Amazon Closing AmazonSmile(aboutamazon.com)
aboutamazon.com
Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-closing-amazonsmile-to-focus-its-philanthropic-giving-to-programs-with-greater-impact
578 comments
Kinda off topic but why do grade school kids need a MacBook air?
Chromebooks seem to be the standard nowadays. At least that is what are issued by the school around here (Midwest US).
My first thought is that if someone can't afford a computer, wouldn't they prefer to have a "lesser" computer and have the remaining difference in cash or necessities?
Maybe the donors are a little out of touch with what their recipients need. I'm sure they are appreciative of the computer, but there could be more impactful use of that money.
My first thought is that if someone can't afford a computer, wouldn't they prefer to have a "lesser" computer and have the remaining difference in cash or necessities?
Maybe the donors are a little out of touch with what their recipients need. I'm sure they are appreciative of the computer, but there could be more impactful use of that money.
We took the novel approach of having the instructors choose the platform they thought would enable them to deliver the best program. Then we sought to see if we could meet their request, and we were able to. Donors had no influence over that decision.
The computers cost about 40% of the overall budget. We had enough money to fulfill other aspects of the PTO’s program, PE, Art, Music, Dance, (the ‘A’ in STEAM that LAUSD skipped over) Robotics.
This was a magnet school with widely varied socioeconomic family profiles. And the PTO is not authorized by contract with the school to engage in other social programs. But those in need were covered by a) the Federal hot lunch program, and b) LAUSD-funded anyone on campus child or adult could have a free breakfast (of dubious quality, all carb no protein and for example, a 10% juice sugar-laden drink qualified as ‘fruit’) just for being on campus. Going hungry was by choice only. And you would not believe how much food is thrown away from the breakfast program. My wife fought hard to connect with local homeless shelters to send the food but school administrators put the kibosh on that.
So why should we opt for austerity when we had everything covered? Actual parents will always choose the best option within their reach.
The computers cost about 40% of the overall budget. We had enough money to fulfill other aspects of the PTO’s program, PE, Art, Music, Dance, (the ‘A’ in STEAM that LAUSD skipped over) Robotics.
This was a magnet school with widely varied socioeconomic family profiles. And the PTO is not authorized by contract with the school to engage in other social programs. But those in need were covered by a) the Federal hot lunch program, and b) LAUSD-funded anyone on campus child or adult could have a free breakfast (of dubious quality, all carb no protein and for example, a 10% juice sugar-laden drink qualified as ‘fruit’) just for being on campus. Going hungry was by choice only. And you would not believe how much food is thrown away from the breakfast program. My wife fought hard to connect with local homeless shelters to send the food but school administrators put the kibosh on that.
So why should we opt for austerity when we had everything covered? Actual parents will always choose the best option within their reach.
[deleted]
Good question. My elementary school/middle school had Macs. Even as a young child, I thought the appropriation of funds for that seemed wrong. I can’t think of a legitimate reason a school district needs luxury computers for children that are likely to spill stuff or otherwise ruin them.
We had 1-2 macs in a couple classroosm in my elementary school but this was early-mid 90s.
Do the majority of MacBook Air users or customers need them?
Though it feels wasteful (making assumptions about the use-cases) I’m guessing grade school kids need them for the same reasons or non-reasons as mostly everyone else.
That these are coming from a PTO fundraiser and not a tax-funded budget makes it okay in my book (setting aside the reality that other kids might attend schools with much less productive PTOs —a problem I think for a public system).
Though it feels wasteful (making assumptions about the use-cases) I’m guessing grade school kids need them for the same reasons or non-reasons as mostly everyone else.
That these are coming from a PTO fundraiser and not a tax-funded budget makes it okay in my book (setting aside the reality that other kids might attend schools with much less productive PTOs —a problem I think for a public system).
Some schools seem to be 100% Apple for all computers for decades.
I would think a Chromebook would be more fit for purpose here though.
I would think a Chromebook would be more fit for purpose here though.
You can get a nice, slim Chromebook with specs good enough for a high school student for a few hundred bucks. OTOH, a MacBook Air is $1000 and up.
Where's the reference to grade school coming from? It wasn't in the original post.
Do high school kids need macbook airs?
I don't know if high school kids need macbook airs, but I also don't see how that answers the question of where "grade school" was in the original comment
It's asking if either grade or high school needs it? I'm not aware of PTOs for colleges.
At least the old design (have not seen tear down of new design) seemed purpose built for schools It was relatively rugged with key components easily swapped. It was powerful enough to do many tasks far easier than an under powered Chromebook. A pool of Macbook Airs is relatively common. Most schools in my (relatively poor) area that issue students laptops tend to offer inexpensive Chromebooks.
OP didn’t say they were required. Maybe they are just beneficial. They are light, have a great battery life, connect without many issues to the sum of humanity’s explicit knowledge, etc.
“Why do people need xyz” deserves its own form of Betteridges headlines.
“Why do people need xyz” deserves its own form of Betteridges headlines.
Magnet should give you a hint.
jacooper(1)
Are you asking why they need a Mac or why they need a laptop?
Looks like Target stopped supporting schools through Target Red Card in 2016?
https://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/6232-tar...
https://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/6232-tar...
Coincidentally, same year we started homeschooling. Hence my ignorance on the topic.
Wait, you have a PTO for home schooled kids?
It's shortsighted for other reasons as well. On Android, you had to have notifications enabled in order to buy through Amazon Smile. Being able to deliver ads via push notification is a useful way to increase sales. I guess they weren't making enough money from it to cover the costs to charity?
Does Target Red Card offer charity donations like Amazon Smile? Asking for our PTO.
You don't even need the Red Card. Go into your Target app, go to your account, click on "Target Circle" and then you scroll down to where it says "Vote for NonProfits".
I only learned about this a few months ago. I saw that I had accrued like 80 "votes" for non-profits. So you can go in there and distribute your votes to applicable non-profits in the area and presumably each vote is worth a fixed amount that is sent to them.
I know very little about the program other than using it as a consumer over the last few months. But hopefully that helps. I don't have the Target Red Card. But I use the app for savings, so I scan the app when I checkout at Target and i've been accruing these votes the whole time without realizing.
I only learned about this a few months ago. I saw that I had accrued like 80 "votes" for non-profits. So you can go in there and distribute your votes to applicable non-profits in the area and presumably each vote is worth a fixed amount that is sent to them.
I know very little about the program other than using it as a consumer over the last few months. But hopefully that helps. I don't have the Target Red Card. But I use the app for savings, so I scan the app when I checkout at Target and i've been accruing these votes the whole time without realizing.
What's a PTA/PTO?
Parent Teacher Association/Organization, basically a parents group for a school.
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...
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/46262...
It's pretty cool that there are 19 pages with charities getting over $1k/yr. Each page has over 100 charities too! That's an insane amount of charities getting help. $1k might not seem like a lot, but for some of these groups it is, especially since it is likely in addition to other avenues of funding.
If anyone's wondering why this PDF is taking a while to load, it's 262MB.
Electronic Frontier Foundation and code.org were the 13th and 14th orgs with the most money donated.
It is pretty fascinating to read down the list and see what kind of orgs common people chose to donate to.
I wish there was a searchable text version.
It is pretty fascinating to read down the list and see what kind of orgs common people chose to donate to.
I wish there was a searchable text version.
The vast majority of those 1 million organizations received less than 100 dollars.
I suppose, it does bring me joy that a local no-kill shelter got $42,631.17 and I was able to get about $30 into that, its not ground breaking, but that's kind of the point of smile right. I guess I can donate out of my own pocket to the same shelter moving forward.
I wonder if some of these places were just really really good about advertising and asking their customers/community to give them a nod in their Prime accounts.
I'm not sure, but one of their locations did suffer from a fire within the past year, and they got enough donations to rebuild within a few short days, around that time I changed my Amazon Smile donation, I assume others thought the same thing I thought around that time window. It will be a shame that Amazon will take away donations from so many good places. I know I can donate myself directly, but it was far more meaningful that Amazon was doing so as you ordered things.
actually amazon was the main advertiser for the top charities on the list, when you went to sign up st jude's was the recommended charity
laverya(5)
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've personally used chrome extension "Smile Always". It automatically converts all amazon links to amazon smile links.
This is sad. I am currently at $417.30 in donations to my local charity. Amazon is in denial if they think this hasnt had an impact.
This is sad. I am currently at $417.30 in donations to my local charity. Amazon is in denial if they think this hasnt had an impact.
I don’t so much think it doesn’t have an impact, as much nothing on the list has any PR pizzazz.
$316.62 to a grade school? Lame.
$100,000 novelty check to a board member’s favorite charity that happens to be run by his son? Now that’s pizzazz with a capital P!
$316.62 to a grade school? Lame.
$100,000 novelty check to a board member’s favorite charity that happens to be run by his son? Now that’s pizzazz with a capital P!
That just means bad marketing.
> Amazon has helped fund over 20 thousand charities of your choosing. These small charities couldn't have made it without your help.
> Amazon has helped fund over 20 thousand charities of your choosing. These small charities couldn't have made it without your help.
easier to get promoted by replacing a program with a new one you made
Amazon in my country has an image problem. Sure people use it, but people hate it for "killing the high street" and other such nonsense.
Facebook adverts picking random local charities and showing how much they've raised is far better, run them on amazon's front page too.
The local hospice I choose has raised £3k via amazon smile. That's far better PR than them giving £1m novelty cheques to some remote city based charity.
Facebook adverts picking random local charities and showing how much they've raised is far better, run them on amazon's front page too.
The local hospice I choose has raised £3k via amazon smile. That's far better PR than them giving £1m novelty cheques to some remote city based charity.
>That's far better PR than them giving £1m novelty cheques to some remote city based charity.
How is it better PR if hardly anybody knows about it?
How is it better PR if hardly anybody knows about it?
Amazon runs a news story in local paper about how smile is benefitting $list_of_local_charities
The email they sent to me was they are going to take the money from my local charity and instead give it to ex Prime Minister Gordon Brown
The email they sent to me was they are going to take the money from my local charity and instead give it to ex Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Of course it had an impact. It's guaranteed to just be something that's not seen as 'sexy' internally, and therefore has probably had no-one championing it, and it gathered dust and finally... someone just wanted to kill the code.
I've seen it happen first hand in similar sized companies.
I've seen it happen first hand in similar sized companies.
I'm quite convinced the motivations for both the creation and teardown of this donation program must have come from the money people, not from the techies. It must have been a tax write-off. Nothing else makes sense, knowing how strongly Amazon is a cost-cutting company.
I would often forget to type "smile" when searching for stuff, but then I'd just add to cart, close the window, and go to my cart via smile. That seemed to work.
But I think we can all see this for what it is — belt tightening. Will they increase other philanthropic activities to the tune of what they were previously giving away via Smile? I would be very, very surprised if so.
But I think we can all see this for what it is — belt tightening. Will they increase other philanthropic activities to the tune of what they were previously giving away via Smile? I would be very, very surprised if so.
They actually might. Whatever the overhead was in managing and tracking payments to that many charities based on payments from that many customers had to be significant. Instead, they could just throw 50 mil across the top 10 each year and not have to deal with managing the smile program anymore.
I imagine there could be ways to make their philanthropic donations more efficient. What I'm saying is I doubt they are actually going to donate this amount, and achieve greater impact (however that is measured). I imagine they are going to launch programs that they were already going to launch, donating to whatever charities they favor for other reasons. For example, if they're building a new office somewhere, they can give a bunch of money to charities in that community, to build goodwill in the community.
But these donations are not done purely for altruistic reasons — they're calculated decisions that also help the corporate entity. There's nothing wrong with this, and they'd still be doing good. But it's not the same as letting your customers decide where to donate hundreds of millions of dollars.
But these donations are not done purely for altruistic reasons — they're calculated decisions that also help the corporate entity. There's nothing wrong with this, and they'd still be doing good. But it's not the same as letting your customers decide where to donate hundreds of millions of dollars.
big corporate donations require 0 engineers, that’s a huge savings
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.
Seemed like an easy way to cut off affiliates while appearing to be generous. Maybe I'm just too cynical.
This is exactly what I always assumed. Forcing you to navigate to a different URL killed any affiliate cookies.
Oh but they weren't forcing the customers to go to smile and strip the affiliate attribution for their session. Why, they don't even provide a link for the customer to click! The customer is choosing to actively navigate to smile themselves (when prompted by t he reminder at the top of the amazon page). So obviously that means Amazon can't be accused of doing anything nefarious to screw their affiliates (or, more seriously and litigiously, their advertising partners) out of their due credit for the sale. The customer simply chose to switch to smile. And it's all for charity so who could possibly complain?
www.amazon.com sets cookies for (*).amazon.com, though. Session cookies (and affiliate info) could therefore still be accessed on smile.amazon.com. I think affiliate attribution is just discarded regardless of cookie presence.
Exactly. It was also a way to train customers to navigate directly to Amazon instead of through search engines (where Amazon pays for ads).
They wanted you to turn on push on mobile so they could pollute your Lock Screen with ads. I did it and promptly set iOS to deliver them silently because it got really annoying, but it was an easy way for the EFF to get some money from purchases I was making anyway.
I'm honestly surprised smile went on for as long as it did. It always seemed so out of character for Amazon.
It was also in this weird spot where they wanted to use it for PR but simultaneously wanted to shove it beneath the floorboards so people won’t mass adopt it.
On android they did the asshole thing and detected if the notifications were disabled and turned off smile. No ios hiding the true notification state there.
Yep, i was pretty pissed when they started that
This is the main reason why I think that they never took this serious and never actually wanted many people to use it.
A switch in your profile which would default you to smile shouldn't have been such a big problem for a company like Amazon.
A switch in your profile which would default you to smile shouldn't have been such a big problem for a company like Amazon.
That’s because smile was invented as a way to bypass having to pay Google for the referral link; incentivize people to retype the link before actually buying it was the ultimate goal.
Canceling the program bothers me a little, but replacing it with "donating" to four in house charities, only two of which are properly labeled as such, that clearly help Amazon makes it so much worse.
The first is about building houses in areas near Amazon offices. The second is training future Amazon employees. The third is delivering food that I'm sure won't use existing Amazon delivery solutions at all. And the fourth is disaster relief, which I'm less cynical about though I am reminded of their recent tornado issue.
What a charitable company.
The first is about building houses in areas near Amazon offices. The second is training future Amazon employees. The third is delivering food that I'm sure won't use existing Amazon delivery solutions at all. And the fourth is disaster relief, which I'm less cynical about though I am reminded of their recent tornado issue.
What a charitable company.
The 20,000 families benefitting from housing in the Seattle metro area as a result of Amazon's investments in the community might define charitable vs. non-charitable differently than you. I've personally met the women and children benefitting from the $100M Amazon and its employees have donated to Mary's Place -- their lens is not yours. Your comments about AFE are a bit underdeveloped. File under no good deed goes unpunished, I suppose.
20,000 houses hardly makes up for the 12m square feet that Amazon inhabits in the Seattle Metro area, very little of which is built in such a way to contribute to a livable or affordable city. Their impact on the real estate situation is nowhere near positive even with this whitewashing.
Does it not? 12m / 20,000 = 600. So Amazon's real estate is displacing 20,000 households of a size of 600 square feet. And they've created 20,000 houses to offset that, which are probably larger than 600 square feet. Seems like a fair offset.
Building houses is a good thing, but you could make the project a for profit division of Amazon and I don't think what they're doing would drastically change.
Similar with their education program, some of it would change but I bet the base project could be seen as a worthwhile investment in the companies future. Saying these acts justify ending smile is silly.
Similar with their education program, some of it would change but I bet the base project could be seen as a worthwhile investment in the companies future. Saying these acts justify ending smile is silly.
Wow they are investing in real estate! How generous!
Its good but probably not the most effective or most wanted by customers which is what that point was with these donations.
I’d point out that most companies - including their closest analogue, Walmart - don’t do this. Amazon is reverting to the corporate norm.
I'm not sure what your problem here is. It's good that amazon has some incentive to do these things well and to do them longterm, to make sure that housing actually gets build, to make sure that kids actually learn computer science. This is much better then a one-time donation to some trendy charity for good PR.
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.
I would have believed that.
You may see it differently having profited but I think good riddance. Shoppers shouldn't get the false sense they're doing something good by buying at Amazon. We spend $100 and they donate 50 cents but the remaining 99.5% of the money is spent in ways that do not benefit us common folk, often to the contrary. Better to be mindful what and where you buy, shopping at Amazon and then letting them do a small donation seems a bit like they're handing out indulgence certificates.
People can make donations in their own name and get tax deductions for it, unlike with Smile where Amazon claims the deductions for itself. And why should a giant multinational corporation decide for us a list of eligible donation receivers? Some of those "charities" are very questionable and I doubt the average customer looks much into if what they do with the money even aligns with their own vision of a better world.
People can make donations in their own name and get tax deductions for it, unlike with Smile where Amazon claims the deductions for itself. And why should a giant multinational corporation decide for us a list of eligible donation receivers? Some of those "charities" are very questionable and I doubt the average customer looks much into if what they do with the money even aligns with their own vision of a better world.
Tax deductions for charitable donations are not a thing everywhere in the world. Here in the UK it kind of is, but the charity has to claim it, ands back 25p on each £1.
But more to your point: I have six committed monthly donors for the PTFA for which I’m treasurer. I have at least a couple dozen individuals signed up for AmazonSmile and Easy Fundraising.
But more to your point: I have six committed monthly donors for the PTFA for which I’m treasurer. I have at least a couple dozen individuals signed up for AmazonSmile and Easy Fundraising.
People could donate before Amazon Smile existed why would that increase now it's gone? I'm sure many people like the ease of donating through this program.
Finally the last part of your comment is so disturbing.
"I doubt the average customer looks much into if what they do with the money even aligns with their own vision of a better world."
Finally the last part of your comment is so disturbing.
"I doubt the average customer looks much into if what they do with the money even aligns with their own vision of a better world."
> I'm sure many people like the ease of donating through this program.
This is exactly the controversy. Customers are not making donations in these types of programs. Whether a portion of the proceeds are donated or not, the customer pays the same price. Hence, all of it is the retailer's income. The customer only influences to whom the retailer donates and how much. And because the customer is not the donor in the transaction, organizations do not get contact information.
Despite this arrangement, customers often consider themselves a donor anyway, and some have argued this can lead to a reduction in overall donations as a result.
> Finally the last part of your comment is so disturbing.
It is disturbing. Myths abound, and organizations sometimes struggle to educate donors about the basics of philanthropy, especially the larger numbers of donors with smaller pockets.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-amazon-is-smiling-and_b_4...
In the case of AmazonSmile, I think it's hit or miss. Plenty of organizations get paltry payouts. We've averaged less than $20 a quarter since we've been participating over the last four years, and almost of third of those quarters had no payout at all.
This is exactly the controversy. Customers are not making donations in these types of programs. Whether a portion of the proceeds are donated or not, the customer pays the same price. Hence, all of it is the retailer's income. The customer only influences to whom the retailer donates and how much. And because the customer is not the donor in the transaction, organizations do not get contact information.
