What companies will you never give another dollar to?
What happened that put them on your blacklist?
My top company that I will never give another dollar to is Adobe, as they forced me into a 1 year “contract” with a $200 cancellation fee after forgetting to cancel their one month discounted trial in time.
Other companies for myself include Dell, HP, and Canadian Tire.
Obligatory “fuck Adobe”. My proudest moment last year was cutting our company’s Acrobat licenses by 70% and taking about a million bucks out of their greedy little pockets.
Nitro Pro is great anyway. It does the job.
What are some good alternatives to each Adobe product?
Someone on here mentioned Affinity for the Photoshop/design world
Nitro & PDFxchange for the PDF side?
Nitro is shaping up to be a good alternative for enterprise needs. Not sure about the rest. They seem to have a strangle hold on the creative suite in the enterprise.
I switched to PDFgear for my PDF editing needs, free and open source.
Does a decent job, although I miss being able to have PDF opened in tabs instead of individual windows.
Am I crazy? I cannot find that open source for PDFgear. Yes it’s free, but they need to have some income if they can offer an AI integration. What’s the catch?
Also Inkscape for Illustrator
I love you. Best I could do was cancel my $20 / month. I’ll match you in about 4000 years.
What happened at Canadian tire? :o
Oh man it was so long ago.
I think the final straw was trying to buy tire rims. Went online and it says it was in stock and my local store, went to it and they said it was out of stock despite the website saying it was. Sent me to the next store over 20 minutes away saying they had some, went there and they told me that they didn’t have any either despite the internal system saying they did.
Wasted an hour and a bunch of gas trying to get those rims. Not a huge deal but if a company can’t tell what they have and when they have it and prefer to waste my time I don’t care to give them my business.
Plus they only stock like 3 items per store for every flyer deal, hoping you’ll buy shit just because you’re there already. Same with Walmart which is also on my blacklist.
I used to work at a company that provided tech support for a few Canadian Tires. They don’t hire nearly enough staff. They try to make up for it with high amounts of automation. Frequently people will come and steal from them because there aren’t enough staff to stop that. This causes the inventory system to think there is more stock than there is. Because the reduced staff, they don’t frequently manually check their stock so it can be quite some time before it becomes aparent.
I would chargeback that shit so fast.
sadly, the bank would probably side with adobe, as the contract is quite clear
the adobe cancellation fee is the most evil and greedy shit i’ve ever witnessed in software. they SCALE it so you pay the exact amount you would have paid if you just remained subscribed for the full year, except when you pay that money through a cancellation you immediately lose your license to run their software. they literally make you pay the remaining subscription period while taking away your access to the fucking product
I will pirate Adobe’s products without any lapse in judgement on my part, I assure you
Reddit because of the API pricing change change
Unity because of the charge per game install thing
Reddit because of the API pricing change
Yeah that did it for me as well. I was a huge fan of Apollo until the developer decided to shut it down because of that.
Luckily Lemmy fills the gap pretty well, and the Voyager app is almost as good as Apollo used to be.
This only real boycotts I’ve got honestly is Reddit and X. Spez handled it about as well as Elon does his business. They’re both awful humans.
Mine is Sony. First the rootkit scandal, then the removal of Other OS from PS3s after featuring it as a selling point in the marketing. Totally deceptive and I won’t give them my money.
I got a whole $7 from that Other OS lawsuit.
I stopped buying them for exactly the same reasons. They were my go-to home electronics brand before that. Tv’s, amps, stereos, cassette players, cds, dvds, presents to friends and family… always since the 80’s… ps3 came and then i stopped 100%. Haven’t bought another product from them since.
and they’re still at it
Yeah, Sony isn’t a favorite of mine either. They’ve always had this Trumpian sense of arrogance and narcissism in the video game industry that’s never failed to annoy me. It was kind of fun to watch them flail a bit with the PS3, which lost them a lot of ground against the Xbox 360 due to its mammoth price. Felt like the early 90s console wars all over again.
My linkbuds case died exactly one year after I bought them. No assistance from sony. Cant buy the case separately. 180 euros for one year of earbuds. Fuck sony.
Not to mention demanding accoutn owners be responsible for hundreds to thousands of dollars of fraudulent purchases made when their account gets hacked and stolen, Often telling them they cant have their account until they pay off all the hackers debt.
