I'm bummed / angered. Amazon Smile is going away.

[Coventina]

I got this in my email this morning.
It's basically double-speak for "We were giving too much money away, now we're going to pretend to give money, but you'll never know the truth."

In 2013, we launched AmazonSmile to make it easier for customers to support their favorite charities. However, after almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped. With so many eligible organizations—more than 1 million globally—our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.

We are writing to let you know that we plan to wind down AmazonSmile by February 20, 2023. We will continue to pursue and invest in other areas where we’ve seen we can make meaningful change—from building affordable housing to providing access to computer science education for students in underserved communities to using our logistics infrastructure and technology to assist broad communities impacted by natural disasters.

To help charities that have been a part of the AmazonSmile program with this transition, we will be providing them with a one-time donation equivalent to three months of what they earned in 2022 through the program, and they will also be able to accrue additional donations until the program officially closes in February. Once AmazonSmile closes, charities will still be able to seek support from Amazon customers by creating their own wish lists.

[LAS14]

1. I am likewise pissed. nt

[Sky Jewels]

2. Damn. I'd been channeling my percentage to Planned Parenthood.

[Coventina]

4. I'll bet that's why it's going away: It doesn't want to be "woke"

[tblue37]

7. I sent mine to our local Humane Society.

[Sky Jewels]

10. I was torn between a helping an animal charity and helping PP, but I decided that

when unwanted pregnancies are prevented and fewer habitat-destroying, meat-and-dairy-eating humans are born, that really helps animals too.

[crickets]

11. Same here.

As someone else mentioned, it made me feel a bit better about doing business w/Amazon. Ugh. *sigh*

[MissLilyBart]

3. Another unhappy person here...

I always try to buy from a non-Amazon source, but when I absolutely had to give Amazon my money, the distaste I felt was at least tempered by the knowledge that my purchase was also sending some $$ to a local, financially strapped cultural institution. Without that incentive, I'll be working a lot harder to find other sources for the items I've been picking up on Amazon.

[rurallib]

5. thanks to our monopolistic structure for businesses in this country

where else do you go to shop?

I am really curious. I do little shopping online, but when I do I often end up at Amazon because they have so much.

[mathematic]

13. Try your local Mom & Pop. I'm sure they donate 10% every sunday to charity.

General merchandise retailing is a notorious low margin business and Amazon was directing a portion of sales to the buyer's charity of choice. Now that they're discontinuing that program and doing what every other general retailer does, it's an abuse of monopolistic powers? Come on.

[themaguffin]

6. Amazon laid off 18,000 employees yesterday.

[tblue37]

8. Damn!

[FakeNoose]

9. Yes I received the same message from Amazon today

It's all about profit. How are they different from every other American retailer?

Disappointing, but I guess it's to be expected.

[Meowmee]

12. I think it was losing them money?

Who knows the real reasons. Mine went to help diabetes research, but I found it confusing if it was working or not Whereas a charity I helped on ebay was easy to manage. I think they got rid of me being able to choose that one now though.