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By starting a program and saying "for the next x amount of time, this is what we're doing".
That's not a bad idea. I wonder if companies do this today. I expect cynical HN commenters would make the similarly snarky comments about how X company is only committing to Y time period.
> All US charities have received $400,026,236.70 as of December 2022. $400 million in donations to charities and Amazon has the gall to say "the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped."
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they could've simply made an ethics committee and removed certain options while still giving users some choice...
The fun part of Amazon Smile was that it let customers decide how they wanted to change the world…but now they’ve decided they - Amazon - know better, thank you very much. This is surprisingly honest for corporatespeak and I think reflects the god-complex which tends to follow people who spend a lot of time taking in billions of dollars. The reality is there were a lot of charities - maybe even most of them - who wer…
> …but now they’ve decided they - Amazon - know better, thank you very much. Or, a less cynical take is that they really can have more impact by focusing on fewer charities. Another commenter posted Amazon Smile's Form 990 from 2018 [1], the most recent year on Pro Publica's website that has a full listing of all the charities that received funds. The total PDF is 2121 pages long, and the list of charities starts on…
Not "actual worth to society."
A market based, consumer driven approach like Amazon Smile, is likely optimal.
Consumers, on average, are very effective and logical choosers (on average).
Amazon Smile was likely a highly effective program.
Issue is, Amazon now wants to redirect its customer's dollars to improve its reputation.
It's amazing to look at the AmazonSmile form 990. It's a 2000 page pdf with a list of every charity that received a donation along with the amount: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/46262...
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There were seemingly odd hoops for customers to jump through to have their purchases qualify for Smile. Didn't type in the 'smile' URL? Too bad, no donation for you. One of the oddest was requiring push notifications in order for mobile purchases to count ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21233815 ).
I always assumed having to type the smile domain was more about making sure they didn't have to make both an affiliate payment and a smile payment on the same order. Seemed like an easy way to cut off affiliates while appearing to be generous. Maybe I'm just too cynical.
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There's no grounds in the TOS to boot anything that's not a hate group as identified by the SPLC or ADL. Amazon doesn't want to get set up with a lawsuit if they boot a group outside of those bounds on either side of the aisle or if they try to change the rules to fit one group or another.
The fun part of Amazon Smile was that it let customers decide how they wanted to change the world…but now they’ve decided they - Amazon - know better, thank you very much. This is surprisingly honest for corporatespeak and I think reflects the god-complex which tends to follow people who spend a lot of time taking in billions of dollars. The reality is there were a lot of charities - maybe even most of them - who wer…
> …but now they’ve decided they - Amazon - know better, thank you very much. Or, a less cynical take is that they really can have more impact by focusing on fewer charities. Another commenter posted Amazon Smile's Form 990 from 2018 [1], the most recent year on Pro Publica's website that has a full listing of all the charities that received funds. The total PDF is 2121 pages long, and the list of charities starts on…
I am highly skeptical of wisdom of utilitarianism in charitable giving. No one has non-toy models so the math is all made up nonsense. More importantly, proximity between the giver and the recipient has profound agency effects that are completely ignored by most utilitarians. You tend to get better outcomes when you allow agents to center their personal projects, even if resources aren't optimally allocated when ignoring this "agent centering effect".
In addition to the criticism raised by others: just look at the new list of 'approved' charities. Holy cow. Talk about ineffective altruism! Obligatory Links: https://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/09/politics-isnt-a.html https://blog.givewell.org/2009/12/14/charity-isnt-about-help... https://www.amazon.com/The-Elephant-in-Brain-audiobook/dp/B0...