What brands do you avoid at all cost? I don’t keep up with the news all that much, and many of the reasons to avoid something don’t make it there anyway. So I’m asking here to make a big list of things to avoid. It could be anything from bad security practices to really frustrating packaging. Working as a cashier myself, I definitely know there are plenty of brands I avoid purely on the basis that their product is a pain to stock.

On the flip side, what’s the alternative? If you avoid Pepsi, for example, what do you turn to instead?

  • FireWire400English
    17•4 months ago

    Samsung; just a lot of general very anti-consumer behaviour.

    LG; a “do not sell my data” option on a TV that’s turned off as standard? No, thanks.

    ASUS; has become pretty unreliable in my experience and their RMA shenanigans haven’t helped.

    Apple; overpriced and anti-consumer, I wouldn’t mind getting a MacBook as a gift or something, though…

    HP; cheap garbage that’s obsolete the moment you buy it and becomes e-waste after the warranty has expired. Their business line is marginally better but there are far better options out there.

    Huawei; see above.

    Nestlé; do I really have to explain? They’re pretty much the worst company to ever exist.

    Spotify; endless price-hikes to enable the CEO to buy more soccer teams and firearm manufacturer shares, pay artists almost nothing per stream, disabled their car thing after two years, lied about Spotify Hi-Fi…

    • @CaptPretentious
      5•4 months ago

      Oh you can add so much more on Apples entry. For a fun read, I suggest doing a web search for ‘Apple anti-suicide nets’. Apple and nestlé are among the top of my list for companies I morally cannot support due to human exploitation.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•4 months ago

      I’d like to know the alternatives, especially for Samsung, I still think it is the best smart phone company

      • @[email protected]
        7•4 months ago

        Motorola for phones. Does everything you need with a near AOSP android. Affordable too. good official support, and good community support with lineageos

      • FireWire400English
        5•4 months ago

        This might be a bit controversial, as Google is obviously also known for their fair share of not so good stuff but I really like their Pixel line of devices. Especially for that stock android experience (doesn’t Samsung even pre-install TikTok nowadays?). Sony phones are also pretty decent from my experience.

        As for laptops, the business lines of both Dell (Latitude & Precision) and Lenovo (ThinkPad) are pretty solid. Especially Dell’s support is just amazing, I deal with them regularly at work and they’ve been really great.

        As for ASUS; I haven’t had to buy a mainboard in a while but I heard some good things about Gigabyte.

        Tidal is a pretty good alternative to Spotify; I think they pay artists the most per stream out of all music streaming services, they offer true Hi-Fi quality for the same price Spotify charges for their base tier and they even upgraded all Hi-Fi members to Hi-Fi Plus for free recently.

        Nestlé is a big enough campany that you just have to live with not buying their products I guess… Although there are pretty good alternatives for stuff like frozen pizza (Dr. Oetker is pretty good if that’s available where you live) and chocolate (Tony’s Chocolonely ftw).

        • @[email protected]English
          2•4 months ago

          I was asking only about the technology stuff actually so huge thanks, mom likes Nestlé’s milk for some reason, me not, their products are always of higher price even water.
          I keep hearing good things about the pixel, but the problem is that Google doesn’t make that much phones, while Samsung has devices for every price (As, Js, Ss, …etc) and even if you’re screwed it’s not like Wiko (traume intensifies). I don’t hate TikTok specifically but yeah I hate bloatware on my devices, I used to have even Youtube and Chrome uninstalled back when I had a smart phone (J4+ was my brother’s choice for me)

          • FireWire400English
            2•4 months ago

            Budget phones aren’t really worth it when you can get a flagship from 3 years ago (with most likely better specs) for about the same price IMO. Sure, updates are a problem but if you’re willing to tinker around a bit it’s doable.