
Make it easy for me to vote with my wallet - jal278
http://blog.joellehman.com/index.php/2013/05/make-it-easy-to-vote-with-my-wallet/
======
rogerbinns
I tried and failed to do this ten years ago. The basic premise was you scanned
a product barcode at a store and would get useful information back. Americans
almost entirely care about price so the first module I wrote scraped Amazon
and gave back the Amazon price. I wanted any number of modules to give you
other information relevant to your needs. Some examples:

\- Environmental (eg the furniture you just scanned was made from rainforest)

\- Nationalism (eg if you call support it will be answered by someone in a
different country)

\- Manufacturer (eg pointing out another store carries all 5 colours instead
of the 1 you see here)

\- Reviews (eg metacritic scores)

\- Social views (eg gay marriage)

I was hoping that price would be the least useful piece of information, and
provide a way for sources of information (eg Greenpeace) to be connected to
consumers who wanted to know about that for the product right in front of
them.

Today you are still stuck with price, and in some cases reviews, and we are
all the poorer for it.

~~~
mercuryrising
I think the general attitude towards 'lowest price' in America is what could
eventually bring the downfall of America (as we know it).

I like thinking about the movement of the 'American system' as an evolution.
Back in the day, all the stores were owned by a local person. You go to this
store, that's Bob's store, he knows all about the fruit he gets, it's always
the best, he goes over to the farmer's field and makes sure he gets the cream
of the crop.

From here we have a huge population of stores (like neurons competing /
cooperating to be heard). All over America, people are employed by running
their own stores. Until one day, when a super store comes on the scene. It
sells things cheaper than the other stores, and it has a bigger selection. Bob
doesn't work there, but they have pretty much the same produce. Maybe the high
school kid working there doesn't know the farmer where the fruit came from,
but that's not so bad, I didn't know that farmer when I bought the fruit at
Bob's. Slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, our world is shifted. Instead of going
to the store, knowing the owner, striking up a conversation, getting the
latest scoop on the happenings of the neighborhood, we go to the store to
accomplish a task. This is efficiency, right?

There's another shift too, and it's a personal shift (that might not happen to
anyone).

I go to Bob's store, and I see he mismarked his apples, they should be a $1 a
piece, but they're $0.10 a piece. I don't want to rip Bob off, I know him,
he's a great guy. I say "Hey Bob, is this right?" He says "Oh no, that's a
mistake, sorry about that." That's alright, you have to make a living and I
don't want to make you lose money by purchasing something from you.

I go to a big box - they mispriced something. Maybe I can slip this by them,
and the cashier won't know the real price... I mean, there's no real people to
hurt, right? I'm not ripping anyone in particular off, just the company, which
is a bunch of people, and no single one of them is going to be worse off
because I purchase a mispriced item.

Any way that you can represent that this purchase is not part of the 'race to
the bottom of the barrel', that's great. All the efficiency in the world will
not make a place that's happy for people. Efficiency is inhumanity.

~~~
jal278
I think you're right in that the 'American system' is an evolving entity. The
evolution has something to do with how corporations are a relatively recent
invention: An entity that that money breathes life into; and that life is
sustained by further optimizing money.

It's strange. A corporation is made up of people and yet it has its own drive,
becomes like an organism composed of people in the same way that a human is
composed of cells and a human's motivations are an emergent phenomenon
independent of individual cells.

I'm reminded a bit of Kevin Kelly's 'what technology wants' that discusses how
technology has a life of its own, but in the context of corporations. Both
technology and corporations have some kind of abstract life that we as humans
impart to them; they are products of our thought but do not necessarily always
serve our best interests.

~~~
Zelphyr
To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently sized corporation is
indistinguishable from a government."

~~~
readme
Except it is clearly distinguishable. I am not sure what Arthur C. Clarke was
smoking when he allegedly said that.

    
    
        1. Corporations cannot levy taxes on citizens.
        2. Corporations are not democracies (whereas, most
           modern governments are). Only the board of directors has a vote.
        3. Corporations often generate profits. Governments are
           not very good at this.
        4. Corporations (in most cases) cannot use force 
           against a private citizen (unless they are on the
           corporations property, for the US)
        5. Corporations pay taxes. Governments collect taxes.    

...

I could name more differences, but I'm done.

Most governmental entities are indeed "municipal corporations" but there is a
serious dissonance between the typical for-profit corporation and government
entity. The police, public works, or fire department, for example, are
municipal corporations. However, these are not governments. They are just
parts of the government.

~~~
Zelphyr
I meant from an efficiency standpoint. Remember all those stories we used to
hear about people going to work for a government agency and sitting around for
days and weeks, getting paid, waiting on some key aspect required to do their
job? I have literally experienced that very thing in a large corporation.

------
a3n
"Someone needs to make a mint-like financial site that tells me when I am
spending money on companies with policies that disagree with my morality or
personal politics; I don’t have time to research when companies do horrible
things, please help me be a better person anyways."

All of them. HTH.

