Amazon Closing AmazonSmile • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#61

Post by orf » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 1:56 AM UTC

vwcx wrote: post #24

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...

The vast majority of those 1 million organizations received less than 100 dollars.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#62

Post by pjsg » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 1:56 AM UTC

I never understood how Amazon decided which orders qualified for Smile -- but now (too late) I know. It turns out that I only contributed $1.29 -- but my charity (EFF) received over $1M. I guess that this indicates that they did some good outreach at one point.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#63

Post by jvnnmfjvfjvflkj » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 1:57 AM UTC

ferminaut wrote: post #10

> 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."

[flagged]

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#64

Post by fnordpiglet » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 1:58 AM UTC

Amazon doesn’t have any employee match programs, but they had AmazonSmile. This matched their Customer Obsession leadership principle in a very smart way. Rather than making their charitable giving be directed by a foundation or employees, it let customers decide what mattered to them.

They highlight their charitable programs as a way of justifying the end of the Smile program. But those existed when Smile existed. It’s not a zero sum game as they imply. They took away an avenue customers got value out of, probably disproportionate to the value the charities received frankly, and that’s the end of the story. A sad day for customer obsession.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#65

Post by sn_master » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 1:58 AM UTC

I chose a charity but then barely ever donated anything because I would always forget to type the smile in the URL. It was a blatant technique to discourage donations.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#66

Post by FroshKiller » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 1:59 AM UTC

shepherdjerred wrote: post #43

While it's sad to see this program close, I feel like backlash isn't the answer. How are companies supposed to create beneficial programs like this if they know they're expected to keep it forever?

They seem pretty committed to pursuing profit forever. I would simply make it a part of my mission and have the integrity to stick to it.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#67

Post by s1mon » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 1:59 AM UTC

It's often not a surprise when I read about something that's been around for a while which is closing down, and a) it's something I should be likely to run into, either because it's where I live, or it has something to do with things that I follow regularly, and b) I've never heard of it.

This happens with restaurants where I live, and it happens with tech companies or features or divisions of companies. If your thing isn't getting noticed in the mass media or the social media, then it's unlikely to be as successful as things that are getting noticed. You don't even have to spend money on advertising or PR - as Tesla has shown - you just have to make a name for yourself somehow (not that Tesla is how I would do anything).

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#68

Post by kgwxd » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 1:59 AM UTC

patwolf wrote: post #25

I now reflexively start typing smile.amazon.com instead of amazon.com into the url bar. Hopefully the smile url will continue to work because it's going to take me a while to unlearn.

I think it would bad PR if they just redirect to www, people that think they're still generating money for charity wouldn't be too happy once they figure it out. I've personally chosen Amazon Smile specifically because of the donations when there were plenty of other options I would rather use if I'm not getting anything out of buying from Amazon. I'm sure I wouldn't notice if it just redirected.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#69

Post by anikom15 » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 1:59 AM UTC

iambateman wrote: post #14

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…

Honest? Why should we believe all of the Amazon smile purchases will continue and contribute to charity? If the program is getting scrapped, are we to believe Amazon is going to send 0.5% of everyone’s purchases to charity?

This is an attempt to recover revenue, nothing more.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#70

Post by kgwxd » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 2:00 AM UTC

Guess I'll just have to start donating to The Satanic Temple directly :/ And start shopping elsewhere when possible. The only reason Amazon was ever my first stop was because of Smile.