If a lot of people do it, it could have a bigger impact than all 1000 of us or however many who are on a permanent boycott. You have to meet people where they are at and give them the next step in the process.
It's a start. Just boycotting for a week, while a small drop, serves two purposes. First (assuming it registers), it's a warning shot to the powers that be saying, "We are asking politely that you pick our side. We will get less polite." Second, it gets people who would otherwise not resist more comfortable with it. Just as with evil, if one can go from A to B then B to C because C is not much more than B, the same incremental approach can be used for pro-social behaviors, too. In other words, not buying from Amazon for a week makes it easier to talk to friends about resisting, which makes it easier to go to a march, which makes it easier to...so on and so forth.
That said, I doubt that this will have much of an effect on Amazon or the other powers that be. If it registers, it will be a small blip. With continued action, that blip will grow.
Do you have a habitat re-store close? They are a thrift store for house shit.
Also, if you have an ace hardware, they are a co-op. Helps keep money in your community. Mine started giving me local pricing once they figured out I live a few blocks over. Just wish they had more.
Love love love my local restore. Some are better than others but it's always fun to go in with minimal expectations. I have had a lot of luck hoping to find that piece I'm looking for but I don't get upset if I can't find it.
I honestly don't know what the "don't buy anything" protest is supposed to do. Everyone is going to buy extra stuff on the 27th and then just do all of their catch-up spending on the 29th. This isn't going to affect companies at all.
the point isn't to impact companies... no one's expecting a single day boycott to end capitalism. that's ridiculous.
small events leading up to bigger ones is part of growing a movement, of testing how far you can count on people to support your cause. these types of actions are test runs to see if people have any capacity whatsoever for organizing and acting together in unison.
some leftists (other commenters in this thread who were gatekeeping) are too smart for their own good, and think that we can get millions to go on a general strike overnight or enact some dramatic v for vendetta moment. turns out, deeply individualist Americans conditioned by a lifetime of isolation and atomized existence need a little gradual coaxing sometimes.
It's a show of support and organization. It's a warning that "We are able to organize enough people to make this much of an impact for 1 day, if nothing changes then next time it will be longer."
The fact that we can't advocate for the only obvious solution shows that systematized mass censorship has worked, they just know where the line they really care about is.
Maybe you could get away with it in some Lemmy instances, but any sort of mass organization around the issue would be done on platforms that would squelch the opposition before it even formed.
That's my point. That program is even more esoteric than Lemmy and Lemmy already would not be a large enough platform to do anything with. Even if people might agree if you laid out a long list of arguments for the movement, you couldn't get it in front of enough eyes because you're not allowed to post it to Facebook or Twitter or YouTube.
I asked my little sister (19) who is pretty far left if she knew about any of these. She did not know about a single one.
Part of the problem with an echo chamber is that no outside voices get in, BUT (and more relevant to this conversation) your voices also never leave because you guys only interact with other people who already share all your same opinions 24/7.
None of these events will ever do anything if you can't get other people involved.
That's part of the problem with the media circle we're in here in the U.S. - 4 of the richest American own and run 7/10 the most popular websites on the entire internet. The people who need to be reached won't leave their platform because it's all they know.
The only way to actually reach people, to actually make change, is IRL. Write letters, attend protests, invite people to protests, encourage discussion outside an online space.
That's certainly part of the problem. But my comment was more directed at these protests being planned almost exclusively in spaces that are already deeply saturated in left leaning opinions and people.
This is like screaming about the dangers of Satanism while inside a mega church surrounded by people who already agree with you. Not gonna do much.
But if you do that same screaming about satanism somewhere where you aren't surrounded by people who already agree you have a much better chance of reaching a new audience.
My main problem with them is that they were on a federal goddamned holiday.
Everyone met at empty state capitols to protest, in a way that would inconvenience and send a message to literally none of the people who should be receiving it.
It was something in Denver. There were tons of people, even in the snow. Many, many blocks were shut down. My 15 minute drive turned into an hour and some change just trying to get South of the Capitol. I saw a lot of news crews, too.