~~~
jal278
I'd like to at least minimize evil per dollar

~~~
zarify
Considering we've been trending toward the megacorp world for quite some time
now you're probably better off growing/farming your own food and not worrying
about the rest. That or starting your own pharma company for ulcer medication
and antidepressants.

That said, it'd be an interesting project, even if the metrics would be a
complete nightmare; am I more pro- environmental regulation than I am pro- gun
control? How do you rate Company X lobbying for Bill Y on a scale of Things I
Don't Like?. I suppose you'd have to go down a machine learning path for
individuals, maybe starting with presenting alternatives for whatever thing
you're interested in spending money on, a la the plain English terms of
service site that was set up a year or two ago (that I've lost the URL for[1])
and building a profile from there.

Realistically though, I think the whole exercise would just depress anyone who
took it on.

[1]It was indeed <http://tosdr.org/> \- Thanks :) re-bookmarked!

~~~
com2kid
> That said, it'd be an interesting project, even if the metrics would be a
> complete nightmare; am I more pro- environmental regulation than I am pro-
> gun control? How do you rate Company X lobbying for Bill Y on a scale of
> Things I Don't Like?. I suppose you'd have to go down a machine learning
> path for individuals, maybe starting with presenting alternatives for
> whatever thing you're interested in spending money on, a la the plain
> English terms of service site that was set up a year or two ago (that I've
> lost the URL for) and building a profile from there.

It is even more complicated than that.

What about some company that uses a Chinese factory that is known to employ
workers under 18?

Evil[1] right?

Well sure, unless you dig in to the numbers and find out that the company
mandates no under age workers in their portion of the factory.

[1] See discussion below, definitions of evil vary!

~~~
count
What's wrong with workers under 18? I had 3 different jobs before I turned 18.
Unskilled factory labor seems like a great fit for the teenage crowd.

Hell, in the US, there isn't even a minimum age limit for farm labor[1], and
the minimum age for non-farm labor is 14, with anybody over 16 being allowed
to work unlimited/full-time hours[2].

[1][http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/agriculturalemployme...](http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/agriculturalemployment.htm)
[2]<http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/agerequirements.htm>

~~~
com2kid
> What's wrong with workers under 18? I had 3 different jobs before I turned
> 18. Unskilled factory labor seems like a great fit for the teenage crowd.

A lot of people disagree with it and want to spend their money accordingly.

Many of these issues are subjective, I fully agree that it often isn't black
and white.

~~~
sliverstorm
Right, so what you need is a slider. What's the cutoff age. 18? 16? 12?

Of course, that's a distraction. I worked for the government when I was
twelve, but I only worked an hour or two a week.

------
ngoel36
I went to TechStars For A Day in Boulder, and somebody was making this exact
iPhone app. I can't tell you what it was named, but you would basically scan
any product, and it would analyze how the product's manufacturer aligned with
your views, and it would suggest competitors that aligned better. Furthermore,
the "bad" brand would then offer you coupons to convince you to "forgive"
their wrongdoing.

Really, I saw it as an interesting social experiment for people & companies to
gauge the dollar amount a person's values were worth to him.

~~~
noloqy
I like the idea, but to be honest I think this is the wrong approach. People
are not engaged with their consumption to the extent that they will go
scanning all the products they purchase.

What would work, though, is if you could inform people proactively before, at
the moment of, or after the purchase. The last case might be interesting in
order to inform consumers so that they will not purchase the product in the
future.

Lets imagine the situation where you walk into shoe store X, and it is known
that the store is associated with child labor. I will not "google" this store
before I enter it. However, if I get a push message the moment I enter it,
indicating that I shouldn't want to buy here because I told the app that I am
against child labor, I will respond to that!

------
tvst
The problem with voting with your wallet is that the richer you are, the more
times you can "vote".

I'd rather vote with my actual vote.

~~~
jhart3333
Lots of people voting with a few dollars each adds up and will get their
attention.

~~~
zeckalpha
Will it? <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmtm9CSLjaQ>

~~~
msandford
Wealth != purchasing power.

The 1% might have 80% of the nation's wealth tied up but the middle class and
the poor have all the purchasing power.

So long as they're intent on saving a buck whatever the cost, corporations
will pander to them just as hard as they possibly can. No matter the human
toll. Walmart treats their employees poorly because that's what has to happen
for Walmart to work like it does, and just wow does everyone love it. Walmart
could go bankrupt in a year if everyone just started shopping at Target. But
nobody does because it's not their problem.

------
cupcake-unicorn
How would this work for purchase, say, at a Grocery Store? The mom and pop
grocer's down the road may have no evil corporate affiliation, but the makers
of the junk food they're selling - that's a different story.

It's so hard to pick out every little piece. As a parallel, I am a vegan, and
I just have to accept that no matter how hard I try - even if I _did_ have an
app - I'm going to be using or ingesting animal products at some point. An app
just can't take into account every little piece of the puzzle.

