Big or small, companies need to make money, and the only way to do that is for customers to buy their product or enlist in their services.
Most companies try to create products or services that will help people. However, some companies lose their way and end up making bad decisions. They become almost evil. That’s when the customers stop coming.
People rarely want to buy from a company who is doing bad things. From the company CEO said some disparaging things to the company treating their employees with zero respect, anything can turn customers off a company.
Redditors know this all too well. They were happy to share the companies they would never want to give money to, and why.
It all started when Redditor 3Dmee asked:
“What company will you never give your money to?”
Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself
"Amazon."
"The Wrong Amazon is Burning”
– tokyobandit
"Jesus! How did I have to scroll so far to find this? My partner refuses to use Amazon, ever. I'm a hypocrite who was gifted a Kindle... occasionally when I'm feeling broke I'll buy an e-book. I justify it by telling myself that I'm supporting the author, but really I'm just an a**hole."
– waiting_for_Falkor
Leaves A Bad Taste In My Mouth
"Amway"
– Smoke-00
"Had my wifes (gf at the time) friend want to reconnect and meet me after not speaking for a couple years."
"We go to lunch and her dad is there, no big deal. She gets nervous and pulls out a folder and starts trying to sell us on this Amway stuff."
"Turns out her dad does it and got her to join up. Also what do you know theres an Amway thing down the road lets get some stuff."
"I had no idea what a MLM was at the time but knew it felt like a scam of some sort. My wife and I grew up poor and knew to lookout for scams like this."
"Imagine using your own daughter to get people to sign up to this."
– Batesy1620
Evil Incarnate
"I would say Nestlé, but they are an octopus of malice that have their tentacles in every f*cking thing, it’s really hard to not buy something and accidentally give them money"
– nakedboi03
"For those interested, the app buycott has a barcode scanner that can tell you if a product you want to purchase is from a group of preselected companies or participates in select unethical practices. You can really vote with your dollar on the companies you want to support with this. This has saved me from accidentally purchasing anything from Nestlé because I will be dead before they peel one measly cent from my hands. If you don't know...go find out. You won't be the same. Pure disgusting greed."
– Happy_Chick21
"i try to stay away from Nestlé and chick fil a"
– chickennuggetoverlre
It's A Big Big World
"My grandma absolutely hates Walmart. She’s always talking about growing up, her town was all small business and everyone knew one another and supported their local businesses"
– BigThistyBeast
"Walmart."
"Young people now may not remember when there were small independent stores everywhere."
"You know how everything is chains, giant big box stores, and Walmart now? There was nothing like that in much of the country in the 1980s, you had family run grocery stores, butchers, clothing stores, furniture stores, etc. everywhere."
"Walmart’s strategy of selling the cheapest-made products from overseas drove them all out of business, while they treated their employees horribly, had their workforce subsidized by tax funds, and got tax breaks from municipalities for their stores."
"They pay their employees so little they qualify for food stamps, I had friends who worked there in high school, and they gave them a start time but no end time, they just had to agree to be there until they were no longer needed, ignoring laws regarding the employment of minors, not to mention the trouble they’ve gotten into for violating labor laws regarding overtime."
"All to funnel unimaginable wealth to one specific family, the Waltons, sucking the life out of communities and humans everywhere."
– Trssty
The Wrong Family
"Any Kardashian/Jenner related companies"
– That_Engineering6795
"If you're buying Disney+ you're paying them down the chain in some form."
– white_male_centrist
"This should be everyone’s answer"
– geauxandy72
Scary Bad
"Wells Fargo. How many times do they need to get in hot water over sh!tty business practices before people lose confidence?"
– eieioelena
"I used to work for them. They deliberately screwed over veterans in fraudelent scheme after fraudelent scheme. Total pieces of sh*t."
– realitygroupie
"My answer as well. Predatory practices, institutionalized fraud, screw those guys."
– palookapalooza
Should Be Illegal
"Pfizer, i still havent forgiven them for failing to disclose that the 'anti-depressant' i was given as part of an extended clinical study, worked by suppressing certain hormones, causing other hormones to flourish."
"I was 18, about 112lbs (anorexic) when i started. 6 months later, i was 220, and had to wear a large B Cup sports bra to wear shirts."
"I am a man. Also started balding, but gettign hairier on my back and gut, and broke out in acne, had lactation events, etc."