Hey everyone! Let's break down why that viral campaign idea might not hit as hard as hoped. If we're calling for a day to make companies feel the pain, here's the thing—consumers can be pretty quick on their feet. People might just push their shopping a few days ahead instead of waiting.
Think about it: if I was planning to buy something on February 28th, maybe I'll just do my shopping on March 1st or even February 29th if that's when the sale is happening. Companies are usually managing their finances monthly or quarterly, so one day's dip in sales won't make a huge difference. They've likely already accounted for those numbers in their budget.
Plus, with all the online shopping and delivery options out there, people can buy what they need anytime, making it easy to avoid any specific "buying panic" on that targeted day. Companies might even use this time to up-sell or promote other products to make up for any lost sales.
So, while the idea sounds powerful, it's probably not going to cause the big change people are hoping for. We'll just keep shopping as usual, and companies will keep humming along without much of a financial hiccup. And hey, maybe people will even forget about the whole thing after a week! This is nothing other than a "feel good" activity people can do, but it's really not going to hurt any business in a significant way.
If you REALLY want to have an effect, boycott a business over a long enough period that it shows up in their revenue reports. Of course, I expect "don't buy gas for a year" to not be that feasible, so maybe the approach of limiting buying is just fundamentally flawed, especially with goods that you can't live without, like gas or food.
Other people have pointed out, and I will echo: there are plenty of people who have not yet been moved to take any action, and a "symbolic" action is something as opposed to nothing. People who decide to take this symbolic action are going to be more easily moved to take more directly effective action in the future.
Building a critical mass takes time. Providing people with easy opportunities to experience involvement now will increase the number of people willing to take on greater risks later.
Blind people can't read it. Its disallowed by most communities. It can't be indexed by search engines. It takes up unnecessary space. Users can't find-in-page for the content or copy-and-paste to share it.
Its bad in every way, and op should receive a temp ban for this.
Of course, you are welcome to start your own community, with blackjack and hookers, and ban whoever you like from it for whatever reasons you deem appropriate.
Nobody should get punished for not going out of their way to make something accessible for 1-2% of the population. At least not a random person on the Internet sharing a meme or whatever.
Do you go around yelling at speaking people for not providing sign language translations for all the videos they share?
I hope that you never have any control over another soul. You sound like the type of person that would abuse the tiniest amount of power if given the opportunity.
I wouldn't know how to distinguish all of these calls for protest lately from astroturfing campaigns.
Are there really no institutions left in the US you can rally behind and who are big and experienced enough to call for organised protests? What are the biggest non-governmental progressive or liberal institutions in the US anyway?
We're so doomed if people think not buying from Amazon for a week is brave and strong.
If a lot of people do it, it could have a bigger impact than all 1000 of us or however many who are on a permanent boycott. You have to meet people where they are at and give them the next step in the process.
It's a start. Just boycotting for a week, while a small drop, serves two purposes. First (assuming it registers), it's a warning shot to the powers that be saying, "We are asking politely that you pick our side. We will get less polite." Second, it gets people who would otherwise not resist more comfortable with it. Just as with evil, if one can go from A to B then B to C because C is not much more than B, the same incremental approach can be used for pro-social behaviors, too. In other words, not buying from Amazon for a week makes it easier to talk to friends about resisting, which makes it easier to go to a march, which makes it easier to...so on and so forth.
That said, I doubt that this will have much of an effect on Amazon or the other powers that be. If it registers, it will be a small blip. With continued action, that blip will grow.
All efforts, great and small.
Cancelled my prime earlier this month. Surprised how little I’ve needed it since
How much stuff do you usually order online that you're surprised by that?
I own a home, so fairly often. My local hardware store died a couple years ago, so it’s been a game of what’s cheaper, Lowe’s, Home Depot, or Amazon.
Do you have a habitat re-store close? They are a thrift store for house shit.
