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Comment by doesnt_know | Hacker News Reader

Isn't putting this onto the consumer a little bit of a cop out?

This enormous global system of powerful corporations and nation states crafted this system because it was in their best interest. Feels sort of tone deaf to say "well, you got what you deserved, you created this sytem by buying this specific computer and cheaper food!"

Night/farmer's markets are quite popular here in NZ but we haven't toppled global inquality by visiting them yet and I doubt continuing to do so is going to make a difference.

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Why not? As a consumer I can choose dinner from either beef from burned amazon rainforest, or a ratatouille made from seasonal local ingredients, or anything in between. I can choose to buy a 2-tonne gas SUV or something smaller.

I can choose to participate in “fast fashion”, or choose to buy some of my clothing second-hand.

I can choose a vacation by flying to Greece, or hiking the local area, or anywhere in between.

I can often choose to wait another year to upgrade my phone/computer/device.

Corporations don’t just do stuff, they respond to our actions.

Voting in booths generally works better to affect change in systems like these with externalities, but voting with action and wallets also works.

I do consider that I have a responsibility to act ethically versus other people, and that includes making choices as a consumer.

You can “choose” assuming you have disposable income. For people who need cheap clothes, food, etc. there is still a systemic issue of wealth disparity and unjust enrichment. It’s more than any one company, CEO, or consumer purchase and it should be obvious.

Doesn't this imply that there's an entire group of people who are now better off, if they have to choose between (a) the relatively new availability of cheap clothes or food and (b) going without? Previously they went without?

In many cases the choice goes the other way. Are you saving money by replacing your computer a year sooner or participating in fast fashion instead of buying second hand clothes? Even if you're cash constrained and fast fashion is not an option, you still have the choice between Walmart and Goodwill.

And generally the people propping up these organizations are the people with disposable income because they're the ones who can pay the margins that keep the companies rich. If you can afford a new Macbook, you can afford something from Framework. The person without a choice is buying something used from eBay or doesn't have a laptop at all.

Similarly, there is never any scenario where a union is more effective than individuals each advocating for their own needs, because the organizations people negotiate with always negotiate in good faith, and both sides provide all available information to the other. /s

Corporations respond to our actions, certainly. But in the same way (and for the same reason), we respond to corporate actions. You can bet that every single one of those CEOs in the article is doing everything they legally can to prevent people from "choosing" to go elsewhere. Some are going beyond that.

I am a union member because I took individual action to become a member. This union would not be as powerful as it is without concerted actions of many individuals.

No single raindrop can cause a flood, but many singular raindrops are required for it to happen.

With enough advertising and lobbying, you can however influence the likelihoods of raindrops acting in certain ways. (I absolutely agree with you, but I believe that we shouldn't ignore the ways powerful people influence the masses.)

My point was more that people wouldn't join unions if individual action always was all it took.

Indeed, sometimes the role of the union is to get everybody doing the same thing, and provide a safety net for individuals who suffer repercussions for doing the thing.

Because the Tragedy of the Commons exists. Everyone doing what makes sense from their perspective doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do.

> Voting in booths generally works better to affect change in systems like these with externalities, but voting with action and wallets also works.

I find that voting in booths doesn't tend to actually do anything, and voting with wallets actually accomplishes things.

I hear you, and I agree we definitely bear some responsibility for our actions, so it seems fair to question it.

However I really do wonder how much choice we have. Ultimately what I am going to say next comes down to believing the market is actually inefficient and prone to mistakes / manipulation.

While we can buy a gas guzzling car or a smaller greener vehicle, there is a lot of time energy and effort spent to manipulate the perception of the smaller vehicle so that its seen as less attractive to purchase, as well as less attractive to make.

More deeply, I'm not totally convinced that changing an individual to act ethically actually changes the group dynamic or consumption habits. Because by stating we have a responsibility to make ethical choices as a consumer we assume people act rationally all of the time when making purchasing decisions, which really isn't the case otherwise marketing wouldn't be effective. Finally, companies don't really respond to individuals, they respond to groups of people that fit their ideal customer profile. These groups likely have a different set of ethics than us and likely will not change to fit a different world view, at least in aggregate. Individually, sure, but not the whole group.