Despite this arrangement, customers often consider themselves a donor anyway, and some have argued this can lead to a reduction in overall donations as a result.
> Finally the last part of your comment is so disturbing.
It is disturbing. Myths abound, and organizations sometimes struggle to educate donors about the basics of philanthropy, especially the larger numbers of donors with smaller pockets.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-amazon-is-smiling-and_b_4...
In the case of AmazonSmile, I think it's hit or miss. Plenty of organizations get paltry payouts. We've averaged less than $20 a quarter since we've been participating over the last four years, and almost of third of those quarters had no payout at all.
Why is that disturbing? There are a lot of "non-profit" "charities" that are corrupt.
"I doubt the average customer looks much into if what they do with the money even aligns with their own vision of a better world"
Where does this say anything about corrupt charities.
Where does this say anything about corrupt charities.
Says "looks much into if what they do with the money". Corruption means doing bad things with the money, which is what most people don't look much into. Sentences.
How is that even disturbing? Can you elaborate?
That they use their view of the world in order to determine who to donate to
This doesn't make sense to me. Charities arnt just magically forces for good. I'm sure there are a great deal of charities who do things you would consider to be bad things, as their entire mission statement. And I'm sure some of those charities have names that sound very good on a Amazon smile list.
They couldn’t say that because saying it explicitly would hurt their core business
Which is ridiculous. Why would clear communication like that hurt their business?
Because that would lead to more customer outrage than this? What a ridiculous point we've reached as a society if we can't take clear communication and we give incentives to lie to us.
Because that would lead to more customer outrage than this? What a ridiculous point we've reached as a society if we can't take clear communication and we give incentives to lie to us.
What if we legitimately object to the truth about their motives and/or behavior? Why would it be on us to coddle zillion-dollar corporations? It's not my job to make it easy for them to be terrible.
It's not that society, or even we as HN commenters, have decided that "this is fine" because they weren't as blunt as they could have been, but they're minimizing the overall negative emotions. By having excuses and saying they're still donating $x a year, some percentage of readers who would have started to look for products elsewhere will instead go "sad, but the impact is minimal" and likely won't second-guess using Amazon for purchases.
This announcement falls into a category I like to call “we are closing to serve you better.”
Sounds like one of those convenience fees I have to pay in the US all the time. Very convenient to me to have to pay more!
> "our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin"
If that's the supposed reason, I call bullshit. Could've just reduced the number of charities.
If that's the supposed reason, I call bullshit. Could've just reduced the number of charities.
As a customer, I don't care if their overall impact is spread thin, it's my money going to a charity I chose.
Technically it's Amazon's money, not yours. You can't write the donations off on your taxes, for example.
Exactly. If you want to donate, do it first-hand rather than second-hand via another organization, in order to be more tax-effective.
I don't really have the authority to make donations out of other peoples cut of the money very often. Kind of missing the whole point of Amazon smile. I could spend 5$ on a toothbrush at Walmart, or I could spend 5$ on a toothbrush at Amazon and 25¢ goes to a charity I like. It doesn't need to be tax deductible because I did not spend any money on it,and actually donating to that charity directly would mean I'm out 5.25$ instead of 5$
Maybe I'm out of the loop but why not?
Because it is not your donation - it is Amazon's donation out of their profit from products you purchased. You just got to (allegedly) specify where they donated it.
I see, thank you
It's not a donation unless... it's donated. With Amazon, you paid money and got a thing. That's not a donation. Paying money and getting nothing... thats a donation. That's what can be deducted.
Where did Amazon get the money from?
You purchased goods from Amazon - and they promised to send some portion of their profit to some organization of your choosing.
It's firmly Amazon's money at that point. You bought something from them... their choice on how to spend it. They were generous enough to have this program at all, really.
I would recommend finding a decent charity organization that speaks to you and what is important to you - and donate directly. Use services like Charity Navigator (or similar) to find reputable ones that maximize your impact.
It's firmly Amazon's money at that point. You bought something from them... their choice on how to spend it. They were generous enough to have this program at all, really.
I would recommend finding a decent charity organization that speaks to you and what is important to you - and donate directly. Use services like Charity Navigator (or similar) to find reputable ones that maximize your impact.
I already do that. It was nice to see a portion of money that I'd be spending on other things also going to charity. Now I've got less reason to give that money to Amazon instead of another retailer.
They could increase the impact by giving a larger percent of the sale. Amazon sends an email every so often telling you how much you've "donated" via Smile, and I'm always surprised how sadly small that number is. I've been in the program for many years and I buy a lot of shit from them.
The local gas station gives me 5% off for using their card AND 5% to a local charity.
And seriously, why should that matter; it's their customers who are selecting the charities, not Amazon.
Because no PR opportunity for Amazon. But I agree, it's a feeble dishonest excuse. Better to simply say "Because we're cutting costs", instead of weeping how it failed to set the world on fire with glowing PR for their munificence.
Personally I try hard to avoid sending my business to Amazon whenever there's an alternative, and this was one of the good things about them.
Personally I try hard to avoid sending my business to Amazon whenever there's an alternative, and this was one of the good things about them.
> Personally I try hard to avoid sending my business to Amazon whenever there's an alternative, and this was one of the good things about them.
same
same
Even worse, an anti-PR opportunity: “look at how much money Amazon donates to bad guys!”
The real reason is "our profit margins are currently spread too thin" but they can't say that because it'd make Amazon look really bad in terms of PR. Amazon is currently looking to cut stuff that costs Amazon money and something that reduces their tax liability is also bad for PR if it means that Amazon pays little or no taxes.
Or, better yet, go from 0.5% to 0.6% or 1%.
Which charities should be remain?
You can select which charity to support on smile.amazon.de at least. So pick the top 10% or 5% or whatever charities that were supported by the most customers.
Funny thing is I’d bet the small amount trickling in to the long tail charities is more impactful to them than a larger amount to the big mega-charities.
I run one of those long tails and Amazon Smile was just right to cover running costs for hosting, bank fees, etc.
I run one of those long tails and Amazon Smile was just right to cover running costs for hosting, bank fees, etc.
Honestly I'm surprised they're doing this; something must have bit them on the paperwork side, because $100-$200 for each tiny charity (think local dog shelter, local church, etc; even if they're 'branded' they're often independent charities) was a cheap advertisement for Amazon. Now that's over.
One of the best reasons to use Amazon Smile was to reduce and launder affiliate links and ad spam. I can't help but wonder if the real reason they are doing this is because of affiliates and/or advertisers.
(As someone paranoid of targeted advertising, but who doesn't mind normal advertising, the death of Amazon Smile was the final push I needed to move all my Amazon tabs into their own Firefox Container.)
(As someone paranoid of targeted advertising, but who doesn't mind normal advertising, the death of Amazon Smile was the final push I needed to move all my Amazon tabs into their own Firefox Container.)
> reduce and launder affiliate links and ad spam
Can you explain that?
Can you explain that?
Sure:
Amazon started its history with a deep affiliate system whereby "anyone" (capable of creating an affiliate account) could create affiliate marked links to get a small profit share on items sold, plus marketing reports and other information (which only grew more detailed over time). Because of that, affiliate links are everywhere on the web. Advertising companies themselves also use them both to get an extra cut on the advertised item and also to get those juicy marketing reports for ad spam.
Originally affiliate marks in URLs were easy to spot, they were just query parameters (after the ?) and removing all query parameters removed affiliate info from Amazon links. (There are still ancient ones out there like that.) After a while, and I don't know when the transition date was, these started to get embeded sometimes "steganographically" in other parts of the URL.
At one point, as a blogger with bloated ideas of my own influence I set up an affiliate account for myself. For a few years after that, I liked to use Amazon in "Affiliate mode" where it had an extra toolbar at the top that would let me at least take any link I was looking at and replace any affiliate marks with my own. I could use that to stop sending marketing info to links that I had followed (and sometimes make a couple pennies back on purchases, like one of the world's dumbest credit card rewards systems).
The way Amazon Smile operated is that it basically earmarked the money that would have gone to an affiliate for the charity of your choice. (I wouldn't be surprised if Smile had just been implemented as a pseudo-affiliate, which also adds to other conspiracy thinking that Smile might not have been that hard to maintain from an implementation standpoint.) Because the charity was set in your user preferences there's no use for affiliate marks in URLs, so none of the smile.amazon.com URLs have affiliate marks at all because they don't need them.
So the easiest way to take any www.amazon.com URL you could find in the wild and make sure it didn't have any affiliate marks and wouldn't send data or cash back to an affiliate was to simply replace www with smile and let Amazon's own backend refresh the URL without affiliate marks. This was useful for cleaning your own browsing histories of marketing data and also for making sure that if you were forwarding links on to friends and loved ones they also weren't accidentally sending tracking data back to some affiliate with no real need to know.
Amazon started its history with a deep affiliate system whereby "anyone" (capable of creating an affiliate account) could create affiliate marked links to get a small profit share on items sold, plus marketing reports and other information (which only grew more detailed over time). Because of that, affiliate links are everywhere on the web. Advertising companies themselves also use them both to get an extra cut on the advertised item and also to get those juicy marketing reports for ad spam.
Originally affiliate marks in URLs were easy to spot, they were just query parameters (after the ?) and removing all query parameters removed affiliate info from Amazon links. (There are still ancient ones out there like that.) After a while, and I don't know when the transition date was, these started to get embeded sometimes "steganographically" in other parts of the URL.
At one point, as a blogger with bloated ideas of my own influence I set up an affiliate account for myself. For a few years after that, I liked to use Amazon in "Affiliate mode" where it had an extra toolbar at the top that would let me at least take any link I was looking at and replace any affiliate marks with my own. I could use that to stop sending marketing info to links that I had followed (and sometimes make a couple pennies back on purchases, like one of the world's dumbest credit card rewards systems).
The way Amazon Smile operated is that it basically earmarked the money that would have gone to an affiliate for the charity of your choice. (I wouldn't be surprised if Smile had just been implemented as a pseudo-affiliate, which also adds to other conspiracy thinking that Smile might not have been that hard to maintain from an implementation standpoint.) Because the charity was set in your user preferences there's no use for affiliate marks in URLs, so none of the smile.amazon.com URLs have affiliate marks at all because they don't need them.
So the easiest way to take any www.amazon.com URL you could find in the wild and make sure it didn't have any affiliate marks and wouldn't send data or cash back to an affiliate was to simply replace www with smile and let Amazon's own backend refresh the URL without affiliate marks. This was useful for cleaning your own browsing histories of marketing data and also for making sure that if you were forwarding links on to friends and loved ones they also weren't accidentally sending tracking data back to some affiliate with no real need to know.
Because it came under the field of vision of some dumbass MBA who decided that saving a few millions would be worth more and a sizeable contribution to their end of year bonus figure.
Source: I'm a dumbass MBA admittee.
Source: I'm a dumbass MBA admittee.
> Source: I'm a dumbass MBA admittee.
Ya sure this is what you learn in school?
> a sizeable contribution to their end of year bonus figure
Highly doubt they’re getting bonuses at Amazon.
Ya sure this is what you learn in school?
> a sizeable contribution to their end of year bonus figure
Highly doubt they’re getting bonuses at Amazon.
I don't know, just received the offer last month.
Bonus or not, some line item adjustments do put you in line for promotions.
Bonus or not, some line item adjustments do put you in line for promotions.
Yes, I'm sure all the charities below that line would respect the decision and not ask their donors to raise a stink to keep them in the program.
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.
I’m a volunteer at a branch of Samaritans[1] in the UK that runs on something like £70-85k/year, running a listening service with 60-80 volunteers including infrastructure, who spend thousands of hours a year on the phone with the suicidal, the distressed, and sometimes just those who desperately need someone to talk to.
It’s a service that fulfils a critical need but is run on a shoestring budget, with very little of the money spent on anything but critical necessities. Although Amazon Smile wasn’t a huge source of income for my branch, it will leave a hole that will have to be filled.
I can’t say I disagree that there aren’t plenty of mega-charities that spent too much on admin and fundraising, but I also know firsthand there are plenty out there deserving of every penny coming their way.
[1] https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/our-organisation...
It’s a service that fulfils a critical need but is run on a shoestring budget, with very little of the money spent on anything but critical necessities. Although Amazon Smile wasn’t a huge source of income for my branch, it will leave a hole that will have to be filled.
I can’t say I disagree that there aren’t plenty of mega-charities that spent too much on admin and fundraising, but I also know firsthand there are plenty out there deserving of every penny coming their way.
[1] https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/our-organisation...
You can vet your own charities (i.e. checking their 990's to see who gets paid what) and make decisions from there.
Just because the charity sausage gets made in ways that isn't always appealing doesn't mean there aren't charities that have impact.
Just because the charity sausage gets made in ways that isn't always appealing doesn't mean there aren't charities that have impact.
I upvoted your unpopular opinion but it doesn't have to be that way.
You can be involved in the community and get to know local organizations and how they run, then give to them with more certainty.
In our case, the bulk of our charitable donations goes to organizations we know first hand, which are mainly local. Eg: helping the local preschool, our houses of worship, etc. The most 'remote' org we give to is the Israeli ambulance corps, but we still "know" them in the sense that my wife had been a volunteer EMT there a long time ago.
Point being that - there's some positive synergy between your physical community involvement and your "insight" into how organizations in your community function, and a sense of how the money is spent.
The fact that one of these orgs got something like $400 via Amazon Smile from us last year is nice although let's be real - nobody is going to stop using Amazon because of this change.
You can be involved in the community and get to know local organizations and how they run, then give to them with more certainty.
In our case, the bulk of our charitable donations goes to organizations we know first hand, which are mainly local. Eg: helping the local preschool, our houses of worship, etc. The most 'remote' org we give to is the Israeli ambulance corps, but we still "know" them in the sense that my wife had been a volunteer EMT there a long time ago.
Point being that - there's some positive synergy between your physical community involvement and your "insight" into how organizations in your community function, and a sense of how the money is spent.
The fact that one of these orgs got something like $400 via Amazon Smile from us last year is nice although let's be real - nobody is going to stop using Amazon because of this change.
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.
There are good charities that do spend 70-99% of their revenues on their cause. And there are high-profile charities that don't.
Right but those numbers are wrong too. 70-99% gets spent on the cause but I’ll tell you how.
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.
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.
> 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.
Printing and distributing pamphlets that educate those with means of influence to make things better does support the cause. Fundraising expenses are overhead and reported as such. Hiring a consultant to help an organization carry out its mission also supports the cause. Just because the organization isn't giving 100% of its receipts into the hands of the homeless directly doesn't mean they aren't helping the homeless.
That said, there are probably plenty of organizations with suspicious claims. Take charity: water's 100% claim. They like to use it to appear like they have no overhead, but it's just wordsmithing. It's also a rather egregious example of how being to focused on eliminating overhead can be harmful.
https://thefundraisingauthority.com/fundraising-ideas/charit...
Printing and distributing pamphlets that educate those with means of influence to make things better does support the cause. Fundraising expenses are overhead and reported as such. Hiring a consultant to help an organization carry out its mission also supports the cause. Just because the organization isn't giving 100% of its receipts into the hands of the homeless directly doesn't mean they aren't helping the homeless.
That said, there are probably plenty of organizations with suspicious claims. Take charity: water's 100% claim. They like to use it to appear like they have no overhead, but it's just wordsmithing. It's also a rather egregious example of how being to focused on eliminating overhead can be harmful.
https://thefundraisingauthority.com/fundraising-ideas/charit...
That's truest of the big ones, imo. "Power corrupts" etc., even when that power is a non-profit. I upvoted you since the sentiment is correct.
The nice thing about AmazonSmile is that you could pick from the small ones you know well and trust.
Now, Amazon will donate to the biggest ones without our choice, which is definitely worse.
The nice thing about AmazonSmile is that you could pick from the small ones you know well and trust.
Now, Amazon will donate to the biggest ones without our choice, which is definitely worse.
>Now, Amazon will donate to the biggest ones without our choice, which is definitely worse.
Worse, Amazon has set up their own charities to donate to.
Worse, Amazon has set up their own charities to donate to.
My eyes glossed over those, good catch.
Exactly. Nobody is getting filthy rich off bobs dog shelter but people certainly do milk the big charities. Often the tiny ones that benefited from Smile were run by volunteers and all funds raised were used for non-salary expenses.
not based on every other statement in this thread.
do you have evidence of this assertion?
do you have evidence of this assertion?
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 were getting donations which were completely incongruent with Amazon’s moral sensibilities.
There’s no law saying they have to let customers pick, and this isn’t worth “outrage”, but I think it’s behavior which signals a lot about the way Amazon’s top leadership has shifted.
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 were getting donations which were completely incongruent with Amazon’s moral sensibilities.
There’s no law saying they have to let customers pick, and this isn’t worth “outrage”, but I think it’s behavior which signals a lot about the way Amazon’s top leadership has shifted.
> …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 page 18. They made about $37.5 million in total donations that year. The top charity, the ASPCA, received $1.8 million that year (note that the ASPCA had total revenue of $267.7 million that year). But the main point is that the charity on the top of the second page, which is only about 100 charities from the top (ordered by total amount received) received just over $10,000, and the charity at the top of the third page received $5659. And there are still over 2100 pages of charities to go!
So it seems imminently reasonable to me that, rather than give a couple hundred bucks a year to thousands and thousands and thousands of charities, to instead consolidate that to fewer charities where it can do some sizable good.
1. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/46262...
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 page 18. They made about $37.5 million in total donations that year. The top charity, the ASPCA, received $1.8 million that year (note that the ASPCA had total revenue of $267.7 million that year). But the main point is that the charity on the top of the second page, which is only about 100 charities from the top (ordered by total amount received) received just over $10,000, and the charity at the top of the third page received $5659. And there are still over 2100 pages of charities to go!
So it seems imminently reasonable to me that, rather than give a couple hundred bucks a year to thousands and thousands and thousands of charities, to instead consolidate that to fewer charities where it can do some sizable good.
1. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/46262...
But smaller organizations will be missed entirely. My charity is a cat shelter in St. Louis. I’d rather they get my cut than a larger charity that means less to me and has bigger fundraising machinery.
Yes and small charities like this are generally volunteer-run and a very high percentage of their income goes to their charitiable purpose.
Large charities leech off the existence of the problems they are claiming to solve. If they actually solved them, they wouldn't be needed any more. Name any large organization that has ever worked itself out of needing to exist. And their executives make a lot of money.
Large charities leech off the existence of the problems they are claiming to solve. If they actually solved them, they wouldn't be needed any more. Name any large organization that has ever worked itself out of needing to exist. And their executives make a lot of money.
> Name any large organization that has ever worked itself out of needing to exist.
This is an interesting take, but got me wondering, what organization _period_ has ever worked itself out of needing to exist? I'd love to hear examples.
This is an interesting take, but got me wondering, what organization _period_ has ever worked itself out of needing to exist? I'd love to hear examples.
Are you saying that e.g. homelessness in America has not been solved because the organizations working on it are not trying to solve it?
California allocated 7 billion in 2022 to homelessness. There are 172,000 homeless in California. So that is $40,000 per homeless person, per year, in just state funds. Lot's of people keep a roof over their heads while making less money than that a year. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Dude. There were 172,000 homeless people counted in one night.