Also, if you have an ace hardware, they are a co-op. Helps keep money in your community. Mine started giving me local pricing once they figured out I live a few blocks over. Just wish they had more.
Hadn’t heard of re-store, I’ll check it out thanks
https://www.habitat.org/volunteer/near-you/find-your-local-habitat
make it easy for ya
Love love love my local restore. Some are better than others but it's always fun to go in with minimal expectations. I have had a lot of luck hoping to find that piece I'm looking for but I don't get upset if I can't find it.
I'm doing my part
Every step counts. I'd rather 1 person ditch Amazon for a week than 10 people do nothing because they don't think 1 week is enough.
Okay, but I've bought one item in the last five years on a throwaway account. It's trivial to drop them.
IMO when stuff gets bad enough, this stuff will start to get around by word of mouth.
Why would you buy after a week? Don't be a an asshole
I honestly don't know what the "don't buy anything" protest is supposed to do. Everyone is going to buy extra stuff on the 27th and then just do all of their catch-up spending on the 29th. This isn't going to affect companies at all.
you have to crawl before you can walk.
the point isn't to impact companies... no one's expecting a single day boycott to end capitalism. that's ridiculous.
small events leading up to bigger ones is part of growing a movement, of testing how far you can count on people to support your cause. these types of actions are test runs to see if people have any capacity whatsoever for organizing and acting together in unison.
some leftists (other commenters in this thread who were gatekeeping) are too smart for their own good, and think that we can get millions to go on a general strike overnight or enact some dramatic v for vendetta moment. turns out, deeply individualist Americans conditioned by a lifetime of isolation and atomized existence need a little gradual coaxing sometimes.
It's a show of support and organization. It's a warning that "We are able to organize enough people to make this much of an impact for 1 day, if nothing changes then next time it will be longer."
nOtHiNg EvEr aCCoMpLiShES aNyThInG!
you don't get to tell everyone else THE RIGHT WAY ™ to protest.
The fact that we can't advocate for the only obvious solution shows that systematized mass censorship has worked, they just know where the line they really care about is.
Maybe you could get away with it in some Lemmy instances, but any sort of mass organization around the issue would be done on platforms that would squelch the opposition before it even formed.
Only peer-to-peer decentralized networks should be used for that type of organization. For example, I2P.
That's my point. That program is even more esoteric than Lemmy and Lemmy already would not be a large enough platform to do anything with. Even if people might agree if you laid out a long list of arguments for the movement, you couldn't get it in front of enough eyes because you're not allowed to post it to Facebook or Twitter or YouTube.
I asked my little sister (19) who is pretty far left if she knew about any of these. She did not know about a single one.
Part of the problem with an echo chamber is that no outside voices get in, BUT (and more relevant to this conversation) your voices also never leave because you guys only interact with other people who already share all your same opinions 24/7.
None of these events will ever do anything if you can't get other people involved.
That's part of the problem with the media circle we're in here in the U.S. - 4 of the richest American own and run 7/10 the most popular websites on the entire internet. The people who need to be reached won't leave their platform because it's all they know.
The only way to actually reach people, to actually make change, is IRL. Write letters, attend protests, invite people to protests, encourage discussion outside an online space.
That's certainly part of the problem. But my comment was more directed at these protests being planned almost exclusively in spaces that are already deeply saturated in left leaning opinions and people.
This is like screaming about the dangers of Satanism while inside a mega church surrounded by people who already agree with you. Not gonna do much.
But if you do that same screaming about satanism somewhere where you aren't surrounded by people who already agree you have a much better chance of reaching a new audience.
My main problem with them is that they were on a federal goddamned holiday.
Everyone met at empty state capitols to protest, in a way that would inconvenience and send a message to literally none of the people who should be receiving it.
I honestly would believe this was actually planned by some trolls the dates seem so ineffective.
Hey that's not true I also interact with people that have the same opinion on other social media 😉
It was something in Denver. There were tons of people, even in the snow. Many, many blocks were shut down. My 15 minute drive turned into an hour and some change just trying to get South of the Capitol. I saw a lot of news crews, too.