Here’s one nobody has mentioned yet. Hasbro. Owner of Wizards of the Coast which recently tried to massively fuck over D&D players and sent hired mercinaries (literally Pinkertons) after one of their Magic: The Gathering players for something that totally wasn’t the player’s fault.
This sounds insane, can you provide more context?
So, D&D first. WotC back in 2001 realized something. There are a few books that they sell a ton of copies of and make a lot of money off of. (The Player’s Handbook, The Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual, etc.) And then there are a ton more books that take a lot of effort to make but that they don’t sell many copies of so they don’t really make much money on them, but they still have to be made in order to ensure that the more profitable books sell. (These are mostly the published adentures.)
They figured that it would be in their best interest to incentivize third parties to write a lot of these published adventures so that WotC itself could focus more on the core books. So they licensed a lot of their core content under a license (The “Open Gaming License version 1.0a” or “OGL 1.0a”) that allowed third parties to use it in their own modules and sell those modules. It created a vibrant ecosystem of publishers.
The OGL 1.0a was intended as a perpetual license. They promised third party publishers that the wording of the license didn’t allow WotC themselves – creators of the OGL 1.0a – to revoke the license. (This was on an official FAQ on WotC’s site.) So you’d be able to sell your module that included verbiage and elements from official D&D materials forever.
Well, in 2022, they changed their tune. They created an “OGL 1.1” (which was not “open” the way the 1.0a was) and started pressuring publishers they partnered with to accept the new license. It basically allowed them to rip off any third party content and include it in official WotC stuff without paying the third party publisher and also ban the publisher from using the material they wrote. It also put ridiculous restrictions on virtual tabletop software (software for playing D&D remotely.) Now, that’s not so catastrophic because they couldn’t revoke the OGL 1.0a and publishers were under no obligation to accept the OGL 1.1, right?
Well, they came up with a legal argument why the language of the OGL 1.0a that they’d been telling everyone couldn’t be revoked on existing works actually was something they could revoke. Basically, if they convinced a court they could do that, every third-party D&D module that relied on the OGL 1.0a would have to accept the OGL 1.1 terms that would let WotC rip off their work or stop sales immediately.
There was massive backlash from the community. D&D players were remarkably unified in their response. And the CEO of WotC was really tone deaf and dismissive and soured WotC’s relationship with the D&D community even further. Enough subscriptions to D&D Beyond (an online service owned by WotC) that shareholders started asking tough questions at shareholder meetings.
So, finally, WotC hired a slick PR firm to smooth things out. And, honestly, I have to admit they did good. They ended up leaving the OGL 1.0a in place (unrevoked it, sorta). But also, WotC had already said “actually, we can revoke it” and nobody trusted the OGL 1.0a any more. So WotC also dual-licensing the same OGL-1.0a-licensed content also under a Creative Commons license that is (more certain to be) unrevokable and is more open than the OGL 1.0a. The upcoming version of D&D will be OGL 1.1 only, but players and third party publishers are pretty unified on the idea of refusing to migrate to the new version and the current version is safer from the evil clutches of WotC than it was before this whole fiasco went down.
Now, the consensus among the D&D players is that WotC isn’t the bad guys so much as Hasbro, WotC’s parent company. When WotC backpeddeled and did the dual licensing thing, I decided to end my boycott of Hasbro. (I was actually DM’ing a D&D campaign at the time.) I looked forward to buying more D&D books. To seeing the latest Transformers movie and the D&D movie. Stuff like that.
And then, very shortly after that all went down, there was the other fiasco started by WotC.
I’m a little less familiar with this one, but some player of Magic: The Gathering purchased packs of MTG cards from a small reseller and the reseller fucked up. The reseller, not knowing the difference, gave the customer packs of a not yet released but similarly-named line of cards that weren’t supposed to be available to customers at all yet.
The customer made an unboxing video of these not-yet-officially-released cards and stuck it on YouTube. And that’s when shit hit the fan. WotC could have DM’d the customer on YouTube and asked if the customer could take down the video and exchange the cards for the ones he’d actually purchased, but instead they sent the actual, literal Pinkertons (a private security/mercinary company known for union busting and lots of illegal quasi-military/quasi-police actions against innocent people) to go harass the customer’s neighbors and intimidate (like while sporting assault rifles and body armor and camo – on the customer’s front porch) and bully the customer.
