The title may sound weird. I initially wrote it as “fuck over the billionaires”. But it is not only billionaires, but also multi-millionaires and people who think themselves hierarchically superior.
So:
- Are you doing something to fuck over “the powerful”? If so, what?
Myself, I am becoming as much “anti-consumption” as possible. I am removing myself from capitalism, as much as possible.
I still have to eat, of course, so I buy food. But I don’t buy food from corporations. As an example, I don’t buy anything from Nestle, nor from any big corporations. Gadgets and tech, I will be avoiding as much as possible, and if I do find myself needing to buy, I will do so but not from the usual corporations.
Social networks: only lemmy and mastodon sometimes. Fuck reddit and instagram and facebook. Don’t have an account there and never will. I don’t go there anymore.
I try to keep a “solarpunk” attitude. I do things for the good of the environment. I do/will-be-doing things such as composting, reducing the use of plastic, avoiding cars.
I am also trying to get people on board with my view of things, but I haven’t been much successful. I think principled people are very rare. People just don’t care.
Same. I stopped buying most things. I haven’t ordered anything online since 2019. I wouldn’t say I do it to “fuck over the powerful,” though. I can’t imagine they care too much. Interacting with companies just became more and more toxic, until I couldn’t be arsed to do it - beyond the bare minimum. There are a few exceptions, but I can already see the enshittification starting with those too.
When I buy something these days, I try to buy it used. A lot of people need money these days, and they’re selling off stuff they don’t need or use. So I’m helping them get rid of some stuff and make money, I’m getting stuff I need cheap, and the corps get nothing.
Over the last few years, I’ve put together a nice little personal recording studio, with several cheap, but excellent guitars and keyboards and drum machines, with almost everything used. A lot of it is barely used, some of it I suspect was NEVER used, and I’m getting this stuff for 10% of what it was new. The couple of guitars I bought new were great super budget guitars that were crazy cheap before tariffs.
Too much good used stuff out there, and people who need money.
Same. My spending is one of my biggest voices
This^ I’m doing the same thing. Everything that was hyped and “everyone is doing it” since the late 90s…… just stopping all of that. Going to causal mode, not off grid, just going with the flow with the bare minimum.
I don’t buy any US brands as I get the Aldi version instead.
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This one’s tough! Have you found online shopping alternatives to get stuff? Just curious.
Mostly just don’t buy as much shit. When I do need something find a site that specialises in that. Some I recently used: Brew2Bottle, Heinnie Haynes, SJS Cycles
Stopping buying things new.
Similar to what OP is doing - minimizing consumption as much as I can, and being selective with sources when I have to. If I need something, I try to buy used first.
This includes, but is not limited to, avoiding US products and services. I still have investments, but try to focus on ESG as much as possible (though I’m aware that participating in stock markets etc is problematic in itself, but I don’t have a lot of choice in the matter).
I’m also trying to move away from a profit/monetary value maximizing mindset, and want to focus on sustainability, durability and social benefits.
In reality, these are all goals that I often fall short of. But I want to keep trying and get better.
By being very good at my job.
Sounds like a fed question
Just not buying new shit anymore unless it is something I need. And then? The cheap one. And I will make it last until it screeches out its last death rattle. I even swapped to scrubs so I can wear the same outfit every day.
scrubs? Solid idea
Does not dying of cancer out of spite count?
Arguably counts the most. God speed warrior.
Yes.
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Their wallet is bigger than ours
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I don’t think that’s really the point that the person you’re responding to is making.
I was discussing this is another sub the other day: The real issue is the stagnation of worker pay and businesses turning to business-to-business sales since consumers no longer have money. Corporations have money, and they’re happy to sell products and services to each other, and make a lot more money doing it because they sell far more computing products (for example) at the Enterprise level than the consumer level already. Micron bowing out of the consumer market isn’t the first in a line of dominoes, it’s the last in a line that stretches back to the late 90s where business-to-business sales began to boom. The consumer market has been priced out in the West, and very arguably the vast majority of the Southern and Eastern hemispheres of the planet were always priced out of the consumer market either through trade embargoes or straight exploitation of labor. You really think the folks making Nike shoes for a few dollars a day in third world countries constitute a large portion of the consumer market? They don’t, and never were. Corporations were fine without those people being part of the consumer equation, and they’re aiming to be fine without us. As corporations keep more and more of the profits and less and less goes to consumers, they’re building an economy that effectively doesn’t need average consumers to continue to function. This is all honestly horrible, and I hate it, but the dark reality is that voting with your wallet does basically fuck-all because they already gave up on consumers a while ago. This is evidenced by stats like in the US the top 10% of earners accounting for 50% of all economic activity in the country, while the bottom 90% of earners, (the vast majority) make up the other 50% of economic activity.