Among those people, some were chronically homeless, which basically means mentally ill, disabled and/or addicted to something. Nobody is paying for housing and health care for these people for less than $40k per year.
The majority of those people, however, are not in that group. They also didn’t stay homeless all year - over the course of one year, many times that number were nearly homeless and got help from those funds to avoid it (pay back rent to avoid eviction, pay a deposit on a new place, etc), or used these funds for services while homeless - shelter, job training, medical care, assistance applying for disability payments, etc. Besides directly funding these services, the money was also spent in paying people to manage job training programs, run the shelters, be social workers who know how disability applications work, be social workers who have to find their homeless clients to tell them about work opportunities, track available spaces in rehab programs, ……………
Your attempted equivalency there is missing so much information that it is uselessly wrong.
Among those people, some were chronically homeless, which basically means mentally ill, disabled and/or addicted to something. Nobody is paying for housing and health care for these people for less than $40k per year.
The majority of those people, however, are not in that group. They also didn’t stay homeless all year - over the course of one year, many times that number were nearly homeless and got help from those funds to avoid it (pay back rent to avoid eviction, pay a deposit on a new place, etc), or used these funds for services while homeless - shelter, job training, medical care, assistance applying for disability payments, etc. Besides directly funding these services, the money was also spent in paying people to manage job training programs, run the shelters, be social workers who know how disability applications work, be social workers who have to find their homeless clients to tell them about work opportunities, track available spaces in rehab programs, ……………
Your attempted equivalency there is missing so much information that it is uselessly wrong.
I’m sure that the frontline workers for those organizations are earnest and genuine in their effort to help, but it’s also undoubtedly true that there’s a lot of money to be made (and it’s not really in the interest of those making the money to see the problem solved). If you search the term “homeless industrial complex”, you’ll see lots of hot takes on this. I’m not really endorsing any specific perspective, but I suspect that, as always, the truth is mixed and complex.
I thought that recent years had finally taught most people that “the truth is in the middle” is not a rational default position.
I said the truth is mixed and complex, not that it is "in the middle". The last few years provide examples of that which are as good as any other time.
"there's money to be made" is one of the weakest arguments there is. Capitalism makes it all about money! There's little doing without it.
This opinion can lead to some really ignorant statements (which I've heard before) :
- Full time jobs at charities? Money laundering for sure, they should reject their salary and starve. - Investing in clean energy? A conspiracy, some people make money there. - Recycling? People are paid to do it, it's a sham. - Politician not forfeiting his salary? Corruption, they shouldn't make a living (or just take brides under the table).
This opinion can lead to some really ignorant statements (which I've heard before) :
- Full time jobs at charities? Money laundering for sure, they should reject their salary and starve. - Investing in clean energy? A conspiracy, some people make money there. - Recycling? People are paid to do it, it's a sham. - Politician not forfeiting his salary? Corruption, they shouldn't make a living (or just take brides under the table).
"There's money to be made" isn't an argument. The world is not a binary, just because I am implying that some part of an industry is cronyism and grift, doesn't mean that I am asserting that it is 100% the case. It would be equally dumb to assert that it is 0%.
Well, that one is easy. It's a multi million dollar regulatory capture operation. TODCO in SF is a classic operation. Check out their revenue numbers.
This is exactly right. I help run a small local non-profit makerspace, and donations through Smile help keep the space open and free, without a membership fee.
How much was the makerspace getting from Smile, if you can answer that?
I'm involved with some small makerspaces. The largest has a few hundred members.
If a quarter of them both used Smile and pledged their donations to us (a quarter is almost certainly way too high), let's say that's 100 people.
If the average person spends about $1000 on Amazon (almost certainly too high [1]), then that's $5 per person, or $500 per year total.
I guess it's something, but all those estimates are on the high end for the spaces I know, and still wouldn't cover a couple weeks' rent.
1. Prime members spend an average of $1400/yr, non-prime members spend $600, and roughly one out of the adults are prime members. https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/personal-finance/articles/th...
I'm involved with some small makerspaces. The largest has a few hundred members.
If a quarter of them both used Smile and pledged their donations to us (a quarter is almost certainly way too high), let's say that's 100 people.
If the average person spends about $1000 on Amazon (almost certainly too high [1]), then that's $5 per person, or $500 per year total.
I guess it's something, but all those estimates are on the high end for the spaces I know, and still wouldn't cover a couple weeks' rent.
1. Prime members spend an average of $1400/yr, non-prime members spend $600, and roughly one out of the adults are prime members. https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/personal-finance/articles/th...
Indeed. But these things tend to follow a log tale for benefit-to-charity and constant to increasing marginal costs. If it costs Amazon $2 in SMILE proceeds to donate $0.02 for a quarter, then it makes sense, if only for that particular charity, to not process it. This is independent of whether Amazon directly foots the bill or indirectly foots the bill via commitments and outlay portions of the SMILE allocations.
I mean, you can always just donate 10$ a month to them, which will probably be much more than a tiny cat shelter gets from Amazon Smile.
I'd encourage you to ask the shelter how much they get from Amazon Smile. My guess is it's $200-300 max, which is barely enough to save a single cat.
Worse, there is a well-known phenomenon [1] where if people's "guilt" is taken away, then they are less likely to donate overall. That is, for at least some portion of people, they probably mark a small charity as their Amazon Smile recipient and then think "Great, I'm donating to charity!", not realizing their donations are like 50 cents. But if they didn't sign up for Amazon Smile they might be more likely to actually donate a real amount.
To be clear, I'm all for small charities getting money, but I'd almost rather it be like a lottery or something so a smaller number of small charities could get money they could actually do something with.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/books/chapters/freakonomi...
Worse, there is a well-known phenomenon [1] where if people's "guilt" is taken away, then they are less likely to donate overall. That is, for at least some portion of people, they probably mark a small charity as their Amazon Smile recipient and then think "Great, I'm donating to charity!", not realizing their donations are like 50 cents. But if they didn't sign up for Amazon Smile they might be more likely to actually donate a real amount.
To be clear, I'm all for small charities getting money, but I'd almost rather it be like a lottery or something so a smaller number of small charities could get money they could actually do something with.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/books/chapters/freakonomi...
Name? I'll get some folks to donate.
Animal House Cat Rescue: https://www.stlcats.org/
They do great work.
They do great work.
I volunteer for a charity where each and every $500 donation supports a kid going through a program. That program regularly changes kids' life trajectories in a way that has a difficult to quantify multiplier effect throughout the community.
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".
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".
This. I am not a demographic utilitarians usually target. Despite that my family received support from government and charitable programs when I was a child. Without them I doubt I would have been able perform in school and ultimately get the job that I have today. Now I make enough money that I donate to charities.
Realistically, corporate donations are almost entirely measured by the "gross value added to brand/reputation."
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.
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.
Riffing on this: if you thought about charity in the "maximize social utility function" way that SV types tend to talk, wouldn't you suspect that Amazon Smile would also be an actually a good way of allocating charitable dollars? Or at least better than a megacorp picking and choosing? Markets work, wisdom of the crowds, and so on.
There's something very "early 21st century social trust crisis" about keeping the "capitalist utlitarianism" logos of neoliberalism while throwing out the "democratized decision making" ethos of neoliberalism.
There's something very "early 21st century social trust crisis" about keeping the "capitalist utlitarianism" logos of neoliberalism while throwing out the "democratized decision making" ethos of neoliberalism.
Totally this. Our company had a diversity hiring initiative and I wanted to do some outreach in our area so I reached out about sponsoring an LGBTQ+ event. As a primary sponsor on the bill, my anticipation was that our goodwill gesture would go a good distance in the community and we should leave it at that, but HQ wanted a signup sheet with us trying to get people’s info for recruiting and numbers to publish for the HR team to show their money wasn’t just “thrown to the wind.” I got very cynical about doing events like that after that. It’s not really giving if you expect something in return.
Like, I get it, it’s not just a slush fund, but maybe it sort of should be. Does every dollar spent have to have clear ROI? Where’s the charity?
Like, I get it, it’s not just a slush fund, but maybe it sort of should be. Does every dollar spent have to have clear ROI? Where’s the charity?
> Where’s the charity?
Carefully recorded in tax filings.
Carefully recorded in tax filings.
IMO the best thing you can do is reaching out to high school teachers teaching programming.
A coworker had an interested high school student come in for the day/week a few times, and shadow them.
For many kids whose parents have never heard of white collar work, it can be life changing to have a good impression.
A coworker had an interested high school student come in for the day/week a few times, and shadow them.
For many kids whose parents have never heard of white collar work, it can be life changing to have a good impression.
High school teachers teaching programming? Is that even a thing everywhere? Growing up where I did, it’s a laughable idea.
Amazon has been historically very stingy with their donations.
Internally, employees have begged for literally decades for an employee donation matching program (similar to Microsoft's donation matching) and have been stonewalled for years, with upper leadership not wanting to give a firm answer as to why.
Meanwhile, most of the philanthropic endeavors that Amazon does offer its employees internally are in some way otherwise related to things that Jeff has a fiduciary tie to or where doing so was politically motivated to turn a blind eye to the rapid expansion of the Downtown/SLU Seattle Campus.
Internally, employees have begged for literally decades for an employee donation matching program (similar to Microsoft's donation matching) and have been stonewalled for years, with upper leadership not wanting to give a firm answer as to why.
Meanwhile, most of the philanthropic endeavors that Amazon does offer its employees internally are in some way otherwise related to things that Jeff has a fiduciary tie to or where doing so was politically motivated to turn a blind eye to the rapid expansion of the Downtown/SLU Seattle Campus.
And the smile program was another example of that. Had to use the correct url or nothing went to charity. They could have made it a setting for the user, or an option during checkout.
I bet if the offered round up for charity in the checkout process the funds collected would dwarf those raised by the smile program.
I bet if the offered round up for charity in the checkout process the funds collected would dwarf those raised by the smile program.
Was it even possible to do in the app?
Yes, for the app it's a one-off setting. If you only purchase via the app, no need to remember the smile URL.
... I tried to remember to use smile for years and never knew about the app setting :-(
Other large companies are similar. I worked for one multinational where they only allowed employee donation matching in narrow cases:
- certain large universities
- certain large hospitals
And that's it. I wrote to HR multiple times asking if my local health related charity could be part of their matching donations. Finally got a terse answer saying "no, only the ones on the list."
Some enterprises are so scared of anything remotely resembling controversy that they severely restrict matching, and others just don't offer it at all.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is fantastic about employee matching.
- certain large universities
- certain large hospitals
And that's it. I wrote to HR multiple times asking if my local health related charity could be part of their matching donations. Finally got a terse answer saying "no, only the ones on the list."
Some enterprises are so scared of anything remotely resembling controversy that they severely restrict matching, and others just don't offer it at all.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is fantastic about employee matching.
>Or, a less cynical take is that they really can have more impact by focusing on fewer charities.
It's hard not to be cynical when you look at the charities they are focusing on. All of them are in-house, and seem positioned to strongly benefit Amazon. Like the one where they brag about building houses near the Amazon major headquarters.
It's hard not to be cynical when you look at the charities they are focusing on. All of them are in-house, and seem positioned to strongly benefit Amazon. Like the one where they brag about building houses near the Amazon major headquarters.
Or, a more cynical take is that I only seemed to get reminders to go to smile.amazon.com if I had arrived via an affiliate link. I always suspected that it was a money-saving strategy, that if I clicked the reminder and arrived at smile.amazon.com, that maybe they wouldn't have to pay the affiliate commission. But I never looked into it at all, so that was just my pure speculation.
The whole point of affiliate links is that they're generating sales that wouldn't have existed without- it is essentially an incentive for people to advertise for Amazon in organic ways. Whether the money goes to the affiliate or the smile program at that point wouldn't really make much difference, and actively undermining the people who post affiliate links seems like it would be a stereotypically idiotic corporate split brain thing to do.
I don't often click on affiliate links, but I also don't recall seeing the smile reminder when I have used them. YMMV I guess.
I don't often click on affiliate links, but I also don't recall seeing the smile reminder when I have used them. YMMV I guess.
I use a greasemonkey script that removes all affiliate links and specifically goes to smile.amazon.com so I don't have to think about it.
not sure how that follows... the impacts of donating has diminishing returns. I'd much rather see a diverse of array of causes supported. I doubt any of these charities rely on Amazon Smile as a primary source of donations but a lot of smaller charities would benefit
Funny sidenote is that my chosen charity was actually ProPublica
Funny sidenote is that my chosen charity was actually ProPublica
Couldn't they just make the charity list much shorter? While still giving users a choice?
> which is only about 100 charities from the top (ordered by total amount received) received just over $10,000, and the charity at the top of the third page received $5659.
Honestly, this seems rather impressive. A lot higher than I thought! That's great! The reason I expected lower is because these tend to follow power laws with a very steep decline. The 200th charity makes more than half what the 100th charity makes is pretty good. I had to go through 19 pages of charities (I counted 126 lines on one page, but I probably miscounted so +/- some) before I started to see them go below $1k. That's quite impressive though, there's over 2k charities getting over $1k
Honestly, this seems rather impressive. A lot higher than I thought! That's great! The reason I expected lower is because these tend to follow power laws with a very steep decline. The 200th charity makes more than half what the 100th charity makes is pretty good. I had to go through 19 pages of charities (I counted 126 lines on one page, but I probably miscounted so +/- some) before I started to see them go below $1k. That's quite impressive though, there's over 2k charities getting over $1k
> So it seems imminently reasonable to me that, rather than give a couple hundred bucks a year to thousands and thousands and thousands of charities, to instead consolidate that to fewer charities where it can do some sizable good.
Specifically, where it can most efficiently buy image and influence for Amazon. For profit corporations charitable donations, like any other expenditures of corporate funds, are made to advance the commercial interests of the corporation.
Specifically, where it can most efficiently buy image and influence for Amazon. For profit corporations charitable donations, like any other expenditures of corporate funds, are made to advance the commercial interests of the corporation.
Who is the “they” in “They would have bigger impact”, by what criteria, and why does this “they” have any relevance to the effectiveness whatsoever?
Seriously. Amazon is literally just writing a check, or just as likely, putting store credit in an account.
Where do they figure in to donating at all beyond a middle man?
Seriously, how does Amazon differ than GoFundMe in this context? And as a follow up, if this is such a good move for “effectiveness” why shouldn’t GoFundMe do they same thing?
Seriously. Amazon is literally just writing a check, or just as likely, putting store credit in an account.
Where do they figure in to donating at all beyond a middle man?
Seriously, how does Amazon differ than GoFundMe in this context? And as a follow up, if this is such a good move for “effectiveness” why shouldn’t GoFundMe do they same thing?
$ !== impact
Put another way, not every (e.g.) $5000 yields the same impact.
More in fewer hands? Where have we've seen that before? How's that working out for us?
Put another way, not every (e.g.) $5000 yields the same impact.
More in fewer hands? Where have we've seen that before? How's that working out for us?
> consolidate that to fewer charities where it can do some sizable good.
It also gives Amazon much more control over the charity. If you give $1000 to a charity, they are happy and do their thing. If you give a charity $1,000,000 your priorities are going to become their priorities.
It also gives Amazon much more control over the charity. If you give $1000 to a charity, they are happy and do their thing. If you give a charity $1,000,000 your priorities are going to become their priorities.
Reading through the list, I see planned parenthood listed many many times. Planned parenthood of Arizona, planned parenthood of Wisconsin, etc. I imagine if you added them all up, planned parenthood was getting a tidy sum of donations from Amazon smile.
It's a franchise model. Makes quite a bit of money. It was one of the things I wanted to run as a franchisee but a bit complex.
If your “less cynical” (I’d say “more naive” :P) take is true, then where’s their concurrent announcement that they’re donating .5% of sales (or at least .5* * % of revenue that was amazon-smiled since not everyone used it) to a smaller set of organizations?
No I had my own preferred charity which was part of the smile program. It just seems a bad customer experience taking away a feature that myself and others cherished in Amazon prime. Another wrong decision.
At page 1232 were and 30.43 or so. So it dropped off fast and then leveled out - long tail.
I had already canceled my Prime membership and started shopping elsewhere. I'm not exactly outraged by this news - although I did always buy through Smile - but I'm now doubly sure Amazon won't be my first choice going forward.
I think a lot of folks can get by without a Prime membership. My prime subscription ended almost a year ago now and I don't miss it. Amazon shipping has got progressively slower as time went on. Prime video is terrible UX with subpar content. At $15 a month it just isnt worth it.
I've now opted for the "free" shipping that you get when you spend $25+. Items that I cannot wait for I will buy local, which usually now offer same day delivery.
I've now opted for the "free" shipping that you get when you spend $25+. Items that I cannot wait for I will buy local, which usually now offer same day delivery.
Cancelling my Prime membership a few years ago made it immediately clear that all I was paying for was to not have my package sit in the warehouse for an extra 3-4 days before making it to my house in two days anyway. I also started getting shipments coming from warehouses on the other side of the country, something that never happened while I was paying for Prime. Immediately clear that the benefits for ordering were entirely artificial.
> I also started getting shipments coming from warehouses on the other side of the country, something that never happened while I was paying for Prime.
That doesn't sound entirely artificial to me, though? It seems more likely that they're reserving stock in closer (and likely, more expensive) warehouses for people who are paying for two day shipping, either by having a Prime membership or by paying for the shipping.
That doesn't sound entirely artificial to me, though? It seems more likely that they're reserving stock in closer (and likely, more expensive) warehouses for people who are paying for two day shipping, either by having a Prime membership or by paying for the shipping.
> Amazon shipping has got progressively slower as time went on.
While there are definitely periods where I would have agreed with you, recently Amazon has seriously increased the % of products which are deliverable same day.
It's also not just for common items. I can buy a thermocouple amplifier board and have it delivered today. It really scratches an itch when you can get components for a project delivered THAT DAY. I could be playing with thermocouples TODAY. Hard to resist.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08FZZ2FDK
While there are definitely periods where I would have agreed with you, recently Amazon has seriously increased the % of products which are deliverable same day.
It's also not just for common items. I can buy a thermocouple amplifier board and have it delivered today. It really scratches an itch when you can get components for a project delivered THAT DAY. I could be playing with thermocouples TODAY. Hard to resist.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08FZZ2FDK
"The fun part of Amazon Smile was that it let customers decide how they wanted to change the world"
The corporate justification part of amazon smile was in the same effort as any charity in purchase which is to make the consumer feel empowered, righteous and moral for the decision to consume a product. Charity tie ins like rainforest donations or carbon offsets are designed to incense consumers to evangelize. They're designed to eliminate buyers remorse returns and blunt the often ever present reality of sweat shop labor. That anyone got real money from this is just a happy side effect.
The corporate justification part of amazon smile was in the same effort as any charity in purchase which is to make the consumer feel empowered, righteous and moral for the decision to consume a product. Charity tie ins like rainforest donations or carbon offsets are designed to incense consumers to evangelize. They're designed to eliminate buyers remorse returns and blunt the often ever present reality of sweat shop labor. That anyone got real money from this is just a happy side effect.