"Yeah no warning that they knew about those symptoms, which they did, and no compensation, even though they failed to disclose these side effects, which they were required to do by law."
– lowexpectationsguy
The Man Makes The Machines
"Tesla. I'd love an electric car, but I don't want to give money to that pompous a**."
– uncreativemynameis
"Same. I was all on board to buy a cyber truck but this d**khead has gone too far."
– atxdevdude
Missing The Good Old Days
"I don’t know if anyone has said it yet but Nintendo. They really haven’t been releasing many good games since 2018 besides a few gems. But that’s not even a reason really. Their scummy business practices, mistreating their fans, copyrighting many things (most notably soundtracks of their games uploaded to YouTube), and taking down any fan game that gets popular makes them a terrible company pan imo. 2020 was the last year I supported Nintendo until I realized the scummy things they actually did in 2021. And even then, I was skeptical of many business decisions they did. I wish I could go back to to the 2006-2017 days of Nintendo."
– thatonedragonslayer
But Not Really Though
"Apple!!
Sent from iPhone"
– system_reboot
Yeah, sounds about right!
People Explain Which Products Everyone Would Boycott If They Knew How They Were Really Made
There's a saying that nobody would ever want to see how politics or sausage are made. The product is palatable and welcomed, but the creation process is down right ugly.
A recent Reddit thread expands that principle to well beyond those two items. In fact, read through enough of these and you'll be left wondering what is something you'd be willing to witness as its made.
Redditors far and wide, all carrying specialties and insider knowledge--usually from a current or previous job-- spill the beans on the ugliest manufactured items.
These explanations are so ugly that you may think twice before purchasing the thing in the future.
tmckey150 asked,
"What is a product that if people found out how it was made they'd stop buying it?"
Paying for the Name
"Most low to mid tier vodkas. I work at an industrial distillery where we make millions of gallons of very high purity ethanol from corn."
"We have customers in the beverage market that literally just dilute our product to 80 proof or so, run it through a filter, and bottle it to sell."
"Those customers sell their products from anywhere from $8-$50+ for a liter. And you know what the main difference is? The more expensive vodka's bottle is 'fancier.'"
"It's almost all brand perception with these corn based vodkas."
-- AndJuan247
Signed by Someone
"Certain signed art work."
"Used to work at an art printing company that we did signature editions of certain pieces. Guess who did the signing me and some coworkers, we were all design and art majors so they just had us learn all the artists signatures, we even had machines that could mimic the signatures too, I wish I had a picture of the devices they were pretty cool."
"It was in the fine print that we were doing it and was approved by the artists but I guarantee most people would never buy the prints if they knew the signatures were forged. So always read the fine print when buying items, especially 'special' editions of stuff."
-- Dr_Edge_ATX
A Very Broad Definition of "Fresh"
"Fresh juices are not so fresh apparently. A friend whose family owns mango orchard told me these companies buy the leftover stock that doesn't sell directly and leave the rest to strong artificial flavouring for uniform taste." -- Curious_pari
"Explains why is always has that partially fermented tang to it" -- Ignorhymus
Sheepskin
"In high school, the girls in my class were horrified to find out what their Uggs were made of. They had no idea." -- unfaathomable
"Oh god I knew this girl who was like 'oh no you don't kill the sheep to make uggs!' And I was like 'no you are thinking of wool this is literally sheep SKIN you have to kill it'" -- barmitzvahmoney
Secrets Behind the Orange Tape
"Not really a product but if people knew how much and often people cut corners in construction, I think housing prices would go wayyyy down. I don't think I was ever on a job where a problem came up, and people were like, 'Okay, let's start over and do this right.'"
"Or, especially in bigger construction companies, how much time the employees waste to run the clock."
Unfortunately, A Timeless Example
"I'd imagine if people walked through the sweat shops that produce most of their clothing, they would consider spending a bit more for products made in a more humane way." -- TheSexyMicrowave
"We need more laws. Laws imposing responsibility on sellers (more so large scale sellers) to ensure their suppliers comply with certain humanitarian laws. Basic levels of income, exploitation free etc."