~~~
jal278
The problem is definitely nuanced; shopping at a mom&pop store in general may
lead to less evil/dollar than at walmart, and even within that store, choosing
junk food manufactured by less evil corporations may be better.

There are separate levels within the hierarchy of where your dollar is going,
and optimizing less evil per dollar may not be straightforward.

However, any progress on this front would be good -- imagine if corporations
really felt pressure to be better, because if not a news story would be
aggregated into a evilness database that might convince many many consumers to
choose their competitor over them as a result.

~~~
zarify
_"imagine if corporations really felt pressure to be better, because if not a
news story would be aggregated into a evilness database that might convince
many many consumers to choose their competitor over them as a result."_

I'm curious as to whether consistent consumer buying pressure actually makes a
difference. We see companies making changes based on PR spikes relatively
often, but it's less immediately apparent [to me, I don't have any data on
this] whether a persistent negative image affects how they behave. Perhaps if
there was data to go along with poorer sales, but you can't really corellate a
lookup into a database on business practices or political activity with a lost
sale either (ie X people looking up Product Y doesn't mean X less sales).

This is looking at the situation with an eye to changing behaviour though, not
simply putting bad operators out of business (or more likely just reducing
profits) because there will always be bad operators.

------
startupfounder
Yes, but... It's not so much about what I buy (though this is important), it
is about how to incentivize politicians to be dependent on the people alone,
not the .000042% that give 60% of the Super Pac funds.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_t...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html)

------
jhart3333
This site is my quick and dirty start: <http://dontbuytheircrap.com> But I
haven't gotten around to building the tool yet. The idea is to have a mobile
friendly web app that leverages social networking to help with this very
problem. I didn't think there would be an opportunity for monetization. Maybe
I was wrong.

------
crm416
I'm not sure how well-supported this product has been (the website itself
seems down, if that's any indicator), but
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/buy-back-your-
vote/id5350143...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/buy-back-your-
vote/id535014326?mt=8) was done as a project last year in one of my university
courses.

------
metavida
Somebody should team up with the Better World Shopper folks
(<http://www.betterworldshopper.org>) to make this happen. They do currently
have an iOS app, but it's still way more manual work than it sounds like the
author of this article is looking for.

------
pauldavis
We've set out to do just this. Our web app analyzes your spending records from
Mint, lets you set issue priorities, and recommends changes. We are in private
beta. Our landing page is at switchuponline.com.

------
tomkinstinch
GoodGuide[1] falls in this niche.

The iOS app works well: just pick up a product and scan the barcode.

1\. <http://www.goodguide.com>

------
chailatte
that's easy. minimize your purchases with mega corporations. buy more from
small businesses.

btw, if your bank is

jp morgan chase

citibank

bank of america

hsbc

you should be ashamed of yourself.

~~~
gyardley
Right. I should be ashamed of myself for putting my money with a bank large
enough to have a chance of getting its own way vs. the federal government when
push comes to shove.

Instead, I should put my money with a small credit union with no money
managers capable of getting me a decent return and so little clout when the
proverbial shit hits the fan it'll be left to be roadkill.

What could possibly go wrong?

~~~
msandford
What return? The interest rates available these days are appalling. At this
URL (after being prompted for a zip code) I was able to see a 120 month CD
that yields 0.9% with anything less than 42 months being 0.15% yield.

During the last meltdown we saw that the FDIC made everyone whole. Did you
even hear about the NCUA bailing people out? I didn't. I tend to think that's
because credit unions did OK during the crisis as most of them tend to keep
their loans on their books and as a result, didn't get swept up in the diciest
loans in the bubble.

As a result I would suggest that perhaps the parent is correct and that credit
unions are the way to go.

Or is there some other kind of proverbial shit hitting the fan that you're
referring to? In my mind if TSHTF, any money you have in the bank is gone;
worthless or irretrievable. What's the scenario where it's bad enough you
want/need the clout of a mega-bank but where the banking system and our
government aren't both totally effed but a credit union is?

~~~
gyardley
_What return? The interest rates available these days are appalling._

Cripes, tell me you don't keep money in a savings account or CDs. Keep it with
your investment manager. The large banks cater to the mass affluent - which
includes any software developer who's worked at market for a few years and has
saved their money. You put your money with them, you make sure they understand
your appetite for risk, and they go to work.

I'm sure there's investment managers out there that are better than the ones
at large banks, if you have that much to invest. But for the rest of us, a
large organization is the way to go. They have the resources to attract good
quality talent and access to the information they need to make good investment
decisions. You will do so much better than 0.9% over 120 months, it's not even
funny.

FDIC doesn't cover much money, I might add, and it only covers money in those
might-as-well-be-zero-interest accounts where you shouldn't be keeping money
in the first place.

