Boycotting Blight Corporations
A list of all the companies I’m boycotting.
Blight Corporation n.
Me, Who is it okay to steal from?
a company whose methods are significantly more harmful than helpful for most people globally
I’m not explaining the “why” for most of these blight corporations because many are obvious or easily findable. Feel free to ask if you have trouble figuring it out, of course.
Scroll past the lists to read about my methodology for deciding and executing boycotts.
Complete Boycott
I do my best to avoid any of my consumerism or investments benefiting any of these companies.
Amazon, Walmart, Target
Few retail companies are worse for the world than Amazon, but Walmart forged that exploitative path and is doing their best to keep up. Target was once slightly better, but those days have passed.
Replacements: borrow tools from neighbors, thrifting, local businesses, Costco, just don’t buy it (you probably don’t really need it)
Israel
The Boycott List — boycott-israel.org
Some specifics I specifically stopped buying:
- AirBnB
- Booking.com
- Expedia
- Puma
- Sabra (Hummus)
- Sodastream
- TripAdvisor
- Zara
Replacements: Pretty easy to find or do without
Meta, Twitter, TikTok
Social media may be doing more harm to the world than we realize, and we realize quite a lot. Meta and Twitter are the absolute worst, but I’m not convinced any of them are good for us.
Replacements:
- How to Delete Facebook and Instagram Without Regret
- Chat: Signal, Text Messaging, Email, Discord (for now)
- Newsfeed: RSS Feeds, Bluesky (for now)
- Event Organization: Calendar Apps, Email, Discord (for now)
- Video: Nebula (let me know if you want a Guest Pass), YouTube (for now)
Autism Speaks
Many organizations dedicated to disabilities or marginalization are run by excluding and problematizing/pathologizing the human beings with those categorizations. In the case of autism, most of them are run by parents of autistic children without the consent or input of those children. And, of course, eugenicists.
Replacements: (Actually Autistic People) Dr. Devon Price, Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), Autism Women & Nonbinary Network (AWN)
Chick-Fil-A
It’s not like fried chicken sandwiches are hard to find. Even Wendy’s does pretty well with them (and they’re open Sundays).
Replacements: Many local restaurants, my kitchen (both taste better anyway)
Nestle
They’re so huge that it can be hard to avoid their products, but I try.
- Perrier
- Nescafé
- Nespresso
- NIDO
- Gerber
- Cerelac
- Kit Kat
- Crunch
- Smarties
- Häagen-Dazs
- Purina
- Boost
- Stouffer’s
- Lean Cuisine
- Milo
- Nestea
- PowerBar
Coca-Cola, Pepsi
It’s easy for me to avoid them since I avoid corn syrup and carbonation anyway, but I go with indie soda companies on the rare occasions I partake.
The New York Times
Replacements: ProPublica, Reuters, The AP
Partial Boycott
It’s difficult to boycott some things. Most of these partial boycotts are ones I’m trying to upgrade to complete ones.
Disney
I’d love to boycott Disney completely, but I’m also glad I didn’t miss out on Andor. Most of what Disney produces is pig slurry not fit for human consumption, but they do occasionally create something great and I will cross my own picket line for that special thing a few times per year.
Replacements: Netflix, HBO Max, Crunchyroll
I switched to DuckDuckGo when Google starting showing AI content in search results. They’d been evil for a long time before then, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Sadly, I’m not boycotting their other products. There truly isn’t a better suite of basic “office” software that meets my needs. The closest competitors are equally shitty companies and/or far less functional products.
Microsoft
Slightly worse than Google ethically, and massively worse than Google in product quality, Microsoft Windows is nearly impossible for me to boycott so far, but I’m slowly learning Linux for when it eventually becomes entirely intolerable. Windows 11 is very close to intolerable.
I also obviously can’t boycott software my workplace selects for us.
I switch off all data reporting features I can and refuse to install any optional Microsoft software.
Apple
Apple makes an art out of stepping a hair’s breadth over the extremely low bar of its industry. It’s rare that they’re the absolute lone worst among their competitors on any issue.
I own an iPhone and (re-used, gifted) MacBook. I really enjoy Severance and a few other shows on Apple TV+. But otherwise, I tend to avoid them. I don’t buy music from iTunes, I use third party accessories, and I switch off all the data sharing I can.
Starbucks
Honestly I still go a dozen times per year or so, but each time I make sure to feel the appropriate shame. We refer to it as “scab coffee” even if we go to one of the few unionized locations. While traveling, it’s hard to endure flying without them, but sometimes a terminal has alternatives I’ll walk further for.