Now, my understanding is that the customer did nothing legally wrong. The fuck up was the reseller’s. The customer was under no legal obligation to return the cards or take down the video or otherwise cooperate in any way. The customer also said in later videos about the whole situation and the visit he got from the Pinkertons that they would totally have fully cooperated if they’d have just contacted him and asked.
As soon as I heard about WotC sending the Pinkertons after a customer, I recommitted to boycotting Hasbro and I intend never to end that boycott. I really didn’t expect something far worse to follow right on the heels of the OGL 1.1 fiasco.
Man, that was a very thorough write up! I was familiar with the DND shit but not the Magic stuff. Was a sad read, but glad to know about it.
Glad it was informative! Back when the D&D situation was all happening in realtime, I was so addicted to any and all news about it. I watched all there was to see about it on YouTube constantly. (And there was a lot.)
I’ve never played Magic, but especially given how soon after the D&D debacle it went down, it felt like a continuation of the same story. So I watched a lot about that as well.
They accidentally sent a notable player (dont remember if they were a content creator or something) an unreleased card. Pinkyboys showed up at his house and harassed him to return it.
Nestlé is the big one for me. Their stance on water is…evil.
Nestle
Google
Meta
Amazon
Netflix
Discord
Any fast fashion brand
Any car manufacturer
Next on the list:
Microsoft
Spotify
Apple
Disney
Ha! This isn’t a wish list post.
This list aligns pretty well with mine… It’s easier and more satisfying than you expect to boycott companies like amazon.
Where do you source clothing?
deleted by creator
I’m still buying a lot of my clothes second hand but the nice stuff I’ll go out of my budget for.
Fast fashion isn’t even considered clothing for some peaple. XD Just put your jeans, your t-shirt and your sneakers and go to work, the modern slave outfit.
I try as much as I can but I find it hard to avoid any car manufacturer and Amazon. I’m trying my best to not go to Amazon and rather to Ebay or microcenter if I can though. As for fast fashion, I am planning to go thrifting or to goodwill.
Nestle and it’s many derivatives. Water stealing, baby starving, child slavers.
Nestle. They’re our closest living example of an evil corporation run by a cartoon supervillain.
They’re holding hands and skipping their way to hell with Monsanto
HP. This one is easy. Low hanging fruit. For me, I bought an expensive gaming laptop that arrived defective. I asked for a replacement, they denied and required I send it in for repairs. Waited a month for them to tell me there isn’t a problem. Asked for a refund instead of having it shipped back. They said that’s not how it works, they have to send it back first. So I get it, with the defect still, and call to get a refund. They initially deny a refund due to being outside the refund period and offer a “buy back” credit. I had to spend an hour explaining why that’s not happening and why they’re going to give me a refund or expect to see me in court. Keep in mind, I hadn’t used this laptop more than an hour or two and it’s been shipped around and forth for two months. I did get my refund at least, but the headache was insane and I refuse to even look at HP products.
Adobe: Already said by others. For me, it’s because they charge an insane amount of money for barely-functional software. I used Affinity products instead.
Google: They cancel their services so quickly, it’s more like they’ve blacklisted ME. I refuse to pay for anything they offer in the event it will be discontinued in a year or two. RIP Play Music.
Amazon: Prices increase, service quality decreases, value decreases exponentially. The product I paid for at $79/year was far more superior to whatever Prime costs today. Mostly third party cheap trash. Unfortunately, and most likely by design, there are just a few specific reasons I’m forced to give Amazon money every so often. But at the very least, I’m making the highest conscious effort to avoid them.
I’ll update this if I come up with more.
Edit 1: Netflix: They keep removing quality content and increasing prices. Anti-consumer shit. They are both the reason I stopped pirating and considered starting again.
Google Play Music still stands as the best commercial music app I’ve used, I miss it, and whatever marketing person got them to change the glorious branding of Play Music, Play Movies, and Play Store for YouTube music, Google TV and Play Store should be fired with extreme prejudice.
The number of Google apps that have been killed astounds.
I’ve never been to Cracker Barrel because when I was younger they fired all their gay employees, were taken to court over it, fought and won.
Chick fil a same sort of reason, stupid discrimination.
Have never been to Applebee’s because I don’t have to and why would I?
Bank of America because they once stacked withdrawals over deposits, said I was overdrawn by 0.60 for some immeasurably short period of time, and slapped a $35 overdraft fee on my account. I called, bitched until I got my $35 back, and closed the account. Hate them with a burning passion. Have had to deal with them at two jobs since and they seem still as bad.
