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?
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…
- Nestle (not easy because the branding is not always obvious, but once you have it memorized it’s no problem)
- Tesla (easy because the cars are shit anyways)
- Müller (Luxembourg dairy product company that has close ties to the German fascist party AfD. Relatively easy but they do have some subbrands that are not obvious) [EDIT: more info]
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.
