How do you avoid supporting exploitative companies in your own habits?
I'll go first. I don't use any gig-economy apps (Lyft, Uber, UberEats, InstaCart, etc.) because I feel these companies have figured out how to make all employees contractors so as to avoid labor laws. I thought about picking up work for them when I was really desperate, but I don't want to be part of the problem.
I don't use Amazon or Audible or any of their streaming services. I don't shop at any of their grocery stores.
Other than Reddit, I have no social media. Even though it would have been easier to transition to Gmail after getting a smartphone, I saw how the company was forcing themselves upon consumers and kept my old email…something I get mocked for…because avoiding a huge monopoly somehow makes me a “boomer”? I use DuckDuckGo as much as possible.
Eating out makes me uncomfortable. I hate how exploitative the restaurant industry is in my country and how they lobbied during the pandemic to open up before it was safe. This sometimes can't be avoided without upsetting relatives. I simply don't enjoy watching other people serving me, so on my own I avoid it.
Sometimes I feel, especially with the holidays and all the consumer spending they involve, that I am alone here. I'm boycotting a bunch of companies and practices that go against my egalitarian principles, but I feel swept by the current. That's why I ask…what is everyone else doing in solidarity? What do find effective and what's not? I'll be honest here and add to it that when I combine the things I do for social reasons and the things I do for environmental reasons, I feel crushed when I look around and feel like all my actions are for naught.