Most of these make sense but the Applebee’s one isn’t really on your shitlist. From what you’ve said you just seem indifferent to it, much like you’d be indifferent to any other store you have no interest in.
Yeah boycott may be too strong a word, it’s more like they are at the bottom of my list in what I look for in a restaurant, and I live where there are other options. I do object to them but on grounds of being a chain, generally shitty to employees and not good or interesting food, I will not give them dollars but don’t hate them like I hate BOA or Cracker Barrel. They just seem like something that doesn’t need to exist.
Local coffee shop.
My wife designed some ads and logos for them then they stuffed her when she asked for payment.
My wife is a creative. It’s insane how many people are totally comfortable with stiffing designers
Because it’s not “real” work. You gotta get paid up front and put a limit on changes. You’re either good, or you’re not. Let the market sort it out, but don’t work for free.
A local coffee shop in my hometown is known for having an owner who SA’d a woman and hires only teenage girls. Fuck that place and person
X, Musky asshole
Tesla, Musky asshole
Chic Fil-A, homophobic corporate politics
T-Mobile, does not stand behind promise at purchase
Verizon, loud skank stores
Papa Johns, owner asshole opposed Obamacare
Hobby Lobby, right wing Christian asshole ownership/products opposed Obamacare
MyPillow, asshole MAGA owner
Trump brand any business, asshole MAGA cheeseturd ex-president loser of 2020 election by many votes
Too many more to name, and too many worthwhile brands and businesses to support.
My mother regularly goes to Hobby Lobby because its the only craft shop nearby. God I wish she’d just buy her shit online. Probably get better quality too.
I didn’t have a ready answer to this post, but yeah, already banned:
- Chic Fil-A
- Hobby Lobby
- Papa Johns
Add:
- Jimmy John’s
HP
No explanation needed buddy
Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Reddit, X, Tesla, Sweet Green, Chick-fil-A, etc.
Google/Facebook: spyware
Microsoft: Windows is spyware and I’m just done with Windows. There are many better options for software.
Reddit: CEO is a prick. Gone the way of Facebook
X/Tesla: CEO is a prick, racist and anti-semite
Sweet Green: CEO blacklisting students for protesting war
Chick-fil-A: Run by far right bigots
far right bigots
Add In-N-Out and Hobby Lobby to that.
I meant to add In-N-Out… but I do avoid it, mostly because the food isn’t good and is all over hyped.
Never been to Hobby Lobby
and Domino’s.
I always find it interesting when people target Chick-fil-A… Like why them specifically and not all the others? Especially the other companies that go all rainbow in June and have spots in pride parades. https://www.dataforprogress.org/accountable-allies-pride
TIL Microsoft is better than I expected, they only donated $2,000 to anti-lgbtq
Wtf… Where can I read up on that?
Usually how these things work is that it’s either employees donating and having to list their employer. Or the employer will match any donation to a non profit from any employee up to a certain amount.
So this could be 1 employee donating 3k and Microsoft matching it
I loathe Samsung. Their bootloader unlocking is bullshit. Never getting another dollar from me ever again.
Yup. Samsung sold smartwatches that promised an upcoming ECG feature to have it only available when connected to a Samsung phone when it came out, but not other Android phones. They also try and force you to put their TVs on your network so they can track everything you do. Never again.
You’re not missing out on much. I stopped using the ecg feature on the Samsung watches when it gave me an AFib warning and I went to a doctor about it. They hooked me up to an EKG and said I was fine and looked at the chart my watch generated and said the chart there also looked fine. I put on both my apple watch and galaxy watch and was measuring both at the same time and the apple watch gave out either high heart rate (I just got back from a walk) or inconclusive meanwhile the galaxy watch fired off another false AFib warning.
? I unlocked bootloader easily, just enabled it in settings on my note 20 ultra
You’ve just tripped Knox and permanently lost multiple features
If I remember correctly just “unlocking” doesn’t trip Knox. However installing custom boot or rom, does.
It does. Unlocking the Samsung bootloader blows the e-fuse. Locking your bootloader again won’t do anything to restore functionality.
It’s been a while since I rooted Samsung device.
I’m still rocking my 15+ year old Syncmaster 245BW as my rack monitor and that’s the last Samsung item I purchased.
