511–520 of 581 posts
1. If you want to support this writer, there are Amazon links at https://dahosek.com/publications/ (click on the book covers).
This may have a bigger impact than they think. Is Amazon good for the world? For some, the answer is no but still buy at Amazon as any sins are compensated by the the small donation to a NGO of choice.
I don't think the sins of Amazon are any worse than most other major U.S. retailers.
I really do think the expiration is coming up on Amazon too, with the same 15 year run. You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the bad guy.
As a board member of an organization that was benefiting from Amazon Smile, this is just the lamest set of excuses I've ever seen. Amazon should have said: "We're cutting this because we don't want to maintain it, it hasn't been staffed, and isn't focused in our core business (making money)" I would have believed that.
When I buy stuff from Amazon, I always first click through an affiliate link so that (a) I can reduce Amazon’s profit by some minuscule amount and (2) I can direct some money to some person or organization out of money I would spend anyway. I’m usually going to some writer’s¹ website to make the purchase. 1. If you want to support this writer, there are Amazon links at https://dahosek.com/publications/ (click on the…
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But they lost it all by betting on Rivian https://twitter.com/EconomyApp/status/1578475690772508672/ph...
No, not really. Equity loss is unrealized loss -- it's just on paper because the stock price is down. If Rivian's share price goes back up, that loss becomes a gain. Whereas the $3B net profit is real money they can put into their coffers (or share with shareholders). Edit: now if Rivian goes bankrupt and delists, then yes, at that point Amazon does lose however many $Bs they invested which they will put as a write-o…
All I know is that I’m not going to like the charities that Amazon picks, and I will not be participating if I can help it.
This is a massive loss in terms of marketing.
This seems incredibly poorly done from a PR perspective and there's no way to make this headline read well for them. Why not create and announce they're moving to something like "Amazon GiveBack" that gives some sliders to users to vote on the allocation? Sure, people could still call them out on how it's a reduction of what they're donating, but there's a much higher chance the headline reads well for them. As it is…
> that gives some sliders to users to vote on the allocation? A lot of charities tend to side with one political affiliation or the other. When people see %not their political affiliations% charity, they take it personally, and try to boycott the service. So this might do more harm than good.
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Technically it's Amazon's money, not yours. You can't write the donations off on your taxes, for example.
Maybe I'm out of the loop but why not?
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Unpopular opinion, but charities are like carbon credits. Most of the money goes into people’s pockets and very less percentage of the donations actually make it towards helping the cause they run on. Very few legitimately use the money in the way we expect it to be used. So I’m okay with them losing $400M.
Use CharityNavigator.org or GuideStar to verify charities' overhead %s, at least in the US! The information is only a click away. There are good charities that do spend 70-99% of their revenues on their cause. And there are high-profile charities that don't.
If you’re a charity that say collects for homeless people, even if the charity says they spend 90% on the cause, the actual benefits to the homeless people is actually close to maybe 30-50%. They creatively spend money “for the cause” like printing pamphlets or spending on a fundraising event or hiring a “consultant” to strategize on how to fix homelessness or plenty of others.
I knew before posting that my comment was going to be downvoted. But it was made from a place of hurt after being involved in multiple charities big and small. There are genuine grassroots community based charities that work well. But they are few. Most well run charities spend at best 60% of the money wisely.
I don't understand all the people "calling bullshit" on the reason Amazon provided. Of course Amazon's reason is bullshit. Amazon knows their reason is bullshit. Amazon knows that you know the reason is bullshit. It's called saving face.