- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.zip
- browsers@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.zip
- browsers@lemmy.ml
If you are keen on personal privacy, you might have come across Brave Browser. Brave is a Chromium-based browser that promises to deliver privacy with built-in ad-blocking and content-blocking protection. It also offers several quality-of-life features and services, like a VPN and Tor access. I mean, it’s even listed on the reputable PrivacyTools website. Why am I telling you to steer clear of this browser, then?
Wait, so believing same sex marriage shouldn’t be allowed means you think gay people are sub-human? That’s quite the leap. It may be true, but you’ll need a bit more evidence than a private donation to a group pushing a bill to ban same sex marriage.
Even if he is literal Nazi trash (big doubt), his company produces FOSS, which can and should be evaluated on its own merits.
Look, I’m married to an immigrant POC. If he supported banning immigration interracial marriage, that would piss me off, but it wouldn’t have any impact on the quality of the browser. I bet CEOs of companies that make a number of products I use have terrible political takes or like Eich, but that doesn’t change the quality of the product.
If he brought his politics into his company, that would be different. But how he spends his money and free time doesn’t really matter to me.
You keep saying “but the product is fine” as if you don’t understand the concept of a boycott on moral grounds. It’s also hard to trust your privacy to someone who doesn’t believe you should have the same rights. Yes I consider that dehumanizing. If you’d been prevented from marrying your immigrant POC you would feel dehumanized as well, and I hazard to guess you might choose alternatives to products built by those who helped bring you to that state. At least fuck I hope so, because otherwise you are missing a screw.
I absolutely do boycott based on moral grounds. I’ve been boycotting Walmart for >10 years because of unfair competition actions (killing off small businesses), poor treatment of workers, and being a massive force for reducing worker treatment in other companies by forcing prices down. Likewise for Nestle and what they’ve done in Africa, I’m trying to eliminate Amazon for their warehouse policies, and I’ve been reducing or eliminating purchases from other companies as well along similar lines.
I draw the line at actual actions by companies though, and I don’t really care what c-suite types do on their own time and with their own money. If I boycotted companies based on what their execs believe, I wouldn’t be able to buy anything.
Oh absolutely, but I would funnel that anger at the people who supported and passed it, not at the companies those people work for or the products those companies produce.
It’s one thing to differentiate between a company and the staff who work for it. But I think you have to be pretty thick to gleefully patronize a company whose founder and CEO you detest. If you want to compartmentalize to such an extreme, that’s your business, but don’t argue it to me as if it makes any objective sense to ignore who you are enriching by your purchasing power.
Companies are like Soylent green, after all: they’re made of people.
The CEO isn’t the company, they’re just the ones at the helm. The CEO’s personal opinions don’t really impact my decision of whether to patronize their store, provided they keep their personal opinions out of the business. If a CEO aligns with me but their products suck, cool, but I’ll avoid the store. If a CEO is opposite to me and their products rock, I’ll probably buy from them. If a company abuses its employees or actively tries to interfere w/ democracy (more than their competitors), then I’ll avoid their products. I think it’s important to send the right message to the right person/group.
I disagree with Brendan Eich, but he seems to keep his personal politics out of his business. I can dislike him while being okay with his business, and I don’t think that’s an insane thing to do at all.
At the end of the day, a ton of distasteful people get wealthy regardless of what I do. It’s also true that they get a very small percentage of the money a company takes in, it just so happens that a small piece of a very large pie is still a ton of money.
At the end of the day, it’s absolutely a personal choice which products and organizations to support. I personally see more value in supporting ideas (e.g. privacy) than tearing things down just because an unsavory character is affiliated with it. In other words, I prefer to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater.