Amazon Smile shuts down

[mellowtigger]

Not many people knew of it, but anything you could buy at Amazon.com could also be bought at Smile.Amazon.com, with a portion of the sale money being donated to the charity you selected. At work, I always tried to direct products to that url when people asked me for tech items. Well, I just saw the email from Amazon that they are shutting down this charity service. Why it was a separate service instead of baked-in to the main corporate webpage, I don't know.

Media this morning report that people are surprised, like me.

The news has been met with a mix of disbelief, anger, and confusion from charities and consumers. For example, the SquirrelWoord Enquine Sanctuary tweeted a copy of the announcement along with the comment "What???? Seriously @amazon." One reply points out that AmazonSmile was a way to support small charities who are "innovative and creative," while another says they made purchases through Amazon because of the donation and that will not be the case in the future. https://www.pcmag.com/news/amazon-is-closing-down-amazonsmile-on-feb-20

The slow collapse continues, I guess. Exponential-growth capitalism must be fed at all costs. (Or such is the inevitability, we're sternly told. ("The beginning is near."))

Comments

[wispywillow]

I've been donating to the World Wildlife Federation through smile-amazon. I'm sad to hear they're shutting it down.

[mellowtigger]

I knew a coworker from Animal Humane Society who left to work for WWF. I was disappointed to hear of their ethical troubles a few years ago. I still look at their job listings occasionally, but it's always bureaucratic stuff, not day-to-day tech work.