Vote with your wallet all you want, but stop pretending it does more than you think it does. It doesn’t mean it does nothing, but it does a hell of a lot less than it would have fifty years ago. This is purposeful, the corporate class wants us to be priced out of being able to vote with our wallets. So don’t get it twisted, nobody is saying “throw money at corporations anyway” they’re saying “maybe don’t bank on voting with your wallet accomplishing much at all.”
If all you’re doing is voting with your wallet you’ve missed the bigger picture by a mile and just are barely making a real impact at all. In the USA, the bottom 90% is still over 300 million people, since USA is roughly 350 million people. Unless you get a massive, absolutely massive, amount of those 300 million all boycotting major corporations, you’re really accomplishing fuck-all.
But by all means admonish other people for trying to open your eyes to how far down this hill we already are.
EDIT: For some proof, here’s some numbers from Microsoft in 2025 -
- Devices: $17.31 B
- Dynamics Products And Cloud Services: $7.83 B
- Enterprise Services: $7.76 B
- Gaming: $23.46 B
- Linked In Corporation: $17.81 B
- Microsoft Three Six Five Commercial Products And Cloud Services: $87.77 B
- Microsoft Three Six Five Consumer Products and Cloud Services: $7.40 B
- Search And News Advertising: $13.88 B
- Server Products And Tools: $98.44 B
So for Devices, Gaming, LinkedIn, Office 365 for Consumers, Search and News all added together is $79.86 Billion, which is still less than just the Office 365 Commercial division alone. Also, LinkedIn and Search/News aren’t strictly consumer, either, but I bundled them in anyway to make the point here. The income businesses make by serving other businesses already fucking dwarfs the consume market, and has for a while now.
Working on Lemmy, instead of selling my soul to a company.
Thanks for creating all this for us!
Take that, Big Food Processor! I don’t play by your rules.
Not being the ideal consumer that they want me to be. I hear so many fucking commercials, I’ve seen so many commercials and not once have I ever bought anything from what they advertised or subscribed to what service they marketed. I sometimes will even harass the marketers back if I’m annoyed enough.
They think I’ve got so much disposable money laying around, to be buying and subscribing to what they want me to. Well, I don’t and I pick what I want to buy. I may buy the same shit at the grocery stores, I may subscribe to alternatives or take advantage of trials and deals before I cancel them when it comes time for the full price of subscription comes. But they don’t have me that hooked.
Since July I’ve been boycotting US companies. I’ve gone as far as setting up my own self-hosted home server for document / bookmark / media storage, which is actually fantastic and I wish I’d done this sooner. All streaming services have been cancelled. I only buy from European brands, and only directly from their own website (no Amazon, etc). This was the first year in a long time where I’ve declined a phone upgrade with my network - I’ll just keep my current phone as long as possible. All my smart home tech is being gradually phased away from Google / Nest and towards Matter / Home Assistant. Windows has been wiped from my PC and I’ve moved to Linux. I cancelled my Adobe subscription in favour of FOSS alternatives. My family and close friends have all switched to Signal (though we did this years ago).
While I still use social media (I make digital art), the only thing I ever post on Facebook/Insta/Threads is my artwork. I don’t post anything personal anymore, because that’s my data.
Despite all these “sacrifices”, I don’t really feel like I’ve lost anything. In fact, things are arguably better now I’m unshackled from US tech giants. I’m saving a ton of money too from all the cancelled subscriptions.
I put bologna on their car so it eats holes in the paint. 😤
Fix things and keep them, fix things and sell them on the secondhand market, or fix things owned by friends who have broken things. By applying my technical knowledge to repairing computers, appliances, tools, furniture, plumbing, I’m building my own self-sustainability, I’m enabling others to avoid buying new things and instead spend their money in better ways, I’m networking with people who have skills that I lack, I’m denying the manufacturers the revenue they would get if there wasn’t someone like me to fix their shit, and I’m denying the govt the taxes involved in new purchases and income tax on my secondhand sales, and I’m denying the voracious landfill of its tasty, tasty whitegoods.
