@mrzaius @uliwitness question: why is this bad? Some people I know would say this shows capitalism is compassionate. They’d argue that amazons motivation is irrelevant and the out come of the charity receiving anything is good.
So what’s bad here, other than just being judgy about why they’re doing it.
@jiva @mrzaius @uliwitness I am with you on this.
If this program benefitted small charities that do not possess large donation machinery and that would have otherwise received less if not for AmazonSmile, I am pleased to hear it.
I think the truth of the program's origin should be known, but I can see the positive side here - even if Amazon did it ultimately for cynical reasons.
@msw @adamjcook @jiva @mrzaius @uliwitness because
• they get to pay less money to Google
• they get to pay fewer taxes
is being sold to the public as “smile” and “look what we’re doing to help charities”. They’re whitewashing a cost-saving measure (which perverts the law, to boot) as “goodwill”.
I think “cynical” is spot on. Is it the worst they’ve done? No, there’s plenty more. But is it a good thing? No.
@chucker @msw @jiva @mrzaius @uliwitness Sure. To be clear, I am not ignoring the tradeoffs and the corporate tax issues.
I am just looking at it from an extremely simplistic perspective... small charitable organizations and non-profits received some money that they would not have otherwise.
I am happy for those organizations that benefited.
mrzaius🚸
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