Great to hear too bad it wasn't shown in the International media
There were at least 200 people at my states Capitol. It may have been closer to 300.
The amazon protest should be ez pz. I already don't buy from them
Hey everyone! Let's break down why that viral campaign idea might not hit as hard as hoped. If we're calling for a day to make companies feel the pain, here's the thing—consumers can be pretty quick on their feet. People might just push their shopping a few days ahead instead of waiting.
Think about it: if I was planning to buy something on February 28th, maybe I'll just do my shopping on March 1st or even February 29th if that's when the sale is happening. Companies are usually managing their finances monthly or quarterly, so one day's dip in sales won't make a huge difference. They've likely already accounted for those numbers in their budget.
Plus, with all the online shopping and delivery options out there, people can buy what they need anytime, making it easy to avoid any specific "buying panic" on that targeted day. Companies might even use this time to up-sell or promote other products to make up for any lost sales.
So, while the idea sounds powerful, it's probably not going to cause the big change people are hoping for. We'll just keep shopping as usual, and companies will keep humming along without much of a financial hiccup. And hey, maybe people will even forget about the whole thing after a week! This is nothing other than a "feel good" activity people can do, but it's really not going to hurt any business in a significant way.
If you REALLY want to have an effect, boycott a business over a long enough period that it shows up in their revenue reports. Of course, I expect "don't buy gas for a year" to not be that feasible, so maybe the approach of limiting buying is just fundamentally flawed, especially with goods that you can't live without, like gas or food.
As always: all efforts, great and small.
Other people have pointed out, and I will echo: there are plenty of people who have not yet been moved to take any action, and a "symbolic" action is something as opposed to nothing. People who decide to take this symbolic action are going to be more easily moved to take more directly effective action in the future.
Building a critical mass takes time. Providing people with easy opportunities to experience involvement now will increase the number of people willing to take on greater risks later.
This is why we don't gatekeep resistance.
Your both right, get folks started, they weren't sure how to help. This is step one
[email protected] can we please pin this post?
You forgot the leading @, but I'm paying attention, so I saw this comment.
I think you're on to something, but I think I might have a better idea for a "what events are going on" thing to pin. Hold please.
Here you go:
https://fedia.io/m/Resist/t/1822896/Find-political-action-events-near-you
Please don't post images of text
I'm old, and I don't personally understand the "images of text" thing all the time, but the kids seem to like it.
Blind people can't read it. Its disallowed by most communities. It can't be indexed by search engines. It takes up unnecessary space. Users can't find-in-page for the content or copy-and-paste to share it.
Its bad in every way, and op should receive a temp ban for this.
No.
Yes. All they have to do is type the text if they want to share it here. Low effort posts of text in pictures is ban worthy
I refer you to my previous comment.
Of course, you are welcome to start your own community, with blackjack and hookers, and ban whoever you like from it for whatever reasons you deem appropriate.
I refer you to my previous comment
They should get banned for posting an image that contains text? Hahahahaha.
You are delusional.
You are an ablest.
No I'm a realist.
I am legally blind without my glasses.
Nobody should get punished for not going out of their way to make something accessible for 1-2% of the population. At least not a random person on the Internet sharing a meme or whatever.
Do you go around yelling at speaking people for not providing sign language translations for all the videos they share?
Get real.
Lol wut. We dont expect people to translate it. The requirement is to copy and paste instead of screenshot.
It's not asking much. And bans are the best way to remind people that screenshots of text are not welcome here.
Bans are the best way to remind people that backseat moderating is not welcome here.
I hope that you never have any control over another soul. You sound like the type of person that would abuse the tiniest amount of power if given the opportunity.
I wouldn't know how to distinguish all of these calls for protest lately from astroturfing campaigns.
Are there really no institutions left in the US you can rally behind and who are big and experienced enough to call for organised protests? What are the biggest non-governmental progressive or liberal institutions in the US anyway?
But what if I stock up before 28th February?