>This is surprisingly honest for corporatespeak
This reminds me of a cartoon that shows a field of sheep and a billboard with a wolf captioned "I will eat you", and one of the sheep says admiringly, "He really tells it like it is."
We need less, not more, of this. Ending this program is absolutely wrong, and the wrong is not lessened because they are being honest about their greed.
This reminds me of a cartoon that shows a field of sheep and a billboard with a wolf captioned "I will eat you", and one of the sheep says admiringly, "He really tells it like it is."
We need less, not more, of this. Ending this program is absolutely wrong, and the wrong is not lessened because they are being honest about their greed.
It makes it easier to say goodbye. I wish Shopify or Google had an easier way to buy anything their. I'm downloading my pictures and cancelling prime.
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.
This is an attempt to recover revenue, nothing more.
Just look at other companies.
Here's Meta as an example https://about.meta.com/giving-together/
They gave $7B to all sorts of random stuff like cat shelters
Pretty much every company has some stuff like this. Don't you see think it'd be weird if Amazon was the 1 company that doesnt?
Edit: Better article here that distinguishes between Meta's matching and donation from meta users https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/fundraise-for-nonprofits-g....
Here's Meta as an example https://about.meta.com/giving-together/
They gave $7B to all sorts of random stuff like cat shelters
Pretty much every company has some stuff like this. Don't you see think it'd be weird if Amazon was the 1 company that doesnt?
Edit: Better article here that distinguishes between Meta's matching and donation from meta users https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/fundraise-for-nonprofits-g....
Sorry, I don’t really understand what you’re talking about.
My point is they are trying to sugarcoat this as focusing on specific charities, whereas I believe total donation dollars is going to drop. In addition, I think Amazon is hoping to save on costs having to manage AmazonSmile itself.
My point is they are trying to sugarcoat this as focusing on specific charities, whereas I believe total donation dollars is going to drop. In addition, I think Amazon is hoping to save on costs having to manage AmazonSmile itself.
I suspect that saving the cost of managing AmazonSmile is the primary motivator. That's a lot of overhead! Two thousand pages of charities, most of which are collecting less than $30. I'd bet there are hundreds, if not thousands, of charities that Amazon was paying more to manage collection/disbursement than the actual charity received. (Or maybe not--there seems to be a minimum payout of $5.00, starting on page 1881.)
They could have simply raised their minimum to a number that covered the overhead.
They're a public company so it'll be on their 10-K in some form. And of course the charities would notice if they didn't, though they're only going to mention good news.
Yeah it's a bummer, we used it to donate to our local charter school.
What prevents you from donating to your local charter school without Amazon Smile?
This is not a bad question, but part of the value of Smile was that it was very easy to support a selected charity as a side effect of another activity.
I think this will hurt smaller charities. They might not have been getting a huge donation from Smile, but I also think a lot of Smile users aren't going to consciously donate to the charity they selected - certainly not in the $5-$10 range that is probably more than most individual shoppers accounted for each term - and as a result those charities will be taking in less than before.
Smile was a good program. I have no idea what it cost Amazon to operate, but I am pretty confident it resulted in more money going to charity than whatever Amazon will now do instead.
I think this will hurt smaller charities. They might not have been getting a huge donation from Smile, but I also think a lot of Smile users aren't going to consciously donate to the charity they selected - certainly not in the $5-$10 range that is probably more than most individual shoppers accounted for each term - and as a result those charities will be taking in less than before.
Smile was a good program. I have no idea what it cost Amazon to operate, but I am pretty confident it resulted in more money going to charity than whatever Amazon will now do instead.
We do, it's just "free money" basically
Wouldn't that cost money?
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I'm sad, but unsurprised to see Amazon Smile go. Retail isn't exactly high margin to begin with, and Amazon has made a specialty of squeezing what margin remained. As Jeff Bezos said, "Your margin is my opportunity." So, when Amazon announced Smile, I was very surprised that they weren't adding a surcharge for the donation, but rather where making the donation out of whatever margin they earned on the product.
I guess with the current economic downturn, Amazon has decided that there is insufficient margin to continue taking a cut out and donating it to charity.
I guess with the current economic downturn, Amazon has decided that there is insufficient margin to continue taking a cut out and donating it to charity.
From what I've read, an Amazon smile link will superceded any affiliate link you clicked on. That means Amazon goes from paying out multiple percent to 0.5%.
I'm guessing the administrative burden of so many organizations is a big driver behind the shutdown.
I'm guessing the administrative burden of so many organizations is a big driver behind the shutdown.
I don't think this is true, I run an affiliate site that directs people to Smile, and my commissions have been the same whether I direct to Smile or not. I have heard that your conversions typically go down when you use Smile. However I think that might be because many customers have never signed up for Smile and are scared away. I decided to stick with Smile links because I thought that in the long term it would motivate people to continue using my site and I figured at worst I'd help charities a lot more than the income I'd lose so I'm a bit sad to learn about this.
Oof, really? Then I actually feel bad that some of the smaller blogs I follow that published legit reviews didn't get credit for my sales. (I use the Always Smile browser extension.)
Some retail isn't high margin, that's absolutely true.
Some retail has a 75%+ markup as standard at the store. That's why they're able to regularly offer sales where they take 25%, 50%, even 75% off: it's not just to clear out unsold inventory; many retailers that do this are still making a profit at those prices.
Amazon, being a "sell everything and more" retailer, certainly doesn't get to enjoy those high profit margins for all their products, but they also definitely do not have to deal with the razor-thin margins of other sectors across the board. They get to average it out nicely somewhere in the middle.
Some retail has a 75%+ markup as standard at the store. That's why they're able to regularly offer sales where they take 25%, 50%, even 75% off: it's not just to clear out unsold inventory; many retailers that do this are still making a profit at those prices.
Amazon, being a "sell everything and more" retailer, certainly doesn't get to enjoy those high profit margins for all their products, but they also definitely do not have to deal with the razor-thin margins of other sectors across the board. They get to average it out nicely somewhere in the middle.
Some retail has a 75%+ markup as standard at the store. That's why
they're able to regularly offer sales where they take 25%, 50%,
even 75% off: it's not just to clear out unsold inventory; many
retailers that do this are still making a profit at those prices.
Similarly, clothing often has some ridiculous sticker price, because the entire point of the sticker price is to be marked down in one of the seemingly perpetual sales that retailers have. I remember that J.C. Penney, when they hired Apple head of retail Ron Johnson, tried to change this practice, by setting the list price of clothing closer to the price that they paid, eschewing having sales. It was a disaster [1]. Customers had become accustomed to seeing large markdowns, and when those markdowns weren't there, they waited (or shopped at other retailers which continued to offer markdowns).
Just because the sticker price has a 75% (or 2-300%, in the case of watches) markup doesn't mean the retailer actually expects to make that margin on anything except a small fraction of sales.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2017/02/24/a...
I honestly don't know, and would be very interested to see studies digging into this.
I don't particularly like using Amazon but the Smile program was the thing to sway me towards using it when convenient. I'm sure convenience alone will win them plenty but for my personal use this is a huge disappointment. I am almost certain the .5% they were giving away from my purchases/would save from this change will be less than the profit from products I will no longer buy from Amazon.
I would assume this is the case for many users and agree this is likely a short-sighted change. Scary indication of things to come as money policy keeps making companies more frugal.
I would assume this is the case for many users and agree this is likely a short-sighted change. Scary indication of things to come as money policy keeps making companies more frugal.
"Amazon shutters unprofitable philanthropic program."
I particularly like that the email I got addresses me (despite the many tens of thousands of dollars I've spent through Amazon over the past two decades) as lower-case "customer." My default position on the various AWS keynotes about the power of data / personalization is "you first, buddy."
I particularly like that the email I got addresses me (despite the many tens of thousands of dollars I've spent through Amazon over the past two decades) as lower-case "customer." My default position on the various AWS keynotes about the power of data / personalization is "you first, buddy."
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.
There warehouses are significantly worse than average in terms of injuries per hour. They also frequently sell fraudulent items directly harming consumers.
I can’t think of a metric where they aren’t worse than the average retailer.
I can’t think of a metric where they aren’t worse than the average retailer.
>There warehouses are significantly worse than average in terms of injuries per hour.
Per man hour? Amazon is rich and super high volume relatively speaking. I got the impression their warehouses were pretty damn good compared to other warehouses handling consumer goods because the cost of hiccups is so high and they have a huge target on their back.
Per man hour? Amazon is rich and super high volume relatively speaking. I got the impression their warehouses were pretty damn good compared to other warehouses handling consumer goods because the cost of hiccups is so high and they have a huge target on their back.
They don’t seem to be very concerned about injuries. One example that comes to mind is storing 40 lb bags of dog food such that people had to duck and lean over and drag them under a low shelf, that’s practically designed to cause back injuries and in fact caused multiple in a single warehouse.
> They don’t seem to be very concerned about injuries. One example that comes to mind is storing 40 lb bags of dog food such that people had to duck and lean over and drag them under a low shelf, that’s practically designed to cause back injuries and in fact caused multiple in a single warehouse.
I used to work for Amazon a few years ago. I'm uncertain whether it was 12 pounds or 12 kg, but when a *tote weights more than this, you are supposed to handle the tote with two people.
*A tote is a small container of items, like this yellow one: https://media.wired.com/photos/593256d9aef9a462de9820d8/mast...
I used to work for Amazon a few years ago. I'm uncertain whether it was 12 pounds or 12 kg, but when a *tote weights more than this, you are supposed to handle the tote with two people.
*A tote is a small container of items, like this yellow one: https://media.wired.com/photos/593256d9aef9a462de9820d8/mast...
Are there 2 people generally available to do work like this?
Yes. The workstations in our receiving and sorting lanes were right next to each other, and people can theoretically interrupt their current task within a few seconds.
The bigger issue is that no one is actually asking for help because of culture.
The bigger issue is that no one is actually asking for help because of culture.
Yeah but are they actually worse than the competition though? The whole industry is rife with that kind of crap (not like you're expect otherwise for a razor thin margin industry). I once worked somewhere they'd crib between the ground level pallets and first level racking so they could overload the racking (but my immediate manager was good and they put me on a forklift so I didn't care).
If anything the dehumanizing algorithmic tracking and optimization crap they do annoys me far more than the safety stuff.
If anything the dehumanizing algorithmic tracking and optimization crap they do annoys me far more than the safety stuff.
Actual comparison of injury rates show yes they are much worse than the industry average.
Amazon’s extreme turnover rate is also significant. Someone that’s been doing a job for longer has both the skill and physical capacity to avid injury doing the same tasks as a new employee. This compounds over long shifts as people get tired, so limiting new employees to 8 vs 12 hour shifts would make a real difference among other options.
Amazon’s extreme turnover rate is also significant. Someone that’s been doing a job for longer has both the skill and physical capacity to avid injury doing the same tasks as a new employee. This compounds over long shifts as people get tired, so limiting new employees to 8 vs 12 hour shifts would make a real difference among other options.
Workplace safety is 3x worse than the industry norm. And they recently got fined by OSHA, across 3 different states. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amazon-osha-fines_n_63c84509e...
> I got the impression their warehouses were pretty damn good compared to other warehouses
This is the correct impression. Amazon warehouses are almost always a step up in both pay and quality of life vs. the other local employment options.
Source: many friends work(ed) the industry. Amazon was seen as trading your autonomy in for a better overall place to work.
The memes about their warehouses being the worst in the world only really exist in white collar circles.
I could never work for them in such a job, because I require too much autonomy to be happy. I don't deal will with strict metric systems that they enforce. However, others really do enjoy that aspect of not having to put an ounce of thought or problem solving into their dayjob.
This is the correct impression. Amazon warehouses are almost always a step up in both pay and quality of life vs. the other local employment options.
Source: many friends work(ed) the industry. Amazon was seen as trading your autonomy in for a better overall place to work.
The memes about their warehouses being the worst in the world only really exist in white collar circles.
I could never work for them in such a job, because I require too much autonomy to be happy. I don't deal will with strict metric systems that they enforce. However, others really do enjoy that aspect of not having to put an ounce of thought or problem solving into their dayjob.
Ex con here, lived in the halfway house. No one, and I mean NO ONE took Amazon warehouse jobs. And that is saying a lot. We took jobs with metrics requiring we pull 60 pieces of cardboard per minute out of garbage and trash from a 75mph conveyor belt over working Amazon. We had to wear kevlar glove 'sharps' protection so the needles in the trash didn't poke us and give us HIV. This was still preferred over Amazon warehouse jobs. Just saying....
I've noticed two personality types on this one. Those that don't mind trading one sort of "shitty" working conditions like you describe (challenging/dangerous work), because for lack of a better term you are treated like actual human beings.
The other personality I've noticed is someone who prefers a much more "sane" (boring but very predictable work) working environment with a ton of rules around it. They enjoy being treated more like robots.
I could be projecting here, but I've seen more than a dozen or so datapoints - of course directly connected to my personal bubble so there is bias at play.
I'd absolutely never take an Amazon warehouse job. I'd be looking at jobs like you describe.
The other personality I've noticed is someone who prefers a much more "sane" (boring but very predictable work) working environment with a ton of rules around it. They enjoy being treated more like robots.
I could be projecting here, but I've seen more than a dozen or so datapoints - of course directly connected to my personal bubble so there is bias at play.
I'd absolutely never take an Amazon warehouse job. I'd be looking at jobs like you describe.
Injuries per item picked or per capita might be a better metric. It's pretty easy to say the injuries are higher if you have more employees and higher volume than the competitors. Same thing with fraudulent items on Walmart.com.
The hour is a way better metric. It already takes into account the capita. It's a work hour.
Injuries per item picked is obviously the inferior of the two, and fairly poor on its own as well.
Inferior in what way? If you are trying to do some kind of moral calculation to figure out how many marginal injuries you are creating by ordering an item, then injuries per item picked is probably the right metric.
If I sit on ass all day, I assume my injury rate will be lower. Using an injury rate on items picked (or items picked per man hour) could at least show the correlation between increased productivity and injuries.
That's a good point, but if i put myself in the shoes of one of Amazon's warehouse workers, i would probably weight not being injured more heavily than being more productive, so for instance if i had an opportunity to double my productivity at the cost of doubling my likelihood of injury, i'd choose to be less productive if that decision were up to me. However I'd imagine corporate would look at it differently, where injuries are liabilities for the company but productivity is the end goal, so a situation that increases employee productivity proportionately greater than it increases probability of injury might be looked upon more favorably. I am trying to come across as neutral as I can here but bringing it back to the previous commenters' discussion on "the good of the world", I'm finding it hard to defend the injuries/item picked metric here
The point is that then you'd have a job that would let you sit on ass all day in this case. if Amazon warehouse workers could sit their ass half the day or have better working conditions, their injury rate would be lower too.
They pay a lot more than the average retailer, which is why they feel they can work their employees so hard. I think they also tend to see less employee on employee violence.
The latter is an astonishingly dystopian metric. Is the data published somewhere?
"I think they also tend to see less employee on employee violence."
Increased shared hatred of the employer leads to increased employee cohesion?
Increased shared hatred of the employer leads to increased employee cohesion?
Shared hatred of <outgroup> leads to increased cohesion among <ingroup>. Tale as old as human civilization. Maybe one day we'll be able to hack this quirk of humanity on a large scale without needing <vulnurable marginalized population> to be the artificial outgroup.
One I've seen that I think might have promise is "white people" being the outgroup for "white people." Any collection of white people forms an ad hoc in group where some nondescript "everyone else" is the outgroup. Now everyone has a shared thing to hate but everyone you interact with becomes temporally part of your ingroup so you're never hating an specific person or group of people. And even though it's impossible to actually become part of the outgroup you still have some of the fear that if you embody the negative traits that are ascribed to the outgroup you might join them so it also gradually norms.
One I've seen that I think might have promise is "white people" being the outgroup for "white people." Any collection of white people forms an ad hoc in group where some nondescript "everyone else" is the outgroup. Now everyone has a shared thing to hate but everyone you interact with becomes temporally part of your ingroup so you're never hating an specific person or group of people. And even though it's impossible to actually become part of the outgroup you still have some of the fear that if you embody the negative traits that are ascribed to the outgroup you might join them so it also gradually norms.
More that employees who show up to work drunk or high can be easily fired and replaced, while more normal warehouses usually start the shift with people who just don't show up and are stretched enough as it is.
Price and convenience are probably better than average.
But that price and convenience is at the cost of quality and employee safety. And honestly not even worth it as a consumer even if you don’t care about the ethical issues. I’ve been severely disappointed with the quality of the average item on Amazon over the last few years, to the point that I have stopped using them completely. Even Walmart is better, which is saying a lot.
I don't think I've had too many quality issues. The vast majority of the brands you buy at Amazon are also at Walmart or Walmart.com. If you're having issues, then you probably need to start evaluating brand vs seller. For your current discussion, you need to compare buying the same exact item from each. The big win in my eyes is being able to buy from Amazon Warehouse for a big discount.
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I haven’t had too many (any?) quality issues with Amazon I’m no shill - I don’t advocate for them since I’ve heard about plenty of quality issues, but I’ve never actually gotten the wrong product or a fake (unless the fake was so good it was equal to original… which is fine?).
What is everyone ordering that is subpar? Do people not just buy the same brands they’d buy at Walmart or target?
If you buy cheap stuff that was drop shipped off AliExpress, but reputable name brands from walmart… why not buy reputable brands from amazon?
What is everyone ordering that is subpar? Do people not just buy the same brands they’d buy at Walmart or target?
If you buy cheap stuff that was drop shipped off AliExpress, but reputable name brands from walmart… why not buy reputable brands from amazon?
I ordered a pair music monitoring speakers. Only one came in the box. Amazon wouldn't accept my return because I only returned one speaker, not two. I had to fight them on the weight of the 'two' speakers they shipped me and finally they realized they were hit and that based on weight the package they sent me couldn't have contained two speakers. The amount of time that took locked up a fairly large chunk of my funds for way too long. I will never make a high dollar purchase on Amazon again.
Price comparisons assume you get the actual product you ordered.
Unless you have metrics for the average retailer, that's probably not true. Local corner shops vary widely, but are not the least bit shy about hiring undocumented workers, stealing wages, skimping on safety and avoiding taxes. They just do it at such a small scale, it doesn't make the news.
The statistics I gave where in comparison to the average. They also have higher rates of injury and pay less in taxes.
Amazon has had wage theft issues, but I don’t know how they stack up on undocumented workers or the average retailer which includes Costco etc not just tiny corner stores.
Wage theft: https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/2/22262294/amazon-flex-wage-... more wage theft: https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/11/15/murmurs-amazon-settles... you can find a bunch of these going back years but this is what I was initially thinking of: https://www.fastcompany.com/3020175/employees-sue-amazon-ove...
Amazon has had wage theft issues, but I don’t know how they stack up on undocumented workers or the average retailer which includes Costco etc not just tiny corner stores.
Wage theft: https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/2/22262294/amazon-flex-wage-... more wage theft: https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/11/15/murmurs-amazon-settles... you can find a bunch of these going back years but this is what I was initially thinking of: https://www.fastcompany.com/3020175/employees-sue-amazon-ove...
