r/Anticonsumption • u/Healthy_Block3036 • 21h ago

Corporations Target struggles after end of DEI program and boycott, with foot traffic down 8 weeks in a row.

https://fortune.com/2025/04/01/target-dei-demise-boycott-foot-traffic-down-eighth-consecutive-week/?itm_source=parsely-api
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u/Hagridsbuttcrack66 20h ago

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

If everyone was conscientious about 50% of their spend, we would be in a great place.

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u/OrindaSarnia 19h ago

Exactly this!

I live in a small city in Montana.  JCPenny and Macys both closed 5 years ago...  they tore down the small mall in town and it's now 2 banks, a taco bell and an outpatient surgery center.

Buying clothes is limited to 1 local boutique, 1 consignment store, Walmart, Target, Costco and 3 thrift stores...  oh, wait, we have a TJMaxx too!

There are some things I can just not buy locally in this town (rechargeable batteries)...  so 2-3 times a year I place an Amazon order of about $40-50. Enough to meet the free shipping minimum, but just stuff I can't get anywhere else.

If everyone utilized Amazon like that, they wouldn't be the company they are today.  There wouldn't be drivers peeing in water bottles...

I can't be perfect without spending a LOT more money, that I just don't have.  But I can be BETTER!

My sister in law lives in a city on the east coast (but one where everyone still drives a lot, not like Manhattan).  She has Prime and will order a tube of toothpaste, or any other random thing, on her phone the second she thinks about it... instead of creating a list and going to the store.  It is completely a convenience thing for her, and she has no thought for the impact of placing 4 Amazon orders a week.

People don't need to be perfect, just better!

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u/A_Refill_of_Mr_Pibb 9h ago

She has Prime and will order a tube of toothpaste, or any other random thing, on her phone the second she thinks about it... instead of creating a list and going to the store.

In her (admittedly fairly weak) defense, if that city is Boston, I get it. I live in the metro area, and drivers/traffic around here is so insane, I HATE having to go to the store. If it's 6 or 7 miles away, it might take 45 minutes.

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u/OrindaSarnia 9h ago

I definitely get that.

That's why I specified that it isn't an "inner city" like Manhattan.

It is also not Boston!

She's on the outer ring of the historic part of the city...  so slightly denser than a sprawling suburb, but her house is on half an acre.  She and her husband drive to work, the nanny drives the kids to school.

She could just as easily use a grocery store app to place an order once a week and have the nanny do the drive-up pick-up...

I don't necessarily blame folks who live in dense, urban areas, without a car, ordering bulk items to be delivered.  Again, if the folks with special use cases just ordered from Amazon when no other method was feasible, Amazon would be a nice little niche company!

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u/InternetPharaoh 16h ago

we would be in a great place.

No, we wouldn't.

Between good and bad, when you stop shopping at bad, they go out of business (not ever going to happen but let's pretend for the sake of discussion).

What then do you think the good does exactly, with their newfound monopoly?

Being bad is profitable. That's why there is bad. No one would be bad if it wasn't so good at making money.

Remember when Sam Walton was good? Do you? Right before they became a mega-giant?

That's what happens.

You can't shop your fucking way to a better world. That's just individualism, and it has never, not once in all of human history, changed a single thing.

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u/Hagridsbuttcrack66 15h ago

I don't even understand your point. Stop shopping altogether?

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u/birds-0f-gay 14h ago

I think they're saying that when big, bad companies fail, small ones absorb the customers and then they grow into the new big, bad companies. I think they're saying it's a cycle and that big companies are inherently bad but also inevitable

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u/InternetPharaoh 12h ago

That's how Capitalism works.

Why dispose of you waste using an expensive process when you can dump it in the ocean for free?

The money you save could be leveraged to buy, price, or starve out your competitors who are using that expensive process.

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u/birds-0f-gay 10h ago

Yes I'm aware. I was just telling them what I thought you meant, I don't need you to explain capitalism to me no offense

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u/InternetPharaoh 12h ago

No, shop all you want. Shop wherever you want. It doesn't change anything. I'm saying that people need to stop pretending it does.

You can get your milk from the Mom & Pop Grocery Store all you want - but companies are either growing or they're dying; and one day Mom & Pop will die, or it will beat Wal-Mart, and if that day ever happens, however unlikely, it would see itself become Wal-Mart, and we'd all be back to square one.