"I rarely advocate government intervention but it is too easy to just lie about your products and get away with it. We need laws, auditors and fines." -- Cryovat321
A Complicated Response to a Grave Problem
"After I found out the story behind the palm plantations for production of palm oil I made it my personal mission to completely throw it our of my life (and that sh** is in almost everything you eat)." -- Junduk
"and in so many cosmetic products and in shampoo and in cleaning detergent. one really wonders why the f*** they put that in there to begin with" -- mastapetz
"The WWF actually does not recommend boycotting Palm Oil at all, as substitutes are way less efficient, and require far more land to yield the same volume as Palm Oil would."
"I think the best thing to aim to do is push sustainable palm oil through governing bodied such as the RSPO." -- Acid_Monster
Tough to Boycott, Though
"The human brain is incredibly good at forgetting and ignoring information that might inconvenience it." -- 0100001101110111
"I'm gonna pretend like I didn't see this..." -- Epibicurious
"That's horrible. Never buying a brain again" -- Cheap-Power
Value Added Products
"I've work in 2 different meat departments in 2 separate grocery stores. The meat in the case that has had work done, (marinated or like put into kabobs) are usually the old meat we didn't sell that is about to go bad."
"That marinade is hiding how shi**y the meat looks."
-- Mroder1
When the Product is So Caustic You Don't Have to Worry
"Monster energy drinks. I have been to their bottling warehouse (I was in college with some guys who became chemists for them while I was working on my doctorate). Some defect in one of the machines caused a bunch of cans to leak. The wood pallets underneath disintegrated like wet paper."
"Further, the maintenance crew was on a cleaning rotation. They told me that the Monster tanks do not get cleaned unless there is so much buildup that it changes the taste. This is because it is so caustic that bacteria and mold don't survive."
Incarcerated Labor
"Garlic. The garlic industry is a hell of a lot darker than most people would think. I don't remember everything, but apparently a lot of Chinese companies that sell to restaurants overseas use prison labor."
"These inmates have to peel the garlic completely by hand, no tools whatsoever. There were a few inmates missing fingernails. If I recall correctly, one man said that he had a friend who had to resort to using his teeth because he didn't have any nails left."
"They work unimaginably grueling shifts, in which they have to meet a quota for the day or face consequences. They get paid very little, if anything at all. They all seemed so miserable."
-- foxglove37
Road Ready
"RVs. They aren't insulated fully. Nothing is sealed correctly. All the electronics that are "fancy and new" are outdated and inefficient. The manufacturers use the cheapest materials possible AND all RVs are built in 8 hours."
"A vacation home. On wheels. In 8 hours!?"
-- Leftydude777
Factory Model Haircuts
"Not a product, but a service.... I'm a hair stylist that's worked at Great Clips. They want us to do haircuts in under 16 minutes. If you're closer to 12, you become one of the 'elite.' "
"If you get a bad haircut from GC, yes, sometimes the stylist just isn't skilled. Most times, it's because we're rushed and bitched at for taking longer than 16 minutes."
"Eh, Nobody'll Notice"
"Coffee and cockroaches are linked in several ways....." -- demonardvark
"For those who don't know:"
" 'This happens with coffee because the large piles of coffee beans get infested with cockroaches and, according to Emlen, it is impossible to remove them completely. So they are simply ground up with the coffee beans.' " -- PaleNewt0
Rock and a Hard Place for Consumers
"Vegetables aren't necessarily 'made' so this might not count but If people saw the exploitation of people that went into getting their fruits and vegetables it'd be a different story. Many minorities work their asses off for little to no pay, through rain or shine."
"If they saw the hands and feet of the workers that provide them with the food, they'd be pretty shocked. 'How hard could it be all you do is pick fruit and vegetables all day' yeah right."
"Also the annoying 'oh my god you should be vegan it's completely cruelty free' people should shut up because the food your provided with by grocery stores isn't cruelty free either."
All for Our Vanity
"Mirrors. It involves sending miners into deep arctic caves to retrieve the element Mirrorium. It's a crystal in it's natural state and apparently you could make a 10' x 10' mirror out of just a 'pen tip' sized amount."
"I'm obviously making this up because I don't know how mirrors are made and they scare me."
Natural Flavors
"A lot of perfumes are made out of musk glands that come from deer. They are killed in order to get it and it's not pleasant."
"Also some vanilla flavoring uses a liquid that comes out from the base of a beavers tail. It's not a pleasant experience for them either"
-- DudeGuyVR
Ever thought about the things you throw out? Someone out there is gonna see it one last time before it's buried away forever. These people definitely weren't thinking about that when they left these odd things in the trash.
Reddit user Illtema asked: