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Comment by kokanee | Hacker News Reader

We need to figure out how to effectively organize boycotts, and find a way to actually incentivize participation.

I'm spitballing here, but what if we created a browser extension that gives users the option to block various monopolistic/oligarchic tech platforms. If the browser navigates to a blocked platform, we show a "consider these alternatives" page instead. Competitors to the monopolies could offer incentives (raffles, discounts, etc) in exchange for promotion on the recommended alternatives list, creating an incentive to participate in a boycott.

Example: a user opts into an Amazon boycott, but later clicks an affiliate link that leads them to a book listing on amazon.com. The browser extension intercepts this and displays a list of other places to shop for that book. Barnes and Noble offers a 10% discount for people who boycott Amazon, so they're the top recommended alternative, and the user gets the book for a discount.

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I was working on something adjacent to this for a little while.

It was a Chrome extension which allowed a user to upload a list (pluggable community-maintained lists, akin to ublock). It would light up when a user was on a site in the list with details about the site, the ownership/board, recent news, etc.

It also had a space for recommended alternatives. I built it because I was tired of giving money to companies who used the profits to make society worse.

I’d be down to pick up work on it again and get development going in the open or shift to work on the more commercial oriented design you describe. Lmk a good way to reach you if you’re open to it.

If you’d rather I can set up an email for this alias I just don’t have one handy to post publicly at the time of writing.

That’d be cool. I am not good at negotiating, sales, or anything g of that sort so I’d be the wrong person to help get companies on-board. I’d love to see something like this tho. I’d certainly use it.

While I'm ok with the notion of boycotts, they aren't effective in a world dominated by monopolies.

It's basically impossible to boycott amazon completely because of AWS which powers everything.

The hard thing needed is better politicians. And to get better politicians we need a better and more politically literate voting public. To get that, we need better journalism.

It's a real hard battle to win especially since a huge portion of the electorate will vote for the incumbent and the incumbents will deploy every dirty trick in the book to stay in power. Including getting people to run to split tickets.

But that's ultimately what must happen. The thing Amazon or Walmart actually fear is a government willing to regulate them or their employees unionizing. And the only way to get regulations is voting for politicians that do that and voting out politicians unwilling to do that. For unions, you have to convince people that even though it may cost them their jobs, it's worth it to drive the likes of Walmart out of town to support more local businesses. It helps to get union friendly politicians into office.

(Un)fortunately, there's a pretty big generational divide. As boomers expire, I have hope that Gen X and Millennials will make things better. The question is how bad things will get before that happens.

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