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While it's true marketing can impact how your dollars could actually contribute to better living conditions, I'd just it's defeatist to just throw your hands up and say it doesn't matter.

A consumer can look up certifications like Certified Humane which does audits on farms to ensure they're following the required standards. While I'm sure it's not a perfect system it does hold farms to some accountability. https://www.aspca.org/shopwithyourheart/consumer-resources/c...

Browsing that page, a state like New Hapshire has one pork farm and one beef farm listed and that's it. These seem like they're more for locals and farm-to-table restaurants?

At my local supermarkets, even the nicer ones like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, I don't ever recall seeing any of those logos on eggs, chicken, beef, anything at all. I'd love to know if I just missed them, though.

I believe Certified Humane has one of the most stringent requirements for animal welfare so there'll be fewer farms. There's other certifications out there such as Animal Welfare Approved. I admit for a welfare-conscious consumer it's not easy to sift through all the noise by doing actual research. Wish things were better but at least it's been trending in the right direction in the last couple of decades.

> I admit for a welfare-conscious consumer it's not easy to sift through all the noise by doing actual research

Case in point, the first result I find on Certified Humane egg brands, is paywalled

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/shopping-guide/eg...

That doesn't mean it's not easy - you found it straight away. It means that independent journalism and research cost money.

I get Certified Humane eggs at my random Strack and Van Til (ordinary, non-lux grocery store) here in Indiana. I never thought of it as that rare or crazy. (In fact, I almost reasoned the reverse that if even here of all places, it's got that logo, then it's probably not worth much.)

Certified Humane is quite likely available for some eggs wherever you’re shopping in the US (maybe not Alaska or Hawaii, and not at convenience stores). I exclusively buy certified eggs, and I’ve never found a normal grocery store that didn’t have them. Trader Joes and Whole Foods definitely do.

If you think Trader Joe's and Whole Foods are normal grocery stores, then you live a much more privileged life than you realize.

They only mentioned Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods because they replied to a post specifically mentioning those stores…

I was specifying Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods because the parent comment did, not because they’re representative grocery stores. I mostly shop at Kroger’s personally, which is where I buy eggs, but I occasionally go to Trader Joe’s because some products are cheaper there. In fact, in some areas (like Manhattan, where many unprivileged people live), Trader Joe’s is cheaper than the normal grocery stores.

what is with hacker news and comments like this. I once complained about the dmv being innefficient and like ten people came out of the woodwork telling me to check my privelege.

It doesn't make any sense for it to depend on individual consumers

I’m trying to think of a single example where one of these “vote with your wallet” certification movements have ultimately triumphed and become the new norm… I can’t think of one. Organic might be the biggest success, but even then it’s just an alternative, not a consumer-preference-driven revolution in all commercial agriculture.

In Australia, "free range", "cage free" and "cage" eggs are all legally defined terms. Consumer preference for free range is so strong that mainstream supermarkets stock mostly free range, with cage free for the price-conscious, and no cage eggs at all.

The "free range" definition is still pretty permissive, and if you go into the local Trader Joes equivalent (Harris Farms) you'll get a chart prominently comparing how various farms treat their chickens as an explanation why some free range eggs cost $6/dozen while others are $16.

Take almost any secular country with a predominantly Muslim population - and this is exactly what is happening there. In all commercial livestock production slaughter is carried out by special workers with special religious education - purely in order to put a mark of a religious certification center on the packaging.

> I’m trying to think of a single example where one of these “vote with your wallet” certification movements have ultimately triumphed and become the new norm…

Kids toys.

There are a lot of successful wood kids toys brands now that exist as a backlash against plastic toys. Even mainstream retailers now carry an assortment of wood toys.

Melissa and Doug are one of the largest brands, but others exist as well.

Wood toys are a bad example because they are meaningfully distinct from plastic toys, and as such there is a fashion around wooden toys right now. (And I'm not even convinced using wood toys has any advantage over plastic toys in terms of environmental impact or exposition to pollutants for the kids. They are more expansive though, so they may be used less as disposal toys and live longer which is good, but their reusability won't outlive the fashion and I fully expect them to be regarded as “out of date” in less than a decade, like every trend).

> Wood toys are a bad example because they are meaningfully distinct from plastic toys

> And I'm not even convinced using wood toys has any advantage over plastic toys in terms of environmental impact or exposition to pollutants for the kids

I think you just argued both sides. :D

Regarding meats - Farm fresh meat is meaningfully distinct, it tastes better. You can get meat from different breeds of animals, heritage breeds or breeds that are not normally sold in the US but that are needed to replicate recipes from other countries.

For toys, there is an arguable environmental improvement buying wood toys, similar to buying nicer organic meats.

Lovevery, a fancy higher toy subscription service, has a lot of wood toys as part of their service, and they've been around since 2015.

Melissa and Doug has likewise been going strong for around 25 years, with at least 10 years of mainstream success.

> They are more expansive though, so they may be used less as disposal toys and live longer which is good, but their reusability won't outlive the fashion

Because of how they are gifted to new families, baby and toddler goods have a lifetime that is basically "until they fall apart".

As an example, my son has a playset from 1992! (Plastic for sure, but wow, durable thick plastic!)

He also has some wooden blocks from his grandmother! (I was a bit surprised to find other kids playing with identical blocks from the same 60+ year old set, but I guess I shouldn't have been.)

> I think you just argued both sides. :D

Both sides of what? Whether the comparison is valid?

Saying "those shouldn't be directly compared but if you do it anyway it goes the wrong way" isn't arguing both sides. (And a few words to specify less confidence don't change that.)

He said kids toys are a bad example because wood toys are meaningfully distinct from non-wood toys, and then explained how they are in fact not meaningfully distinct beyond a superficial level, which I brought back around to the differences between organic/non-organic food (e.g. feel good and possibly environmentalism).

All that said, my initial reply was wrong because I ignored the "certification movements" part of the phrase I quoted (I honestly didn't notice that) and beyond fear mongering amongst parents (which is pretty easy to do from a marketing standpoint), I also cannot think of any other examples!

> then explained how they are in fact not meaningfully distinct beyond a superficial level

Which part of the comment did this? I don't see it.

The second line you quoted definitely doesn't do that. It talks about the environmental/pollution factor being small, but the environmental/pollution factor is not why they said the toys are meaningfully distinct. The factors making them meaningfully distinct don't get elaborated on at all, let alone elaborated on in a way that contradicts the original claim.

when you have the option to do something rather than nothing, it's not a good excuse to not proceed because it will not fix it all. "Let's topple this dictator" "No no no, it won't free all the people under authoritarian governments"

Showing that you're willing to pay extra for green products (or products that respect animal welfare, etc) creates a competitive environment in which companies can compete on who provides the most green per dollar. Even if those marked up products are all just greenwashed today, it still creates a market opportunity for new companies to come in and outcompete today's greenwashers with products that deliver better green per dollar in the future.

> together with pretty pictures and words that "suggest" better conditions.

Regulations exists to avoid misleading or lying to customers. Many years of deregulation, thou, have increased the number of scams and increased the price of goods and services. Maybe it was not a good idea.

"I'd much prefer the government just legislated conditions that are humane. Either animal welfare matters or it doesn't. It doesn't make any sense for it to depend on individual consumers. A few people buying top-tier eggs isn't ever going to improve anything for the vast majority of hens."

I assume you don't live in a country that forms a government based on elections. If animal welfare mattered enough, it'd be political.

Popular sentiment has had some influence on the human animal, at least. E.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Meat_Inspection_Act

It's not that the price increase itself leads to better conditions, it's that better conditions necessitate price increases.

There are ways to assess whether a product meets one's standards. They may not be your standards, but it would meet the median for consumers.

I can purchase poultry from a local farm that has an on-site health inspector, where chickens are free-range. In ovo sexing is coming later for eggs. On the poultry side, life in battery cages by far leads to the most suffering. Absent that, given the right conditions, I find the poultry inoffensive and most consumers would too.

I agree there should be legislation, and that has been happening at the state-level.

Stop buying meat and eggs from supermarkets…

It's being talked about in the linkdd video.

Yes, that is all covered in that video.

This doesn’t make sense in the real world… where dollars and financial outcomes are a lot easier to secure (and defend) than political outcomes.

If the vast majority aren’t willing to use their wallets to back this or that… sacrificing something vastly rarer, for the average HN reader at least, is just nonsensical.

To the contrary, that's the entire premise of government regulation and spending.

Most people aren't going to voluntarily send money to the FDA, Social Security, or Medicare, or the courts, or the military, out of the goodness of their hearts. Left to their own devices, they'll freeload. But we all agree these things are important (as evidenced by how we vote), so we pay for them with mandatory taxes.

So your idea that something is nonsensical "if the vast majority aren’t willing to use their wallets to back this or that" doesn't hold water at all. Most people won't use their wallets to back anything, if it's left up to them as individuals.

I've always thought the solution to this was to fix a tax rate, but let the people apportion the spending themselves, to discover what they find important without letting them claw back the taxes, which I agree would be the default.

Seems like it would shut down entire swaths of "I don't wanna pay for your <x>" bitterness and resentment.

This individual apportionment always seems neat when I think about it, until I realize the vote would not be per person anymore, but per tax paid. I want to force rich people to contribute to welfare. They might be inclined to just fund the police to protect their property.

Yeah, maybe in some ideal world where people never have more than one political priority at the same time…

> financial outcomes are a lot easier to secure (and defend) than political outcomes.

It's also way easier to game, which is the problem here: the asymmetry of information is almost total as the consumer will never know anything behind what the supplier is regulated into saying, and even when it is, then anything that will present itself as an alternative will be massively overpriced (that's why organic stuff is twice as expensive even though it has less than a 25% difference in actual yield in the fields).

And again, your belief has zero empirical evidence, products never improve on that basis.

I agree, organic is a very good demonstration of that. It usually is much more expensive while it's generally impossible to show it being much better quality than something that isn't bottom of the barrel.

Where it kinda make sense is for veggies/fruits that are not grown with lots of water/fertilized and are not of calibrated genetics but that just gives you better tasting products because they are not engineered for productivity and not too water stuffed and thus have a more intense taste. In practice, if you are going to cook the stuff anyway, it doesn't matter much, it really makes a difference on stuff with no/low transformation.

Everything else "organic" is basically bullshit. Very often, they will sell you worse products at a premium (like the trend of "complete" pasta, where you get to pay more for fibers you can't digest and have bad taste).

I don't think paying more leads to anything indeed. What matters is the actual product choice, but it takes time and you need to be informed a lot, so most people are not able or unwilling to make the effort.

Someone who has time/money can make the effort of going to the local butcher, the preselection is almost guaranteed to be better but that's something only the richest can do nowadays.