I don't doubt that Amazon has abused workers in various ways, I'm just saying the headlines exist because of their massive scale and visibility. EPI estimates (which are probably a bit aggressive, but backed by sources) say of 2.4M workers in the 10 most populous states, $8B/yr are lost to wage theft. Amazon, with about 1M employees, is not stealing billions per year. In fact, they consistently pay well above minimum wage. My point here isn't that Amazon is great and we should stop complaining, but rather that worker abuse is rampant across all industries and Amazon is likely exceeding what is a very low bar.
https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-fro...
https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-fro...
You are misusing that statistic the average of all employers would include all workers not only those workers that experienced wage theft.
If the US labor US labor force is ~161.2 million workers and had 8B/year in wage theft then the average per 1 million workers is ~50 million. Seeing multiple payouts well over 50 million suggests Amazon could be worse than average here.
If the US labor US labor force is ~161.2 million workers and had 8B/year in wage theft then the average per 1 million workers is ~50 million. Seeing multiple payouts well over 50 million suggests Amazon could be worse than average here.
Where were those stats? I didn't see them in your comment history.
So wait you searched by comment history rather than say Google: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/tech/amazon-injury-data-study...
> The statistics *I gave* where in comparison to the average.
If you say you linked a statistic, it seems reasonable to me to assume that you linked a statistic.
If you say you linked a statistic, it seems reasonable to me to assume that you linked a statistic.
Gave a statistic isn’t the same as linking to a statistic.
Also, statistics include facts like more than average not just specific numerical values.
PS: Though I have also linked to the numeric value before just not in this comment chain.
Also, statistics include facts like more than average not just specific numerical values.
PS: Though I have also linked to the numeric value before just not in this comment chain.
So wait, you lied about providing prior metrics.
It's important to be looking at the same numbers when having a discussion about those numbers.
It's important to be looking at the same numbers when having a discussion about those numbers.
No, facts like more than average are statistics. You seemingly misunderstood the term and then tried to derail an argument which I find hilarious.
The definition disagrees with you. Facts are just that - facts. The analysis of how you arrived at that fact is statistics. It requires numerical analysis. If you've ever taken a stats class you'd know an answer like "more than average" without any numerical work shown would be marked wrong. You'd also know that saying "more than average" provides no real information since it's a huge range.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/statistics
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/statistics
Average of X > average of Y fits “a collection of quantitative data”
For more detail, I have taken statistics, even tutored PHD students.
Showing your work is required if the answer is 4.415 or more than average. A sample refers to a single element, statistic encompass a sample, a parameter covers to the full population.
You will often hear statistics communicated as something like “more than four times as likely” and assume it’s referring to 4<X<5 but they can also be used in cases when a measurement exceeded the range at which you can quantify it. As in you checked the rain gauge and it was full, in such cases the only option is to use > X.
For more detail, I have taken statistics, even tutored PHD students.
Showing your work is required if the answer is 4.415 or more than average. A sample refers to a single element, statistic encompass a sample, a parameter covers to the full population.
You will often hear statistics communicated as something like “more than four times as likely” and assume it’s referring to 4<X<5 but they can also be used in cases when a measurement exceeded the range at which you can quantify it. As in you checked the rain gauge and it was full, in such cases the only option is to use > X.
I don't think that meets the definition. Where is the collection - there isn’t one. Without showing your work, why should I believe a "fact" you present? You need to prove a fact. That's where statistics is helpful. Maybe you did tutor people from a pure math perspective. You might need to learn how to actually apply statistics in real life.
None of the stuff you mention actually means anything when you try to apply it to policy if you don't know how the result was achieved, what it's actually measuring, and what the baseline is. Any good statistical analysis will cover this as well as things like biases, corrections, and confidence. Otherwise I could give you a fact of my opinion is more liked than your opinion...
None of the stuff you mention actually means anything when you try to apply it to policy if you don't know how the result was achieved, what it's actually measuring, and what the baseline is. Any good statistical analysis will cover this as well as things like biases, corrections, and confidence. Otherwise I could give you a fact of my opinion is more liked than your opinion...
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> I don't think the sins of Amazon are any worse than most other major U.S. retailers.
monopolies are bad, for consumers and for competitors. Even if you build your monopoly "fairly" by inventing a better mousetrap, putting the competition out of business is a reward that that is unfair and does not belong to the owner of the mousetrap. For example, Amazon could be split into 3 smaller Amazon mousetraps that compete with each other. Is that unfair to Jeff Bezos? No, he would own the same percentage of mousetrapping companies as he did before. What he would not own is a monopoly.
The sins of Amazon the monopolistic competitor are worse.
monopolies are bad, for consumers and for competitors. Even if you build your monopoly "fairly" by inventing a better mousetrap, putting the competition out of business is a reward that that is unfair and does not belong to the owner of the mousetrap. For example, Amazon could be split into 3 smaller Amazon mousetraps that compete with each other. Is that unfair to Jeff Bezos? No, he would own the same percentage of mousetrapping companies as he did before. What he would not own is a monopoly.
The sins of Amazon the monopolistic competitor are worse.
>Even if you build your monopoly "fairly" by inventing a better mousetrap, putting the competition out of business is a reward that that is unfair and does not belong to the owner of the mousetrap.
Antitrust laws exist to protect consumers, and if you're forcing consumers to buy inferior mousetraps, you're not helping.
Antitrust laws exist to protect consumers, and if you're forcing consumers to buy inferior mousetraps, you're not helping.
Got it, so the issue isn’t anti-trust law. It’s IP law that, by its very nature, forces people to produce inferior mousetraps.
we don't actually have anti-trust laws, we have laws against the abuse of monopoly power, a standard that can be difficult to prove and well after the commission of the injustices. I think there is sufficient theoretical and practical experience to have anti-trust laws simply be anti-market concentration.
I'm arguing for it because it's an example of "third way" regulation, regulation that should be embraced by left wing socialist and right wing capitalists.
I'm arguing for it because it's an example of "third way" regulation, regulation that should be embraced by left wing socialist and right wing capitalists.
I have no trouble finding stuff to buy from companies other than Amazon. For retail, it is not even close to a monopoly.
in what way does breaking Amazon into three companies reduce your choice of product? and monopoly in common usage also refers to monopsony, the choice of vendors for different marketplaces in which to sell their goods.
Most people either forget or were too young to remember the time when Walmart was king. Despite their many, many faults Amazon was (and still is) considerably better for almost everyone than Walmart was in the 90's and early 00's. Walmart would destroy communities, bankrupt manufactures, and paid their employees so little on average that many of them still needed food stamps. The damage that Walmart did in the period 1995 to like 2010 really was incredible.
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.
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.
People are completely addicted to Amazon. Some of my friends and neighbors get things from them literally daily without thinking twice about where to shop. I do not get the allure of cheap Chinese product on my doorstep in 2 days nor do I understand getting overly charged fine dining on my doorstep upside down and cold. But everyone else is addicted to those services.
Sadly, I don't see Amazon losing any steam, but I sure hope it does.
Sadly, I don't see Amazon losing any steam, but I sure hope it does.
It's not any more "cheap Chinese product" than anywhere else. CoolerMaster keyboard is made where it's made whether one buys from Amazon or Best Buy.
Personally I get stuff from Amazon almost daily because I don't want to go to, e.g., Walgreens to buy toothpaste and dishwasher detergent. For a large number of items, there is no benefit to inspecting the item prior to purchase. Going to store for such items would be a waste of time.
Moreover, I can buy the thing immediately ftom my phone. No need to set up going to buy x as some chore in the future.
Personally I get stuff from Amazon almost daily because I don't want to go to, e.g., Walgreens to buy toothpaste and dishwasher detergent. For a large number of items, there is no benefit to inspecting the item prior to purchase. Going to store for such items would be a waste of time.
Moreover, I can buy the thing immediately ftom my phone. No need to set up going to buy x as some chore in the future.
Brand names are probably identical regardless of middleman. Seems a difference between not wanting to go to the store. So much funny shit happens at Walgreens.
Tip your delivery person sometimes.
Tip your delivery person sometimes.
They're absolutely not - but the people that attack Amazon don't care about that. Amazon to many represents Capitalism, and so acts as a catchall for criticisms of Capitalism.
Ironically, small family shops use WAY more child labor, unpaid labor etc as a percentage than Amazon. They also produce more plastic per item, take only cash to evade taxes, etc.
Ironically, small family shops use WAY more child labor, unpaid labor etc as a percentage than Amazon. They also produce more plastic per item, take only cash to evade taxes, etc.
It’s hard to imagine the average small business successfully evading taxes as well as Amazon.
In 2019 Amazon paid zero taxes receiving a net $129 million refund from the federal government, in 2018 they received a $137 million refund after paying 0$ on a net income of 11.2 billion dollars.
In 2020 they paid a net tax of $162 million on $13.9 billion of pre-tax income a net tax rate of 1.2%.
In 2019 Amazon paid zero taxes receiving a net $129 million refund from the federal government, in 2018 they received a $137 million refund after paying 0$ on a net income of 11.2 billion dollars.
In 2020 they paid a net tax of $162 million on $13.9 billion of pre-tax income a net tax rate of 1.2%.
I was just listening to a small business owner yesterday. She paid a $120K down payment on a property, and has set everything up so that the tax benefit of that property is $180K.
That's not $180K deduction, but a $180K credit.
She'll rent the place out for a meager profit, so doesn't have to pay the rest of the mortgage. Essentially, the taxpayers bought her the house - she got a house + cash out of the deal.
Small business owners definitely play games with taxes.
That's not $180K deduction, but a $180K credit.
She'll rent the place out for a meager profit, so doesn't have to pay the rest of the mortgage. Essentially, the taxpayers bought her the house - she got a house + cash out of the deal.
Small business owners definitely play games with taxes.
The Range Rovers... don't forget about all the Range Rovers (and similar large vehicles small business owners tend to use)[1].
Write off practically the entire vehicle (sometimes the entire vehicle) in the first year... making it nearly or completely free.
There's a lot of credits and deductions available to those who seek them out, or are in a position to best use them. They are not loopholes - these provisions were explicitly laid out by Congress.
[1] https://taxsaversonline.com/range-rover-tax-write-off/
Write off practically the entire vehicle (sometimes the entire vehicle) in the first year... making it nearly or completely free.
There's a lot of credits and deductions available to those who seek them out, or are in a position to best use them. They are not loopholes - these provisions were explicitly laid out by Congress.
[1] https://taxsaversonline.com/range-rover-tax-write-off/
Care to share how you can get a $180k tax credit for buying a house?
Real estate businesses have a ridiculous amount of tax benefits. The terms to look up are:
Cost Segregation
Bonus Depreciation
(There's a third one I can't remember).
She basically utilized all three. The larger the value of the house (over $1M in her case), the greater the benefit.
Cost Segregation
Bonus Depreciation
(There's a third one I can't remember).
She basically utilized all three. The larger the value of the house (over $1M in her case), the greater the benefit.
These just allow you to claim deductions which reduces your tax liability - it's not like you get a _credit_ out of it.
Yes, but because of the high value of the property, your deductions can be huge. I was using the word "credit" a bit loosely. The point is that her deductions is well above the quoted $180K. The equivalent extra refund she'll get due to them was $180K.
This is also because they are high income earners (one of them has a regular job), and they've manipulated things so that they can apply the deduction to the W-2 income (not usually possible). The federal tax bracket is 35+% - not sure if they can apply it to their state's income tax, but if they can, it's another 10-11%. So you don't need a massive deduction to get the equivalent of $180K refund.
This is also because they are high income earners (one of them has a regular job), and they've manipulated things so that they can apply the deduction to the W-2 income (not usually possible). The federal tax bracket is 35+% - not sure if they can apply it to their state's income tax, but if they can, it's another 10-11%. So you don't need a massive deduction to get the equivalent of $180K refund.
net tax rate is meaningless in this context. Besides the fact that they're doing what each one of us do (take deductions following the law), it completely ignores all the other tax they pay - like payroll tax on a massive employee base and so forth.
To imply Amazon (or any corp) are floating by with a total tax load of ~1% is either profoundly disingenuous or profoundly naïve.
To imply Amazon (or any corp) are floating by with a total tax load of ~1% is either profoundly disingenuous or profoundly naïve.
Saying companies pay payroll tax is like saying they pay sales tax when you buy something from them. It’s sort of true and sort of false.
It sounds like you don't understand the basics of payroll tax.
The SS tax that gets deducted from your paycheck is only half the amount. Employers are required to pay the other half.
If you're self-employed, you pay both halves, and that is one of the penalties of being treated as self employed.
The SS tax that gets deducted from your paycheck is only half the amount. Employers are required to pay the other half.
If you're self-employed, you pay both halves, and that is one of the penalties of being treated as self employed.
I think they still have loss carryforwards, they didn't make money for several years initially
They where profitable and paid net taxes in 2016 and where hugely profitable yet paid zero taxes in 2017, 2018, and 2019. So I don’t see how this could be loss carry forward offsetting a several billion dollar annual tax bill for 4+ years.
"Tax evasion" is illegal and what the parent poster clearly meant by "taking cash". Companies (and individuals for that matter) take the entirely rational step to use all legal methods to pay as little tax as they can.
Additionally, receiving a refund indicates that Amazon overpaid on their income taxes and that the government agreed.
Also additionally, the figures you are throwing around are income taxes only. Amazon likely pays many other taxes far in excess of the net worth of anybody involved in this conversation. Implying that Amazon "paid zero taxes" without further qualification is wholly dishonest, and you know it, and you should stop doing it.
Additionally, receiving a refund indicates that Amazon overpaid on their income taxes and that the government agreed.
Also additionally, the figures you are throwing around are income taxes only. Amazon likely pays many other taxes far in excess of the net worth of anybody involved in this conversation. Implying that Amazon "paid zero taxes" without further qualification is wholly dishonest, and you know it, and you should stop doing it.
I am not making a specific accusation, but illegal tax evasion occurs at both large and tiny companies. The form of this evasion varies where small companies may need to handle things under the table large companies have plenty of other options. Considering how often Amazon has been caught breaking other laws I would be shocked if they kept things strictly legal.
Also getting a refund does not imply you paid any income taxes can get refunded even if they send in 0$ money as was the case for Amazon in 2017, 2018, and 2019. The refund simply refers to getting money back.
Also getting a refund does not imply you paid any income taxes can get refunded even if they send in 0$ money as was the case for Amazon in 2017, 2018, and 2019. The refund simply refers to getting money back.
Calling a family business "child labor" or unpaid labor is like saying a founder is doing unpaid labor, or if he is under 16-18, child labor.
Family, ownership, and business are concepts that overlap and mean much different things than a $1 trillion company with countless nameless faceless employees around the globe, that you can buy shares of.
Family, ownership, and business are concepts that overlap and mean much different things than a $1 trillion company with countless nameless faceless employees around the globe, that you can buy shares of.
Oh no small family shops are evading taxes…good thing corporations don’t that…
Tax evasion has a different meaning than how you are using it.
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.
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.
Well, it let customers decide as long as those customers enabled ads on their phone, remembered to visit smile.amazon every time, and re-enrolled in the program every year when it turned itself off. It was pretty clearly designed to stop you from using it.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Other than ordering from smile, which was admitted a naked attempt to drive down use, none of what you said occurred to me. I’ve been using smile since it started.
You absolutely had to re-enroll something…
https://smile.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=15576745011
Ah, looks like it was only for the phone app. It makes you re-enroll twice a year.
On the website of course you have to remember to go there every time, unless you got a browser extension.
https://smile.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=15576745011
Ah, looks like it was only for the phone app. It makes you re-enroll twice a year.
On the website of course you have to remember to go there every time, unless you got a browser extension.
And you had to keep app notifications turned on. You're completely right.
what's this bit about re-enrolling? You had to reenroll your charitable organization you wanted to contribute to each year?
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, the underlying symbolic implication is that Amazon is getting rid of its smile and instead.. frowning?
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, the underlying symbolic implication is that Amazon is getting rid of its smile and instead.. frowning?
I would actually kinda love that in a let's just ride the wave of dystopia kinda way.
> Announcing "Amazon Frown": Every year we will donate $10 million dollars each to <worst people imaginable> but you can stop us. Select your most hated group and 1% of your purchase amount will be reduced from the donation.
> Announcing "Amazon Frown": Every year we will donate $10 million dollars each to <worst people imaginable> but you can stop us. Select your most hated group and 1% of your purchase amount will be reduced from the donation.
This is a beautiful suggestion that would be guaranteed to drive engagement.
> 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.
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.
True, but the evil PR goal here is to eventually decomisison the sliders and just say that Amazon participates in philanthropy without generating a bad headline/sentiment. I think they could find neutral enough charities in the meantime, such as those for specific health conditions, habitat for humanity, etc
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.
I got an email notice that the program was ending. I expect everyone who's used Smile also got one.
I like the idea behind Amazon Smile but the execution is a bit underwhelming. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars at Amazon since joining Amazon Prime, but I've only generated $98.66 in donations -- a fraction of a percent. That's worse than just rounding up the price to the nearest dollar. What's the point? I get that Amazon's retail profit margins are terrible, but if they're only going to donate a totally insignificant percentage of their revenue, they shouldn't get any credit for it. Apparently Amazon came to the same conclusion.
If you want to see how much your Amazon Smile account has contributed, there's a web page: https://smile.amazon.com/charity/my-impact
If you want to see how much your Amazon Smile account has contributed, there's a web page: https://smile.amazon.com/charity/my-impact
My contribution through Smile was $102. I also thought this was very small for the amount I order, however, combined with other Smile customers donating to the same charity (Feeding America) Smile generated $846,092 in donations to the charity. That made me feel better about the combined effect.
For many people, that's $98.66 more than would have gone to a charity.
> I get that Amazon's retail profit margins are terrible
Why do you think that? I get some 2-8% of the purchase amount via their Amazon Affiliate Program. Furthermore, their "Amazon Choice" or whatever it's called where they suggest 1 version of the product over the rest is often made by Amazon itself because they saw that someone else was profiting nicely off of it so they get in between and squash the competition.
Amazon is a pile, mostly.
Why do you think that? I get some 2-8% of the purchase amount via their Amazon Affiliate Program. Furthermore, their "Amazon Choice" or whatever it's called where they suggest 1 version of the product over the rest is often made by Amazon itself because they saw that someone else was profiting nicely off of it so they get in between and squash the competition.
Amazon is a pile, mostly.
I googled "Amazon profit margin" and found several sources saying their operating profit margin is a low single-digit percentage at best.
That's so nice of them to give me 8% on electronic purchases then. According to "Amazon profit margin", that means they're losing money because of me.
No need to be sad, though. Look at what Amazon donated to your charity from your purchases, then just go give that amount directly to them next year. And then quit buying on Amazon. Everyone wins!
This is basically it. Prime has gone to absolute shit (Walmart and Target beat them on delivery AND quality now), and this may have been the last thing keeping me on the platform.
what's up with shipping, it's so inconsistent. Are they testing their customers patience or something? It's getting to the point where I'm considering starting a spreadsheet to quantify how poor the experience has been of late.
