Post #2448722

2023-01-20 03:31 UTC

@msw@mstdn.social @jiva@devoe.social @mrzaius@hachyderm.io @uliwitness@chaos.social It seems to me that if those Reddit posts are accurate, Amazon created this program purely out of self-interest. Perhaps a word choice that is too harsh on my part? I am open to that. I suppose that, at the end of the day, it does not matter much how it is defined. If small charities got paid, I am not going to knock Amazon for that. Sad to see AmazonSmile go then, I guess... as those charities may not receive what they did before.

Replies (2)

@msw@mstdn.social 2023-01-20 03:39

@adamjcook@mastodon.social @jiva@devoe.social @mrzaius@hachyderm.io @uliwitness@chaos.social ah, I see. I'm not used to seeing "cynical" as the contrast against "altruism". I am skeptical that altruism exists in humanity (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism/), and it's _definitely_ not how corporations operating in a capitalist system tend to operate. I think that "enlightened self-interest" is generally more reliable behavior to expect than altruism. But I wouldn't call that cynicism. Just reality (based on my personal, biased, flawed perspective).

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@yacc143@mastodon.social 2023-01-21 17:56

@adamjcook@mastodon.social @msw@mstdn.social @jiva@devoe.social @mrzaius@hachyderm.io @uliwitness@chaos.social The problem is that the motivation limits the program strongly. Amazon is using the possibility of getting a tiny amount of money to some charity to shape user behaviour (use inferior Amazon internal search. Google might not be much better, but specialized search engines are). Now as the employees say the charities are completely irrelevant to the program. So they should be for you when it comes to evaluating it.

Open ##2448727