are shades, they aren't all equal. You have to participate to function, but you can do the slightest amount of work to shop more consciously. But that is the work you are trying to forgive yourself of.
The point isn't perfection, but to do enough for this week and try again next week. Before you know it, you're shopping more consciously wherever you go.