I don't have any evidence to back it up, but my feeling is their push to contractors for deliveries has really degraded the speed, quality, and consistency. I've read a lot of horror stories about how these people are treated, and how little they are paid. It's no surprise quality has dropped.
For me where I am they use UPS and once they actually ship it gets here in a few days, but even prime orders don't seem to bother leaving the warehouse for a week or more (for in-stock things). It's like every order is now "Amazon day orders" or something.
yah they play the whole get a $2 digital credit or whatever for orders. It kind of blurs the expectations too when now it's becoming the norm for things not to meet the 2day shipping expectations that is prime. Things are also blurred in the opposite direction with same day shipping or one day shipping on certain items. It's the inconsistency that's confusing and kind of invites you to stop guessing and just patiently wait like the old days of ordering something through the mail.
They used to offer - prime 2 day, slower day, really slow day for $2.
The last one is hardly offered anymore, I used to try to game orders to get it but now I get:
prime slower day, sometime next year, hahahaha
as the options
The last one is hardly offered anymore, I used to try to game orders to get it but now I get:
prime slower day, sometime next year, hahahaha
as the options
USPS, FedEx, or UPS? USPS is soo erratic and it's not Amazon's fault. I just received a USPS package not from Amazon four days after the initial delivery estimate. It sat at a distribution center for two days.
No issues here. Perhaps geography specific?
Very nice corporate speak for “our financials look bad for 2023, so we’re canceling program that’s eating our margins”.
It might be worse than that. I’m cookied into some affiliate or other for Amazon essentially all the time.
I always assumed Smile was mostly a way for Amazon to get me to direct that to a charity instead of a stale affiliate link.
I always assumed Smile was mostly a way for Amazon to get me to direct that to a charity instead of a stale affiliate link.
Smile and affiliate commissions are separate. So in your example both the charity and the stale affiliate link would receive a cut that is independent of the other. Source: I run an affiliate site and my links always direct to Smile, and I keep getting commissions.
Is it possible that by linking to smile, your amount is reduced by the smile amount, or that it operates differently when the affiliate link happens first and the smile insertion happens second?
I've been donating to charities through affiliate links and Smile for a while. Whenever I plan to make a purchase I go to the smile.amazon.com URL while also appending a charity's affiliate link (e.g. "/?tag=AFFILIATE-ID") to the URL.
I think charities will still get a significant amount from my purchases, since AmazonSmile was only 0.5%, while affiliate links for many categories are 4% or higher.
I think charities will still get a significant amount from my purchases, since AmazonSmile was only 0.5%, while affiliate links for many categories are 4% or higher.
Well, that's unfortunate. I've been using Chrome redirector extension and all my Amazon orders were automatically smile-eligible, with Signal Foundation receiving all of it. This was probably the easiest, most hassle-free and cheapest (as in - free) way to support organizations.
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.
I know that Amazon knows that I know the reason is bullshit.....
This doesn't make bullshit any more tolerable. In fact, the blatantly obvious nature of it makes this bullshit more intolerable. It's an insult to the reader. It's an insult to truth. It degrades language by eroding the meaning of words. It harms trust and confidence. All bullshit should always be called out. It should be socially unacceptable to waste bytes and axons on bullshit.
This doesn't make bullshit any more tolerable. In fact, the blatantly obvious nature of it makes this bullshit more intolerable. It's an insult to the reader. It's an insult to truth. It degrades language by eroding the meaning of words. It harms trust and confidence. All bullshit should always be called out. It should be socially unacceptable to waste bytes and axons on bullshit.
You want everybody but Amazon to skip the formalities of recognizing they’ve done something stupid?
No, I just accept general face-saving. Like if a friend at a dinner party gets up under the pretense of stretching his legs, I don't ask him how his trip to the bathroom was when he gets back to the table.
This is such good news. The Burning Man nonprofit in particular was a huge problem. They used to highlight lots of small vendors who sold cool stuff for building art projects, but then the shifted entirely to sending people to amazon for the smile money and away from small vendors. Hopefully this change will shift things back in a better direction.
Amazon actively made choices to prevent purchases from contributing towards Smile donations. You had to type the URL and make the purchase from smile.amazon.com. When they say that the program has not grown to create the impact that they had originally hoped, it is a complete fabrication. It did not grow because they made choices to prevent it.
Damn. I used AmazonSmile to support my favorite extremist group. (Firearms Policy Coalition)
I wonder if that had anything to do with it...
I wonder if that had anything to do with it...
I wouldn't be totally surprised, given the effort to get the FPC 501c3 delisted from smile last month.
I thought part of what made Smile cool is that Amazon would forward my donations to such a wide range of organizations (eg my local church OR my local satanic temple). Talk about consumer choice.
I thought part of what made Smile cool is that Amazon would forward my donations to such a wide range of organizations (eg my local church OR my local satanic temple). Talk about consumer choice.
Berkshire Hathaway had a program where shareholders would allocate corporate donations to charities [1] but shut it down after subsidiaries faced misplaced criticism [2] for shareholders’ choices.
[1]: https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/1997ar/shcontri.html "Shareholder-designated contributions"
[2]: https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/pampered-... "Pampered Chef profits will no longer fund abortions"
[1]: https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/1997ar/shcontri.html "Shareholder-designated contributions"
[2]: https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/pampered-... "Pampered Chef profits will no longer fund abortions"
Twitch also ran into this issue recently where blindly allowing donations to any registered charity ended up being a bad look for them. It think it was autism speaks (autism / neurodivergence is a disease that needs to be cured and "not technically eugenics", not popular with gamers, go figure) and the lgb alliance (a boring trans-hate group).
[deleted]
If people go to a doctor to get a diagnosis is that not the definition of a disease?
As for a cure, that should be a matter for the patient to decide if they want one or not.
I strongly suspect that your quote marks should actually be inverted commas.
As for a cure, that should be a matter for the patient to decide if they want one or not.
I strongly suspect that your quote marks should actually be inverted commas.
> the lgb alliance (a boring trans-hate group)
Can you direct me to any place where the LGB Alliance officially affirms “trans hate” as their core message?
Seems like a remark that fails the barest minimum of common sense thresholds, in that it’s unclear to me how any such body could ever hope to remain a tax-deductible registered charity.
Can you direct me to any place where the LGB Alliance officially affirms “trans hate” as their core message?
Seems like a remark that fails the barest minimum of common sense thresholds, in that it’s unclear to me how any such body could ever hope to remain a tax-deductible registered charity.
They obviously don't call it hate themselves. It is the opinion of certain trans groups that the positions taken by the organisation are based on hate. Of course hate in modern lingo just means disagreement, or failure to support the specific legislative agenda of a particular group.
LGB Alliance states that it believes many cases of transition are actually a form of therapy to remove gay-ness. That a gay person is led to believe they can be "straight" if they transition to the opposite sex. So in their view, transitioning is a form of homophobia, but in the view of trans groups, the LGB alliance is anti-trans. From the LGB Alliance webpage:
> Very many children, and quite possibly adults, enter the process of gender transition as a result of the homophobia of their parents, peer group, or their own internalised dislike of their sexual orientation. Young gay men or lesbians are being sold a myth that they can be straight, that lesbians are really straight men and that gay men are really straight women. This is homophobic conversion therapy.
LGB Alliance states that it believes many cases of transition are actually a form of therapy to remove gay-ness. That a gay person is led to believe they can be "straight" if they transition to the opposite sex. So in their view, transitioning is a form of homophobia, but in the view of trans groups, the LGB alliance is anti-trans. From the LGB Alliance webpage:
> Very many children, and quite possibly adults, enter the process of gender transition as a result of the homophobia of their parents, peer group, or their own internalised dislike of their sexual orientation. Young gay men or lesbians are being sold a myth that they can be straight, that lesbians are really straight men and that gay men are really straight women. This is homophobic conversion therapy.
> Of course hate in modern lingo just means disagreement, or failure to support the specific legislative agenda of a particular group.
Maybe that’s just me, but I think we should have higher expectations to the language used in discussions on HN.
If we agree this is about a policy-disagreement, then let’s use those words. Don’t use the word “hate” when no actual hate is involved.
It doesn’t help bring across any points, it doesn’t make you look better, it doesn’t seek constructive replies and it doesn’t help the conversation.
Enough with the “hate” already.
Maybe that’s just me, but I think we should have higher expectations to the language used in discussions on HN.
If we agree this is about a policy-disagreement, then let’s use those words. Don’t use the word “hate” when no actual hate is involved.
It doesn’t help bring across any points, it doesn’t make you look better, it doesn’t seek constructive replies and it doesn’t help the conversation.
Enough with the “hate” already.
My tone apparently didn't come across well. I was in fact criticizing the use of the word hate in this context.
It’s just plain rhetoric at this point.
Anyone not actively supporting trans-rights these days are effectively labelled a “hater” or transphobic.
Essentially the trans-activist doing their best to gaslight the situation and get as much chilling effect as possible.
It’s dishonest, undemocratic and should be enough reason for most reasonable people to distrust them.
And yeah. I’m transphobic for posting this, obviously.
Anyone not actively supporting trans-rights these days are effectively labelled a “hater” or transphobic.
Essentially the trans-activist doing their best to gaslight the situation and get as much chilling effect as possible.
It’s dishonest, undemocratic and should be enough reason for most reasonable people to distrust them.
And yeah. I’m transphobic for posting this, obviously.
This isn't rhetoric, the LGB Alliance isn't some group that just happens to not focus on T of LGBT. They're a group that wants the T dropped from LGBT, that believes, advocates for, and fights for legislation that defines trans men as women and vice versa. They were literally established in opposition to LGBT groups supporting trans people and still are.
There is no gaslighting whatsoever, one of the co-founders literally, somewhat famously, broke down in court when backed into a logical corner about whether trans women were lesbians. Even if you take the naive definition of "transphobia" where there must be actual fear it still holds up.
Of course they don't say their beliefs are transphobic. That's the real rhetoric -- because they're happy to tell you that they think that trans women are men who pretend to be women like that doesn't invalidate the very core definition of what it means to be trans.
This group would run into no trouble whatsoever had they had no stance at all about trans people and just said that they preferred to focus on the sexuality rather than gender issues.
There is no gaslighting whatsoever, one of the co-founders literally, somewhat famously, broke down in court when backed into a logical corner about whether trans women were lesbians. Even if you take the naive definition of "transphobia" where there must be actual fear it still holds up.
Of course they don't say their beliefs are transphobic. That's the real rhetoric -- because they're happy to tell you that they think that trans women are men who pretend to be women like that doesn't invalidate the very core definition of what it means to be trans.
This group would run into no trouble whatsoever had they had no stance at all about trans people and just said that they preferred to focus on the sexuality rather than gender issues.
The reason they are for LGB only, explicitly dropping the T, is because modern transgender activism redefines homosexuality to be attraction between people of the same gender identity, rather than the same sex.
As a result, you have situations like, for example, males identifying as lesbians expecting actual female lesbians to be open to dating them, and accusing them of transphobia if they decline. This is a problem as by the usual/previous definitions, the former are heterosexual males who are imposing themselves on homosexual females.
This sort of thing is what the LGB Alliance was set up to oppose, given that most other gay rights organisations (Stonewall in particular) have fully immersed themselves in the ideology of gender identity.
As a result, you have situations like, for example, males identifying as lesbians expecting actual female lesbians to be open to dating them, and accusing them of transphobia if they decline. This is a problem as by the usual/previous definitions, the former are heterosexual males who are imposing themselves on homosexual females.
This sort of thing is what the LGB Alliance was set up to oppose, given that most other gay rights organisations (Stonewall in particular) have fully immersed themselves in the ideology of gender identity.
> This isn't rhetoric, the LGB Alliance isn't some group that just happens to not focus on T of LGBT. They're a group that wants the T dropped from LGBT, that believes, advocates for, and fights for legislation that defines trans men as women and vice versa. They were literally established in opposition to LGBT groups supporting trans people and still are.
But there's nothing hateful about that. It's a perfectly reasonable position, held by the vast majority of people worldwide. The reason trans-activists are working to get acceptance for such a view, is in fact because it is not the dominant view (or why else would they need to promote it?).
Would you care to outline why you'd categorize having a specific view on gender and sex which differs from the one driven by these activists as "hateful"? Just what part here is hate?
It's a genuine question. I honestly don't understand this mentality or world-view.
But there's nothing hateful about that. It's a perfectly reasonable position, held by the vast majority of people worldwide. The reason trans-activists are working to get acceptance for such a view, is in fact because it is not the dominant view (or why else would they need to promote it?).
Would you care to outline why you'd categorize having a specific view on gender and sex which differs from the one driven by these activists as "hateful"? Just what part here is hate?
It's a genuine question. I honestly don't understand this mentality or world-view.
[deleted]
> However, after almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped. With so many eligible organizations—more than 1 million globally—our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.
What BS is this? Can we have the real reason?
What BS is this? Can we have the real reason?
I assume this will simply allow them to increase their margins by eliminating what was, essentially, their special affiliate program for charities.
While I'm sure this isn't the real reason, I could see that the accounting and check-cutting for 1 million organizations will have an noticeable impact on the amounts they're giving to each organization, especially the ones that get almost nothing.
Others have already suggested cutting the list of charities down to a manageable number, perhaps from the list of charities that got the most interest already. I suspect this would end up producing bad PR from their curated list, so they've decided to just pick a handful and be done.
But again, I suspect there was more to this and we'll never know the real reason.
Others have already suggested cutting the list of charities down to a manageable number, perhaps from the list of charities that got the most interest already. I suspect this would end up producing bad PR from their curated list, so they've decided to just pick a handful and be done.
But again, I suspect there was more to this and we'll never know the real reason.
I'd love to see a spreadsheet of each of the participating organizations and hear their take on it.
According to Amazon, I generated $326.89 in donations. I feel good enough about this impact to have installed Smile Always on all of my browsers and resisted using the mobile app entirely. It’s not super impactful but it’s still kinda sad to see it go.
I think based on the Amazon’s statement, which states that it didn’t have the desired impact, they could’ve just rolled it out as the default. The reality is that it’s now 5% back to Amazon and you can trivially calculate that back in missed profits they didn’t get.
Belt tightening or legitimate disappointment with the impact?
I think based on the Amazon’s statement, which states that it didn’t have the desired impact, they could’ve just rolled it out as the default. The reality is that it’s now 5% back to Amazon and you can trivially calculate that back in missed profits they didn’t get.
Belt tightening or legitimate disappointment with the impact?
Smiling was a low interest rate phenomenon
yup
low cost of capital allowed low margins & high multiples ..
now we are seeing lower multiples and attempts to transition to higher margins
now we are seeing lower multiples and attempts to transition to higher margins
Sad, but not super surprising to be honest. Their metric about average donation amount being low isn’t surprising to me at all. In my opinion smile was always difficult to use. Why wasn’t it automatic? Why was it impossible to use through the mobile app?
I would try to remember to use it, but I also don’t make very many Amazon purchases. My total donation amount through smile is only a few dollars.
I would try to remember to use it, but I also don’t make very many Amazon purchases. My total donation amount through smile is only a few dollars.
Was it impossible on the ".com" app? It works perfectly on the ".co.uk" for me on Android.
But likewise, in a couple of years I've only generated about ten dollars worth and I make at least a couple of purchases a week.
0.5% of net just isn't very much on low priced items.
But likewise, in a couple of years I've only generated about ten dollars worth and I make at least a couple of purchases a week.
0.5% of net just isn't very much on low priced items.
It was impossible last I had checked, but looking now I guess they enabled it on iPhone some time in 2020? But it required enabling push notifications? I’ve always added items to my cart, then finished the purchase on desktop to use smile.
I can’t currently find anything about it in the app. Either it has already been removed or its very difficult to find.
I can’t currently find anything about it in the app. Either it has already been removed or its very difficult to find.
I like that fully a third of their "charitable" targets are seeking ways to create a better environment for Amazon itself. Funding affordable housing in Seattle and training more software engineers both.
Why pay salaries when you can make “big” donations instead?
Amazon is working hard to improve gross margins so they are cutting this service. Now they get to keep more profits vs having to share their margins with charities whenever someone uses a smile.amazon link
Amazon's decision to 'wind down' Amazon Smile is nauseating and pathetic. Their greed knows no bounds. I have raised a considerable amount for my charity through this programme, which is a small local non-profit organisation which takes in and rehomes abandoned and unwanted animals. It is these small, largely unknown, struggling charities that benefit so greatly from Amazon Smile. The larger charities don't need the funding in the same urgent way small charity organisations do. Every donation counts, however small.
I am disgusted and repelled that Amazon, a multi-billion dollar conglomerate with seemingly unlimited tax breaks, corporate benefits and exemptions, should abandon the one charitable and genuinely honourable programme it offers; notably that each customer can choose which charities to support, resulting in keeping afloat innumerable small and obscure non-profits, a majority which would otherwise remain unknown and overlooked. A majority of these immeasurably valuable organisations are totally reliant on contributions, grateful for every penny they receive in donations. It is deplorable that Amazon, an obscenely profitable and market-dominating consortium, should abandon what has been the only benevolent and honourable attributes of the company.
To justify this contemptable greed and grossness they have announced that Amazon will instead be donating to prominent chosen (by whom?) charities, no doubt largely high-profile ones that already receive considerable donations and publicity. They are utterly shameless.
'AmazonSmile represents a very small portion of the total charitable contributions made through our other programmes, which we estimate at more than £100 million in 2021.'
Isn't this the point? To reach charities that are overlooked and underfunded? I feel sick......
I am disgusted and repelled that Amazon, a multi-billion dollar conglomerate with seemingly unlimited tax breaks, corporate benefits and exemptions, should abandon the one charitable and genuinely honourable programme it offers; notably that each customer can choose which charities to support, resulting in keeping afloat innumerable small and obscure non-profits, a majority which would otherwise remain unknown and overlooked. A majority of these immeasurably valuable organisations are totally reliant on contributions, grateful for every penny they receive in donations. It is deplorable that Amazon, an obscenely profitable and market-dominating consortium, should abandon what has been the only benevolent and honourable attributes of the company.
To justify this contemptable greed and grossness they have announced that Amazon will instead be donating to prominent chosen (by whom?) charities, no doubt largely high-profile ones that already receive considerable donations and publicity. They are utterly shameless.
'AmazonSmile represents a very small portion of the total charitable contributions made through our other programmes, which we estimate at more than £100 million in 2021.'
Isn't this the point? To reach charities that are overlooked and underfunded? I feel sick......
Here is a link to Amazon's release:
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-closing...
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-closing...
Amazon smile is what made me start using amazon excessively. I'm going to wind down that excess now.
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.
what, it wasn't uniform across the board for all sales? Qualifying orders, where was that detail ever communicated?
Wow never knew about any of this before
""" Your total orders The number you see here is the total number of eligible orders you’ve placed at smile.amazon.com on your web browser or with AmazonSmile activated in the Amazon Shopping app on your iOS or Android phone, since the first time you selected a charity at smile.amazon.com.
This total may take several days to update after your order ships.
Look for the AmazonSmile badge in Your Orders to see which of your orders have supported charity. https://smile.amazon.com/charity/my-impact?ref_=nav_cs_smile """
""" Which products on AmazonSmile are eligible for charitable donations? Tens of millions of products on AmazonSmile are eligible for donations. You will see eligible products marked “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation” on their product detail pages. Recurring Subscribe-and-Save purchases and subscription renewals are not currently eligible. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/about/ref=smi_se_dshb_leli_... """
""" Your total orders The number you see here is the total number of eligible orders you’ve placed at smile.amazon.com on your web browser or with AmazonSmile activated in the Amazon Shopping app on your iOS or Android phone, since the first time you selected a charity at smile.amazon.com.
This total may take several days to update after your order ships.
Look for the AmazonSmile badge in Your Orders to see which of your orders have supported charity. https://smile.amazon.com/charity/my-impact?ref_=nav_cs_smile """
""" Which products on AmazonSmile are eligible for charitable donations? Tens of millions of products on AmazonSmile are eligible for donations. You will see eligible products marked “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation” on their product detail pages. Recurring Subscribe-and-Save purchases and subscription renewals are not currently eligible. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/about/ref=smi_se_dshb_leli_... """
My guess is amongst the people who set up and used Amazon Smile, the vast majority maintained the belief that Amazon is closer to evil than it is to good.
Smarter for Amazon to pick and choose which charities to spend on so it can virtue signal to the more gullible.
Smarter for Amazon to pick and choose which charities to spend on so it can virtue signal to the more gullible.
Humble Bundle has also been ratcheting down the share that goes to charities even though that's their reason for existing.
It always annoyed me you had to explicitly go to smile.amazon.com. Couldn’t they just have made it a user preference or an option at checkout? It made me think they purposefully didn’t want people to use it.
This was to avoid paying google
Like a patent thing?
Nah, let’s say you searched for the product in google, and clicked on the Amazon result, google gets a cut. If you type in smile.Amazon.*, google can’t claim that cut ( I assume ).
Corporate donations are a poor replacement for tax based programs. I don't want to decry Gates and co, I'd rather the money was spent than not, but if you move away from "charity as a business" to not for profit programs seeking funding, they welcome corporate money mainly because it brings freedoms, where government programs generally come with strings. The US government was absolutely overt that US aid was an arc of US foreign policy and this meant that when the domestic agenda moved against womens reproductive health, so did the foreign aid money (which is why I really do want to recognize what Melinda Gates did making the gates foundation run against the tide there)
But the continuity of funding is usually better when its from tax not charity. So here we are, amazon withdraws, whats the replacement income stream for the projects being funded?
Amazon did a "good" thing, in the narrow context of spending money for public good. The situation this happens in is not good, and depending on charity rather than having governments fix systemic problems through tax based spending really doesn't solve the problem.
But the continuity of funding is usually better when its from tax not charity. So here we are, amazon withdraws, whats the replacement income stream for the projects being funded?
Amazon did a "good" thing, in the narrow context of spending money for public good. The situation this happens in is not good, and depending on charity rather than having governments fix systemic problems through tax based spending really doesn't solve the problem.
One of my favorite things about AmazonSmile is that I got the pick the charities based on what I considered important. Many times charity giving by companies can have different motivations (an example is Microsoft "donating" Windows and Office to schools so that that is what kids grow up more comfortable with).
By being able to choose who go the donations, it felt empowering and less likely the company was using charity to pursue secondary interests.
By being able to choose who go the donations, it felt empowering and less likely the company was using charity to pursue secondary interests.
[deleted]
Unfortunate. It was a decent source of donations for the schools in my area here in AZ.
Just got the email, that's sad. There are some charities might be dependent on this every year. Now my Amazon purchases become less interesting.
Well, this stinks. For a point of reference, I had it activated for about 2 years and directed the donations to Federation of American Scientists - not a huge name in the nonprofit space, but well-established and well-respected. According to the impact page, my orders during that time (including some big ticket stuff, about half the parts for a high-spec gaming PC) generated a grand total of $35.22, and FAS has received $1,150 during their participation in the program. I’m glad I could help pay for what’s probably less than one month of their hosting costs…
It was something of a psychological hook for me, that a few pennies from each order would go to support content I appreciated. I did mentally kick myself when I forgot to place an order through the smile.amazon.com portal. I’ll probably end up giving a bit more consideration to other online retailers now, although every time I’ve ordered online from Walmart lately has been a complete disaster.
It was something of a psychological hook for me, that a few pennies from each order would go to support content I appreciated. I did mentally kick myself when I forgot to place an order through the smile.amazon.com portal. I’ll probably end up giving a bit more consideration to other online retailers now, although every time I’ve ordered online from Walmart lately has been a complete disaster.
On Walmart specifically, their grocery order search is entirely broken. You can search for an item and in the preview/drop-down see the correct item. You press enter and in the product list page it is gone.
I am saddened by this news. No doubt the charities they select are the same ones that can afford to buy TV ads, magazine ads, internet ads, and direct mail advertising. What a great way to spend the donations!
Meanwhile, the smaller nonprofit organizations that have no advertising budget, no payroll, no employee benefits, etc. that run on a shoestring budget will never miss the measly $1000 a year that Amazon Smile generated, right?
If they were serious amount making a significant impact, they would allow for donations to the smaller organizations that spend virtually every dollar on their programs rather than huge salaries and elaborate holiday parties that larger nonprofits can afford.
If you are interested, IRS provides copies of tax returns for many US-based charities. Look at the bigger ones to see where your donations are actually being spent, and the large sums they have in their bank and investment accounts.
Meanwhile, the smaller nonprofit organizations that have no advertising budget, no payroll, no employee benefits, etc. that run on a shoestring budget will never miss the measly $1000 a year that Amazon Smile generated, right?
If they were serious amount making a significant impact, they would allow for donations to the smaller organizations that spend virtually every dollar on their programs rather than huge salaries and elaborate holiday parties that larger nonprofits can afford.
If you are interested, IRS provides copies of tax returns for many US-based charities. Look at the bigger ones to see where your donations are actually being spent, and the large sums they have in their bank and investment accounts.
This honestly infuriates me. Thanks for raising the cost of prime while squandering any reason to shop with you.
I sent an email to [email protected] stating that I will cancel my Prime account, Business account, and credit card on February 20th. It’s annoying having to go to different sites for goods, but I think I can manage.
The charity I contributed to got the email and won’t be using Amazon as a vendor any longer.
The charity I contributed to got the email and won’t be using Amazon as a vendor any longer.
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).
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).
This is horrendous and is going to take away huge amounts of money from charities that rely on it.
Charities that customers care about, not Amazon executives.
The charity I support is the ASPCA, which gets significant funding from Smile and it’s going to translate directly into fewer animals getting care.
Shitty.
Charities that customers care about, not Amazon executives.
The charity I support is the ASPCA, which gets significant funding from Smile and it’s going to translate directly into fewer animals getting care.
Shitty.
"Once AmazonSmile closes, charities will still be able to seek support from Amazon customers by creating their own wish lists."
So, Amazon's tired of revenue going out instead of coming in....
Sure, the argument can be made that Amazon does let charities join their affiliate program <https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/node/topic/GYV3PYE...>
But how many of those smaller charities are going to want to deal with all that fine print just to set a 24 hour browser cookie?
So, Amazon's tired of revenue going out instead of coming in....
Sure, the argument can be made that Amazon does let charities join their affiliate program <https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/node/topic/GYV3PYE...>
But how many of those smaller charities are going to want to deal with all that fine print just to set a 24 hour browser cookie?
This honestly might be a net good if everyone complaining buys less plastic junk on Amazon as a result. To me the program always felt like a lot of recycling: a way to make people feel better about unsustainable overconsumption.
I've twice done tech work for charities (the second being my current contract) and this is going to affect some charities, particularly the ones that rely on donors, over others that rely on grant money.
Though the sums were tiny, weren't they? I mean, it was $400m in 9 years, spread over a million charities in the end. To get a significant amount of money through that program, you'd need to be a big name that a lot of people would choose to donate to ... at which point you're a big name that probably gets a lot more money through regular donations.
One was an international charity, and tiny sums definitely matter. 12 cents buys a de-worming pill that helps keep kids free of intestinal parasites for 6 months. $35 bucks plants 20 trees in a village. Their main focus was a brick and wire based stove that prevented unnecessary deaths and blindness by reducing smoke, built locally from local materials for pennies.
Big charities tend to focus on where they can have the most impact. Smaller charities tend to focus on making an impact in a place that needs it.
My current charity work is as as Dev and Technical Consultant for a company that basically helps organizations do online evidence based mentoring and support in both urban and rural communities, using an app they developed. Founded basically by a professor to implement her research, than passed on to a new CEO when it took off. They work with a lot of Big Brothers Big Sisters chapters.
My contract runs out in Feb and I'm not sure what I'm going to do after that, given all the local layoffs. It's not like the stuff I'm working on is at Scale or uses Machine Learning or requires K8 or whatever is going to make some hiring manager's eyes light up now.
Big charities tend to focus on where they can have the most impact. Smaller charities tend to focus on making an impact in a place that needs it.
My current charity work is as as Dev and Technical Consultant for a company that basically helps organizations do online evidence based mentoring and support in both urban and rural communities, using an app they developed. Founded basically by a professor to implement her research, than passed on to a new CEO when it took off. They work with a lot of Big Brothers Big Sisters chapters.
My contract runs out in Feb and I'm not sure what I'm going to do after that, given all the local layoffs. It's not like the stuff I'm working on is at Scale or uses Machine Learning or requires K8 or whatever is going to make some hiring manager's eyes light up now.
Oh sure, you can do good things with small amounts, I meant it more like: if you're a small charity where every penny counts, you probably didn't get thousands of dollars from Amazon because you didn't have the reach (and arguably, the time dealing with amazon may have been spent better doing something else). And if you're a big name, you're not relying on a few tens of thousands from Amazon because you're taking in millions in donations and grants each year.
I assume it can be hard to transition between charity and for-profit work. Are charities following with the hiring-freeze? Wouldn't freelancers be more welcome in these times, given that they're easy to let go? Good luck in any case.
I assume it can be hard to transition between charity and for-profit work. Are charities following with the hiring-freeze? Wouldn't freelancers be more welcome in these times, given that they're easy to let go? Good luck in any case.
There's no time spent dealing with Amazon as a charity, they just cut a check to the charity for however much it is.
The hiring freeze/layoffs, as best I can tell, has been driven by activist hedge funds like TCI and Elliot Managmenet encouraging companies to make big cuts for a short term increase in the bottom line, not by any major actual economic issues for most tech companies.
The hiring freeze/layoffs, as best I can tell, has been driven by activist hedge funds like TCI and Elliot Managmenet encouraging companies to make big cuts for a short term increase in the bottom line, not by any major actual economic issues for most tech companies.
>Though the sums were tiny, weren't they?
Yes, but for small, grass-roots organizations even small sums can be meaningful. For example, my chosen donation was to Last Hope Animal Rescue, a small outfit based on Long Island.
>This is the quarterly notification to inform you that AmazonSmile has made a charitable donation to the charity you’ve selected, Last Hope Inc, in the amount of $854.65 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you and other customers between July 1st - September 30th.
How much does $854 per quarter mean to this small organization? Even if it only helped rescue a few animals, it was meaningful. Now that meager funding stream will, unfortunately, be gone.
https://lasthopeanimalrescue.org/
Yes, but for small, grass-roots organizations even small sums can be meaningful. For example, my chosen donation was to Last Hope Animal Rescue, a small outfit based on Long Island.
>This is the quarterly notification to inform you that AmazonSmile has made a charitable donation to the charity you’ve selected, Last Hope Inc, in the amount of $854.65 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you and other customers between July 1st - September 30th.
How much does $854 per quarter mean to this small organization? Even if it only helped rescue a few animals, it was meaningful. Now that meager funding stream will, unfortunately, be gone.
https://lasthopeanimalrescue.org/
Amazon treats their engineers so poorly that they have to set up training pipelines directly into middle schools. Maybe they think they can make them drink the kool-aid before they grow their critical thinking skills.
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 book covers).
1. If you want to support this writer, there are Amazon links at https://dahosek.com/publications/ (click on the book covers).
This is like if reddit decided to end custom sub-reddits.
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.
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.
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?
For one, they can afford it. Two, it factors into my decision on the value of Prime to me as a consumer. Prime also offers me the ability to sub to a twitch steamer for free every week. That puts real money in creators pockets. YouTube Premium gives creators more cash when I visit than a free user. I enjoy using services that allow me to give back to creators.
I'm not talking about Amazon Smile specifically. I'm saying that if this is how people react every time a charitable program is closed/modified, then companies have less of an incentive to have these kinds of charities in the first place.
A company is essentially having to make a permanent, immutable financial commitment lest they face backlash.
Yes, Amazon has the money to continue this program. Yes, I think they should keep it around. No, I don't think it makes sense for people to go bonkers over it ending.
A company is essentially having to make a permanent, immutable financial commitment lest they face backlash.
Yes, Amazon has the money to continue this program. Yes, I think they should keep it around. No, I don't think it makes sense for people to go bonkers over it ending.
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.
Every company, even the "good" ones, are committed to pursuing profit, at least to some extent. That's the _entire_ point of a company.
Have you ever heard of nonprofits?
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.
I expect cynical HN commenters would make the similarly snarky comments about how X company is only committing to Y time period.
Yeah, they would.
But if Amazon committed to Smile for 2 years, then they could say "We're re-upping our commitment for 2 more years" every 2 years, bringing even more PR for it. And when it ended, there would still be some outrage, but probably not as much.
But if Amazon committed to Smile for 2 years, then they could say "We're re-upping our commitment for 2 more years" every 2 years, bringing even more PR for it. And when it ended, there would still be some outrage, but probably not as much.
Most people only "give" when the bells ring outside the stores their buying gifts for others, so they're already used to "giving" during a window.
I’m not defending Amazon here because I don’t think they are doing it for the right reasons, but I wonder if direct donations to charities might actually go up enough to more than compensate for this change. I was ashamed recently when I learned how little the charity I support was actually getting from the Smile program. The Smile program let me feel good about supporting the charity while remaining woefully ignorant of how little the charity was getting in return. If I donate directly, I will know more acutely how much (or how little) good I am doing.
Meanwhile, Amazon _net profits_ in Q3 2022 were just shy of $3B.
But they lost it all by betting on Rivian
https://twitter.com/EconomyApp/status/1578475690772508672/ph...
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-off.
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-off.
They invested ~1.3B for an 18% stake in the company. At todays market cap that’s 2.6B for a profit of 1.3B from initial investment, or a 100% gain on their investment
This is really about cost-cutting. If Amazon felt it were about being spread too thin, the obvious solution is to make a short list of charities. Or increase the amount donated.
With the caveat being I know nothing about them, is a service like Cultivate (https://www.wecultivate.us) a good alternative? Are there any others?
I went searching around for options after this change and the things I like seeing about Cultivate is that it both tells me about options to purchase an item on a site that is NOT Amazon, as well as keeping the donation feature.
I went searching around for options after this change and the things I like seeing about Cultivate is that it both tells me about options to purchase an item on a site that is NOT Amazon, as well as keeping the donation feature.
I would rather donate $10 to my local charity monthly than have one more company track my entire browsing history.
Good point. The main thing I was looking for was something to recommend me alternatives to Amazon when looking at a product.
Makes sense! The only way I personally found to deal with this is check different websites manually. It's either that or some extension that can automate this process in return for all my data.
I haven't bought anything from Amazon in years and you shouldn't either. Buying things from them supports slave labor, union busting, and low wages.
Wow, that sounds very privileged and condescending. "And you shouldn't either"? I'm sorry I can't do that, so can't many other people. Despite all the problems, in general, Amazon is still the most convenient and accessible place to buy things with relatively good customer service. In some cases it's the only place to buy certain products. If you can live in a bubble without Amazon, great for you, but don't preach others with your (almost) impossible personal choice.
"If you can buy the things you need not through Amazon, you should do so." Is that better?
I really struggle to find an example of something that you can only buy on Amazon, short of relisted aliexpress garbage that you should be avoiding anyway out of safety concerns.
I really struggle to find an example of something that you can only buy on Amazon, short of relisted aliexpress garbage that you should be avoiding anyway out of safety concerns.
it might have been easier to challenge the parent commenter's assertion of Amazon Slaves existing than suggest that your preference of convenience and accessibility trumps said alleged slaves' freedom
Any source on that slave labor claim? Or low wages? As far as I know, Amazon warehouses pay well. I'm not sure how well drivers are paid though.
Lower cost of operation leads to lower costs of goods for the average consumer. Net win in the end, as economic resources are utilized more effciently.
Same reason we use 3$/hour labor to make clothes rather than $30/hour. How much would clothing cost then?
Is it fair to burden the working poor with prohibitively expensive goods to raise wages beyond a market equilibrium level? No, not really. Decades of economic analysis to corroborate this viewpoint.
Though there will always be a winner and a loser with shifts in income. Can be cases where it makes sense to advantage some groups at the expense of another, even if it's less optimal in a total sense
Same reason we use 3$/hour labor to make clothes rather than $30/hour. How much would clothing cost then?
Is it fair to burden the working poor with prohibitively expensive goods to raise wages beyond a market equilibrium level? No, not really. Decades of economic analysis to corroborate this viewpoint.
Though there will always be a winner and a loser with shifts in income. Can be cases where it makes sense to advantage some groups at the expense of another, even if it's less optimal in a total sense
i really don't want to be in the position of defending amazon, their anti-union activities and their treatment of workers is awful. but that's definitely not the same thing as slavery.
and their pay rates for warehouse workers is high enough that it tends to raise wages in the surrounding areas.
and their pay rates for warehouse workers is high enough that it tends to raise wages in the surrounding areas.
1 of these things is not like the others
Amazon made $2.9 Billon in profits last year (and only paid $69 million in tax). Don’t see why they have to cut this. Oh except for greed.
Total bummer. I loved AmazonSmile. It wasn't about _their_ impact, it was about the impact of _my_ purchases. Which is now gone.
The fact that every one of my purchases was helping some local charity of my choice was one of the few things keeping me on Amazon.
I honestly really dislike the reasoning they gave. As a customer I don't care if Amazon's impact is spread too thin; in fact, I'm happy with that. I don't trust them to choose their own impact. I, as the customer, want to choose the impact, an AmazonSmile empowered me to do that.
> “After almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped. With so many eligible organizations — more than 1 million globally — our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin,” the company wrote.
SO WHAT!? Any money is helpful. This is such a BS argument for getting rid of it.
SO WHAT!? Any money is helpful. This is such a BS argument for getting rid of it.
I've managed to successfully boycott Amazon for about 3 years at this point, with very sparing business expenses that I'd do through AmazonSmile to "offset" my use of Amazon. It's good to know that that option will no longer be available to me, meaning that I will no longer have any excuse to do business with Amazon!
It always seemed too good to be true given how greedy, cynical, and dehumanizing Bezos’ money machine is.
I’m honestly surprised it even lasted so long.
Anyway, there are plenty of alternatives to amazon (that aren’t more expensive or just slightly more expensive) that aren’t as morally bankrupt as amazon is. I’d encourage you to spend your money there instead :)
I’m honestly surprised it even lasted so long.