Maybe more succinctly, I believe there is a real distinction that occurs by looking at group dynamics which cannot be inferred or changed at the individual level and because of that choosing to act ethically as an individual wont ever get the attention of billionaires or massive corporations.

Not trying to be argumentative, I live in the same way you describe, but ultimately I don't think its going to change how apple operates. No matter how many people I tell.

Our legal systems are set up so that exploitative megacorps have a bunch of structural advantages (megacorps are allowed to coordinate whereas workers and independent producers aren't; capital can move freely to the most convenient jurisdiction but workers can't; companies can deduct their expenses and defer their taxes but individuals can't...). Most of the things we buy aren't conscious choices (and we'd go crazy if we tried), so it's more effective and more important to have the right systems and incentives to naturally create good outcomes.

> This enormous global system of powerful corporations and nation states crafted this system because it was in their best interest.

While that is true, typically the customers in aggregate have far more power, both in monetary powers (it's a distributed power), and in democratic powers. Yes there's lobbying in the US, but if individuals gave $25 per voter to their desired cause they'd exceed the lobbying power. ($3.5B lobbying vs 168M voters from quick googles).

> Feels sort of tone deaf to say "well, you got what you deserved, you created this sytem by buying this specific computer and cheaper food!"

Except that it was introspective, not finger pointing. I do prefer a system where i get to choose as opposed to mandated.

> Isn't putting this onto the consumer a little bit of a cop out?

It is the other way around, consumers wanting to keep consuming and feeling good about it while blaming someone else.

Bullshit, and you know it. I want a computer with completely open schematics, completely open firmware and uCode, GPUs with no ties to the entertainment industry, and processors that don't have baked in "ring -3"s.

I want cars I can wrench on, and software I can trust. I want things that are mine first, not the manufacturers.

It. Will. Not. Happen. Short of doing it ourselves, because businesses can't spawn around those values.

So to hell with you pinning this on "well it's the consumers fault". To hell with that. The conspicuously absent feature is entirely a byproduct of industry. Not consumers. No one can consume what "industry" decides is bad for business.

And I think most consumers don't want these things. When given the choice they've consistently taken cost and convenience over openness, privacy or durability.

The original post states they choose to purchase Apple products instead of System76, and they choose to purchase from Costco instead of farmers markets.

You might want certain things, but that does not mean you can afford to pay the price that would be sufficient to serve the market (since there would be so few like you). Consumers, as a group, will most likely choose price and getting the job done quickly.

Also, some things in life might just be so technically advanced that you will not find all the optionality you want.

> It. Will. Not. Happen. Short of doing it ourselves, because businesses can't spawn around those values.

What do you think "doing it ourselves" is? If you want open hardware and nobody makes it, you make it, or do a Go Fund Me etc. Then somebody makes it.

Notwithstanding what other people say, customers do actually prefer these things, if nothing else because they cost less. Once somebody makes a free and open chip design, companies will prefer to put that chip design in their devices because then they don't have to pay for one and don't have to deal with BS where their own customers want updates but upstream provides neither updates nor documentation. Because now upstream is a community anybody can participate in that keeps providing updates for 20+ years.

Customers don't prefer these things only when they're forced into an unnecessary trade off against something else. You want a Ford or Toyota running open source software but your choices are a closed source product in mass production or a kit car you have to assemble from parts. You don't want to assemble it from parts so you pick the first one. But that only sustains as long as nobody is making a competitive mass-produced car which is open source.

As soon as you have one, the permissionlessness is an advantage. Repairs are cheaper so TCO is lower so Consumer's Reports tells normies to buy it. Then the competition has to do the same thing because it's better.

Consolidated markets are a problem. If you wanted to do "iPhone, but open" you can't just glue a screen to a RISC-V CPU, the chip has to be competitive and have third party apps etc. etc.

But not everything is like that. If you wanted to do "desktop PC, but open hardware," that's the sort of thing people are actively working on and could plausibly succeed. So support them, contribute, and buy it when it's available, because it's not impossible.

> consumers wanting to keep consuming and feeling good about it while blaming someone else

Strong disagree. It feels like an attempt to convince the public at large that a) they still have significant agency and b) they should feel extremely guilty and/or empowered by that. This paradox is usually a polite fiction at best, and in the worst-case it's a well-orchestrated psy-op.

Like how "recycling" in many communities is just a different funnel that goes to the same dump, or how many good water-preserving citizens are encouraged to have short showers while we ignore the thirsty golf course next door. What are the real scenarios where the habits of the general consumer actually matter, if we stack them up against corporate consumption and those inefficiencies? Does it really make any sense for John Q. Public to feel bad about driving a gas-guzzler to work when the international shipping industry or the municipal/state government isn't looking to upgrade to electric? Or we could talk about the conspicuously missing mass-transit projects that would remove the need for the cars we're supposed to feel guilty about. Why are consumers who are already hard-pressed expected to lead the charge anyway?

> feeling good about it while blaming someone else

But we don't feel good! We feel bad because we got the wrong light bulbs and dishwashers. Every "drop in the bucket" matters, but going after drops in the first place is a paradox, so we won't feel good after we're living in dark rooms with dirty dishes either. I sure hope this actually matters and it isn't a scam to sell more dishwashers and light bulbs! Like come on, efficient appliances are great, but does it really matter when coal was still ~10% of total U.S. energy consumption in 2022? (source: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/coal/use-of-coal.php )

> Like how "recycling" in many communities is just a different funnel that goes to the same dump,

Yes, recycling was a ruse to allow people to keep consuming and feeling good about it.

>or how many good water-preserving citizens are encouraged to have short showers while we ignore the thirsty golf course next door.

This one is a valid example, and it is very easy to solve. Marginal water prices. The more water you use, the more you pay. Same with electricity.

> Does it really make any sense for John Q. Public to feel bad about driving a gas-guzzler to work when the international shipping industry or the municipal/state government isn't looking to upgrade to electric?

Yes, because it’s John Q Public that will not vote for a politician to increase fossil fuel taxes high enough to curb excess consumption. In one fell swoop, the problem of carbon emissions and plastic degradation could be solved, but John Q Public WANTS cheap travel and cheap out of season fruits.

Also, in this specific example, John Q Public is literally opting to buy gas (and electric) guzzlers instead of more energy efficient vehicles. Nobody forced anyone to buy big SUVs and compact SUVs.

>Or we could talk about the conspicuously missing mass-transit projects that would remove the need for the cars we're supposed to feel guilty about.

Because John Q Public (at least those with kids) wants detached single family homes on a 0.1 to 0.25 acre lot with a 2 car garage and a front and back yard. And mass transit simply is not tenable at those low population densities.

There’s a few people out there willing to make the sacrifices, but by and large, the population will opt for short term comforts.

Kind of like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcKqAhLeM-4

> they still have significant agency

It is objectively true that the public has significant agency, and the empirical evidence is the number of companies that took a political stance on some issue and then had to reverse it because of (uncoordinated) public backlash. Your unfounded assertions are categorically refuted by concrete examples such as Target and Bud Light publicly reversing their stances on some issues after consumer backlash.

Also it's a lot easier to complain on the Internet and raise awareness. Having to actually pay higher prices or go without the best product is a real cost to the individual. Easier to just "put it on global companies man". Peter Schiff did a good video a while back standing outside a Wallmart asking if any customer would pay more so the staff could earn more. Guess 100% of the response.

First, this comment is emotionally manipulative, so I'm flagging it. Comments such as " Isn't putting this onto the consumer a little bit of a cop out?" and "Feels sort of tone deaf" do not intellectually contribute to the discussion in any way whatsoever and serve purely to emotionally manipulate the reader.

Second, no, it's absolutely not a cop-out. You mentioned yourself that nation states crafted this system. You're a member of one of those nation states, and there's a very strong chance that it's a democratic one, in which case you still bear the responsibility to elect responsible leaders!

The consumer absolutely bears all of the responsibility, because the consumer is, at least in the US and many other parts of the world, also the voter.

Your apathy in responsible company research and product purchase is extremely likely also coupled with an apathy in representative research and activism. No, merely voting for your preferred political party does not automatically install good regulators - you actually have to invest effort into research and activism.

You don't have an Apple or Microsoft in NZ so it's working?

Of course it's a copout. This entire discussion is intellectually dishonest and deeply unserious.

> Of course it's a copout. This entire discussion is intellectually dishonest and deeply unserious.

The only intellectually dishonest comment here is this one.

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