Sous Vide Egg Bites were a staple of my low-carb diet. I’ve found multiple substitutes and even learned to make them myself at home during the pandemic, but some mornings are tough and I shamefully cross my own picket line to get them. The seasonal Caramel Brûlée Latte is a comfort drink during difficult winter months.
Replacements: Usually easy to find, (see recipe links in the text above)
Any Fortune 500 Company
Any publicly traded company, the higher up this list the better, deserves a boycott. Every chance I get, I try to shop local and small. I try to walk there or use public transit.
Aspiring Boycott
Spotify
I attempted to use so many other music products, and none of them worked well enough to do everything I use Spotify for. I’m waiting for them to be meaningfully disrupted or (even better perhaps) regulated into paying artists far better.
The U.S. Government
It’d be great to boycott one of the most destructive fascist empires in history if I could do it without being jailed and/or killed. In my view, this is not a viable route toward correcting this young country’s course. It’d be nice if we had a way to do that safely.
How I Choose to Boycott
See a quick definition of a blight corporation at the top of this page or read the more detailed explanation — complete with a list of several corporate actions I feel justify the designation — in my article Who is it okay to steal from?.
I also specifically target companies that shit on me or my loved ones. These usually include racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and ableist policies. Choose your own priorities and values and try your best to live those values. This tedious and difficult work has lifted my baseline self confidence and happiness, so I recommend it for everyone.
I don’t project my values to all of society the way arrogant philosophers do. I don’t care about slippery slopes, and most of the time I’d rejoice if everyone made the same mindful choices I do. I’m also a living, changing creature, so if I learn my actions still caused harm I’d adjust them.
What I Do When Boycotting
To the best of my ability, I:
- Spend no money that I know will lead to their coffers
- Prevent them from gathering and storing data or other assets
- Disparage them openly
- Pay no attention to their ads
- Shame* others for doing so
*As kindly and light-heartedly as I can without letting it pass unnoticed.
If I can’t fully boycott them, I do as much of the above as possible.
Modified Web Searches
One way to make our life easier while avoiding certain companies is to exclude them from our searches. And using a bookmark to maintain our exclusions is super easy.
If you didn’t know, you can type -site:amazon.com in your search query to avoid seeing results from them.
You can also use the small three dots icon next to each search result to have them update your search for you.
You can also bookmark a sample search with all these companies excluded so you can easily shop, browse, and find reputable sources without too much disruption to basic searching.
How to get yours:
- Search for something in your favorite search engine.
- Scroll through the results until you find a company you want to boycott.
- Use the three dots next to the result to exclude that site from your results.
- Bookmark the page after it refreshes.
- Edit the bookmark as you like, and place it somewhere easy to reach so you can click it any time you want to search.
My Search Bookmarks
To use as an example.
My query:"Corry Frydlewicz" -site:amazon.com -site:amazon.com.au -site:amazon.co.uk -site:amazon.ca -site:amazon.sg -site:autismspeaks.org -site:booking.com -site:expedia.com -site:facebook.com -site:instagram.com -site:meta.com -site:lowes.com -site:nytimes.com -site:target.com -site:tripadvisor.com -site:walmart.com -site:zara.com
Ethical Consumption
“No ethical consumption under capitalism”
she muttered the exonerating mantra,
clicking checkout for a cute skirt
from a drop-shipper’s Instagram ad.
This, like most of reality, is not an all-or-nothing binary choice. Most of us can’t eat without participating in the exploitation of migrant farm workers, but there are degrees to that participation. I make an effort to minimize my negative impact. Performing “wokeness” during mindless consumption amounts to nothing — arguably less than nothing, because it cheapens your message.
“But I waaaant it…”
I don’t believe in The Death of the Author. I don’t want to experience a eugenicist’s vision for a fantasy or future world. This is especially true in matters of accountability, and allowing awful people to profit from my actions just doesn’t fly with me.
Luckily, for those who still want to enjoy a product despite its problematic creators, we have theft.
I may not understand why you enjoy Harry Potter, but if you must consume it I’ll cheer you on if you pirate the movies, books, and games.
To read more about this perspective, check out Who is it okay to steal from?
And remember, even if a problematic creator is dead, their estate or other associates own the intellectual property rights. You can look them up and see if they’re making the original creator’s wrongs right. Then, if they aren’t, keep boycotting!