Anyway, there are plenty of alternatives to amazon (that aren’t more expensive or just slightly more expensive) that aren’t as morally bankrupt as amazon is. I’d encourage you to spend your money there instead :)
It's a shame this is closing. I love this program and more importantly, our local school PTO is a beneficiary and will feel the loss of this program.
Having said that, I am sure there are people misusing this and its a burden on Amazon to make sure they are not funding / supporting malicious users. I get it but closing it is not a solution.
Having said that, I am sure there are people misusing this and its a burden on Amazon to make sure they are not funding / supporting malicious users. I get it but closing it is not a solution.
Amazon probably would just rather direct its own charitable giving than manage an allow/block list and field complaints about why X is platformed and Y is not. This is why we can’t have nice things.
..And yeah, also it was (more) annoying to use when you just want to get in and out like it’s a dirty Walgreens. Solid effort though, Amerzon.
..And yeah, also it was (more) annoying to use when you just want to get in and out like it’s a dirty Walgreens. Solid effort though, Amerzon.
Some interesting insider perspective:
https://reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10ft5iv/_/j4znb8y/?...
https://reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10ft5iv/_/j4znb8y/?...
One fewer reason to buy things on Amazon.
It would be interesting to see if Amazon were to add more give-some-to-charity options to their cart checkout process, if people would be just as willing to add that spend (or more) to their total. I think theirs a big opportunity for charities with not a lot of risk to AMZN.
If you buy stuff in person you'll save money and will have more to donate to your favorite causes.
I wonder if they laid the team off
That's what the article says. Ending the program allows them to save the 0.5% they would have donated and lay off the team that supported the program.
Donation works sometimes but it does not work in the US in general because I rarely see lack of physical material is a problem for US, it is the community culture and public safety that usually cut all the hope of these people.
To be honest I hated the nags. Little pop ups on amazon.com and occasional e-mails that didn't even have unsubscribe links. If you want to donate to charity great, but as your customer I don't want to hear about it.
[deleted]
This is disappointing news. I automated my donations to Signal Tech Foundation (the non-profit behind the Signal chat app) through purchases at Amazon. Now I will just need to directly donate to them separately.
It's weird that corporations have philanthropic arms, isn't it?
A lot of what NGOs, foundations, and other philanthropic organizations do is seek to mold things in some way that is beneficial to the founders with tax advantaged money.
Rich people don't get rich by giving their money away randomly. For example, if Bill Gates didn't start the Gates Foundation his money would have been highly taxed, and he would have lost control of it. By starting the Gates Foundation he keeps control of that money, and he can use the foundation to steer policy in ways that are beneficial to him.
Rich people don't get rich by giving their money away randomly. For example, if Bill Gates didn't start the Gates Foundation his money would have been highly taxed, and he would have lost control of it. By starting the Gates Foundation he keeps control of that money, and he can use the foundation to steer policy in ways that are beneficial to him.
If they can get people buying stuff on Amazon to type the URL into their browser instead of searching for "Amazon" in google and clicking the add that pops up they probably save more money than it costs them.
Not really. Most charities are themselves corporations.
Why? Corporations are made up of people, and people have causes they want to be charitable towards. If you’re going to be bringing in millions of dollars anyway, why not pay some of that out to causes you believe in.
It’s only weird if you assume all corporations should be amoral money exchange systems where by money is exchanged for labor and capital which in turn is exchanged for more money
It’s only weird if you assume all corporations should be amoral money exchange systems where by money is exchanged for labor and capital which in turn is exchanged for more money
> Corporations are made up of people, and people have causes they want to be charitable towards.
almost none of the people that make up a corporation are free to decide where money goes. the few people that do take the money out, the board of directors or whatever, could just donate their own money to whatever charity.
almost none of the people that make up a corporation are free to decide where money goes. the few people that do take the money out, the board of directors or whatever, could just donate their own money to whatever charity.
Most of the corporations in the US are pretty small. When a local plumbing company in your community sponsors a neighborhood little league team, there probably isn't much discussion on that company's board of directors about the donation.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/487741/number-of-firms-i...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/487741/number-of-firms-i...
> It’s only weird if you assume all corporations should be amoral money exchange systems where by money is exchanged for labor and capital which in turn is exchanged for more money
What you’re missing is the final step in the chain, which is the part where profits are distributed to shareholders. If I’m one of those shareholders, I might very well take a large chunk of those dividends and donate the money to charity. But instead of paying me more of those dividends to donate to my preferred cause, the company’s management has decided that they should be the ones donating my money to their preferred cause.
Aside from that, it’s just a failure of specialization. Philanthropy is hard, making money is hard, and building a single organization that does a good job at either of them is even harder. I’d rather have corporations that focused on doing a really good job at whatever they did and non-profits that do whatever they do as efficiently as possible, rather than a corporation trying to do both.
What you’re missing is the final step in the chain, which is the part where profits are distributed to shareholders. If I’m one of those shareholders, I might very well take a large chunk of those dividends and donate the money to charity. But instead of paying me more of those dividends to donate to my preferred cause, the company’s management has decided that they should be the ones donating my money to their preferred cause.
Aside from that, it’s just a failure of specialization. Philanthropy is hard, making money is hard, and building a single organization that does a good job at either of them is even harder. I’d rather have corporations that focused on doing a really good job at whatever they did and non-profits that do whatever they do as efficiently as possible, rather than a corporation trying to do both.
It's mostly just tax avoidance, right?
The way I understand it is that Amazon offers an affiliate fee to affiliates. When you don’t go through an affiliate they get to keep the small percentage. Smile was basically Amazon’s own affiliate program that paid out to NGOs. It did reduce their tax liability but it’s not like it’s free money. Assuming a corporate rate of 15%, when Amazon pays a charity $100, they save $15 on taxes. That mean they spent $85, so not exactly tax avoidance unless the charity they donate to is also owned by Amazon or some such.
There's a comment on reddit by someone who claimed to be working on this when it was started - the entire program was to avoid paying money to Google for searches resulting in sales on Amazon, by making Amazon the first place to go instead of Google.
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10ft5iv/amazon_...
Only in the sense that money that would have been taxed as income was instead paid to charities. Simplified example, they took in $200 and paid $50 of that to a charity. At 10% they paid $15 in taxes instead of $20. If you think charities are overall a net positive (and especially if you think they’re more efficient at getting money to the right places than the government) a loss of $5 in government revenue for $50 into charities seems like a good deal
How so? Taxable income is pretty much always better than 0 income
or a talking point. government and business work very closely together and when these two negotiate, the government likes to see philanthropy.
No weirder than having marketing arms.
It’s just whitewashing
Never struck me as weird. Trying to think of why you find it to be so. Is it because it theoretically distracts them from pursuing their profit motive with a "total war" mentality? I don't believe that's actually true (either that they have that mentality or that charity is a net loss for them).
I was told corporations are people, so no.. not really.
Bummer. It was a small thing but I enjoyed seeing the donations I generated tick up over time. It will feel weird to not type in 'smile.amazon' everytime I go to the site now
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...
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...
Notice one of the charities is building affordable housing in their "hometown communities." I wonder how much of that housing will go to underpaid Amazon laborers?
The poorest people in the US are nonworkers (elderly and children) not Amazon workers. And Amazon workers' pay has significantly increased in the last few years.
If you think they're not paying enough, I have a simple solution - actually have a Washington state income tax.
If you think they're not paying enough, I have a simple solution - actually have a Washington state income tax.
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.
One more month for charity-shopping:
> ... wind down AmazonSmile by February 20, 2023
> ... wind down AmazonSmile by February 20, 2023
Hmm. I always though smile.amazon.com was mostly to dodge having to pay affiliates by switching the domain and losing the cookies. I did donate a couple hundred bucks through it though :(
Well, crap. Often when I had a choice of where to purchase something, I would go with Amazon to support my chosen charity. Amazon is crazy thinking this won’t impact them negatively.
> Amazon is trying to find money wherever it can
Not really. Amazon is spending more cash on english language TV and movies than Netflix. It's also acquiring it's way into... health care?
All of the things that make money at Amazon are related to the core e-commerce biz (ads, subscriptions, marketplace) or some core competency developed to support e-commerce (AWS). They have no competitive advantage in providing medical care, making movies, or household gadgets.
Big tech is struggling with the idea that their business is maturing and will be less exciting from here. It's a tough pill for hot shot founders/managers to swallow.
Not really. Amazon is spending more cash on english language TV and movies than Netflix. It's also acquiring it's way into... health care?
All of the things that make money at Amazon are related to the core e-commerce biz (ads, subscriptions, marketplace) or some core competency developed to support e-commerce (AWS). They have no competitive advantage in providing medical care, making movies, or household gadgets.
Big tech is struggling with the idea that their business is maturing and will be less exciting from here. It's a tough pill for hot shot founders/managers to swallow.
The new goals for impact giving are something that Jeff Bezo should personally live by. Leave the grassroots giving to us happy consumers (former consumers?)
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.
Sad although I am not worried much. I am turning our Smile program materials to Amazon Associates alongside a browser addon, and we'll make more!
All the projects they mention going on after the wind-down are US centric. Will they do anything outside of the US, too?
Wow… Amazon must really be hurting to cut something like this off… maybe they need to ask Mackenzie for some money.
Personally I support this. If they're cutting their staff, they don't need to be spending on a program that gives away more than it brings in.
I'm assuming they rationally did the math to see if the program was a net contributor to bottom line or not. (That's the sort of rigor i've come to expect from a company like Amazon)
I'm assuming they rationally did the math to see if the program was a net contributor to bottom line or not. (That's the sort of rigor i've come to expect from a company like Amazon)
Darn. I used to do smile and have the donations sent to haiku.
They also never supported smile donations from the mobile app for no good reason, so it was always pretty clear to me that it was nothing more than a PR stunt/tax write off.
> nothing more than a PR stunt/tax write off
It was neither. It was a way to get people to go directly to Amazon in their browser rather than search items through Google. Clicking through Amazon from Google results gives Google an affiliate commission on those sales.
It was neither. It was a way to get people to go directly to Amazon in their browser rather than search items through Google. Clicking through Amazon from Google results gives Google an affiliate commission on those sales.
Oh, that’s interesting. I always wondered why they didn’t allow me to just have all my amazon traffic get redirected to smile, and that would totally explain it. I probably only remembered to type smile in the browser one out of every 10 times I bought something, so my purchases could have been much more helpful to my chosen charity if it weren’t for this.
Is this observation based on knowledge of their motivations or just a deduction?
Is this observation based on knowledge of their motivations or just a deduction?
Take with a grain of salt obviously, but there was a Reddit post [1] from someone claiming to have worked there at the time and that this was the entire motivation behind it.
[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10ft5iv/amazon_...
[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10ft5iv/amazon_...
Yeah, this was pretty widely known internally at the time (I was there 2012-2017). I didn't have first-hand exposure to the information, but I had a ton of second/third hand.
I believe they did - I've used this - full instructions here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/b?ie=UTF8&node=17337655031
They did support it from the mobile app, but in a way that always outraged me. They would only allow you to use Smile on mobile if you agreed to turn on all notifications and let them spam you with ads. Turning off notifications -- either through their app or through iOS settings -- resulted in their disabling Smile for you.
> They also never supported smile donations from the mobile app for no good reason
They 100% did
> nothing more than a PR stunt/tax write off
Do you even know what a tax write off is? PR stunt of course, but that is every single company who also donates to charity. Should we instead shame companies for blatant PR stunts so that they donate $0 instead?
They 100% did
> nothing more than a PR stunt/tax write off
Do you even know what a tax write off is? PR stunt of course, but that is every single company who also donates to charity. Should we instead shame companies for blatant PR stunts so that they donate $0 instead?
I’m aware tax write offs don’t save money if that’s what you’re asking.
> Should we instead shame companies
Companies obviously exist for profit, but companies at the size of Amazon can take the view that doing good things is genuinely good for business on a level deeper than quick PR (creates company alignment, healthier economy).
PR is a competitive, zero-sum game.
> Should we instead shame…
Yeah. This isn’t a purity test for a company who’s genuinely trying to change things for the better. This is shaming using charity to launder human rights abuses, dishonest business practices, anticompetitive behavior and win favor with politicians.
> Should we instead shame companies
Companies obviously exist for profit, but companies at the size of Amazon can take the view that doing good things is genuinely good for business on a level deeper than quick PR (creates company alignment, healthier economy).
PR is a competitive, zero-sum game.
> Should we instead shame…
Yeah. This isn’t a purity test for a company who’s genuinely trying to change things for the better. This is shaming using charity to launder human rights abuses, dishonest business practices, anticompetitive behavior and win favor with politicians.
Big effective altruism vibes here. Bummer for the little guys.
soooo, are they going to change their logo?
Again?
This happened before?
Previously posted 18 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34435338
> 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."
$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."
Absolute peak corpo-speak. I think I can translate:
> We don't want to send smaller amounts of money to a huge amount of charities chosen by users, since some users likely chose charities that we do not support. It also doesn't allow us to print out those huge oversized checks for photo ops. We will continue to give a bare pittance out to a small number of organizations selected for peak public relations points while minimizing cost and maximizing tax write-offs and greasing the right palms to advance our business.
> We don't want to send smaller amounts of money to a huge amount of charities chosen by users, since some users likely chose charities that we do not support. It also doesn't allow us to print out those huge oversized checks for photo ops. We will continue to give a bare pittance out to a small number of organizations selected for peak public relations points while minimizing cost and maximizing tax write-offs and greasing the right palms to advance our business.
I asked ChatGPT to translate your paragraph back to positive sounding corporate speak:
> We are committed to being strategic and efficient with our charitable giving by focusing on a select number of organizations that align with our values and support our business objectives. This approach allows us to make a meaningful impact and gain positive visibility through high-impact initiatives and partnerships. Additionally, it maximizes the benefits of our charitable investments, including cost savings and tax advantages.
> We are committed to being strategic and efficient with our charitable giving by focusing on a select number of organizations that align with our values and support our business objectives. This approach allows us to make a meaningful impact and gain positive visibility through high-impact initiatives and partnerships. Additionally, it maximizes the benefits of our charitable investments, including cost savings and tax advantages.
wow. are you looking for a gig? i have some public facing pages that i need rewritten. you sound perfect! ;-)
Yeah. If they had hoped for more impact, they could have, say, made Smile the default, instead of only very occasionally reminding you to use their inexplicably different URL for smile purchases.
The entire point of the url restriction was to save money on google search ads and boost costumers starting their search from Amazon first. The search ads savings was what went to charities.
One million eligible recipients around the world, according to Amazon, so $400 per recipient over the decade the program has existed.
That's the average, sure, but since Amazon allows each customer to pick a charity, I imagine some charities got a lot more, and some a lot less.
According to my account page, I've generated $100.71 for the charity I selected, and, overall, they've received $273.64 as a part of the program. So I guess the charity I selected wasn't all that popular. But I expect other, more mainstream charities, were.
According to my account page, I've generated $100.71 for the charity I selected, and, overall, they've received $273.64 as a part of the program. So I guess the charity I selected wasn't all that popular. But I expect other, more mainstream charities, were.
The FSF has received almost 35k. That's not bad imo.
Amazon (via Smile) and Microsoft (via employee donations) are probably the two biggest funding sources for the FSF.
Their patrons page says otherwise:
https://www.fsf.org/patrons
“Patron pages for past fiscal years” section
“Patron pages for past fiscal years” section
These are ones that they want to name.
It would be politically inconvenient for the FSF to accept that they get donations in kind from Amazon or Microsoft, given the FSF's regular attacks on the two companies.
It would be politically inconvenient for the FSF to accept that they get donations in kind from Amazon or Microsoft, given the FSF's regular attacks on the two companies.
We give to the Southern Poverty Law Center, who according to the app have received $315k up to Nov 2022.
Sad to see this program go.
Sad to see this program go.
SPLC, like most non-profits, is a scam
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-reckoning-of-mo...
I can't decide which is funnier, the fact that you think a fifteen-year-old experience is relevant now, or the fact they had to update the story multiple times because the author kept getting facts wrong. Not exactly a slam dunk on backing up the "most non-profits are a scam" claim.
Huh? The article is less than three years old; nothing but the first and last few paragraphs focus on the author's 15-year-old experience; and the couple of corrections at the end were fairly trivial, especially for such a long article.
The SPLC is one of the non-profits that is most responsible for this general assumption. The only one that might be more of a household name as a bad non-profit is Komen.
Checking my account right now: I generated $2.86, and my charity received $399.79. Yay for being average I guess!
I’m surprised they couldn’t squeeze more out of this program though. With credit cards, I think the points system definitely works to make you feel better about your purchase.
I’m surprised they couldn’t squeeze more out of this program though. With credit cards, I think the points system definitely works to make you feel better about your purchase.
IMO they tried to strike a balance, the existence of Smile helps drive traffic to Amazon and improve their PR, but they make it harder than it should be (you have to use a speciic link, you have to enable push notifications on mobile etc.) so they don't end up having to pay too much. Logically they could have made Smile an option you set once and it's applied forever, but they didn't.
Where can you see this detail in one's amazon account?
Go to smile.amazon.com, scroll to the bottom of the page, and you should see “Your AmazonSmile”. Click on that.
Points go towards charity?
You think "I'm spending $500 for this dohicky, but I'm getting some magical points too". Intellectually you know those points are worth about $5, but there's an element of "mystery box" too. Maybe those points will be worth $50, or even more.
Like airline miles. You can convince yourself that X number of miles is "worth" $10k because they let you fly business class to Asia. In reality you don't value that flight at $10k because you wouldn't pay $10k to fly business class if you didn't have the points.
Like airline miles. You can convince yourself that X number of miles is "worth" $10k because they let you fly business class to Asia. In reality you don't value that flight at $10k because you wouldn't pay $10k to fly business class if you didn't have the points.
Assuming equal distribution is disingenuous. FreeBSD as an example has received nearly twenty thousand dollars through this program. It made a difference.
Have a look at this pdf someone else posted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34435574
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So it looks like animal charities are out then. A local shelter was my chosen charity. Saying that, I only generated $70 of donations with 300 orders so it wasn't much, but every little helps.
The fact that they're axing this at a time of mass layoffs makes me think they're not telling the truth.
The fact that they're axing this at a time of mass layoffs makes me think they're not telling the truth.
Never ended up using this thing. Always had to switch URLs. Couldn't care less honestly.
Despite ordering tens of thousands of dollars off the place, I have $1.20 given to some random water charity.
Despite ordering tens of thousands of dollars off the place, I have $1.20 given to some random water charity.
PTA/PTOs were onboarding loyal Amazon customers via Amazon Smile because of the fundraising. In the last PTO I was involved with, Smile accounted for about 2% of our donations ($3000/year = ~$150K in household spending from our school).
To put that in perspective, about 90% of our $150K annual fund raise was direct donations from parents and local businesses, AND Amazon's contribution was 3 of the 60 MacBook Airs in the One-to-one laptop program our magnet was funding annually. Maybe we judge "effectiveness" on a different scale than Amazon but we sure appreciated their 5% contribution to that program.
Now these organizations will switch all that customer loyalty to Target Red Card.