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I know this is awful, but I always doubted the benevolence of the Amazon smile program and figured they viewed at as a nice tax write off. That being said, I am

I know this is awful, but I always doubted the benevolence of the Amazon smile program and figured they viewed at as a nice tax write off. That being said, I am sure there were plenty of non-profits that benefited from the program.

jcadam 4y ago
Maybe too much money was going to non-profits Amazon doesn't approve of?
- tass 4y ago
  The thing that keeps coming to mind is that they dealt with tens of thousands of charities, with the potential of requiring expensive customer service. The cost of running the program is surely a good fraction of the total amount donated.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Did they actually deal with the charities directly, or through one of well-established platforms like e.g. Benevity?
    - tass 4y ago
      Couldn’t tell you, but who would ultimately have to answer for payouts being incorrect, etc.? I’m imagining hundreds or thousands of questions like “why am I only getting $2 this quarter when I got $10 last quarter”
    - Spooky23 4y ago
      You’d get a check once or more a year based on how much you had coming. Our little league would make a few hundred bucks a year off of it. About half was board members buying stuff for the league. You really had to push it to make anything - the most successful example I found was a league that used the same logo as a college sports team across the country. They made a “store” for parent gear that just went to Amazon Smile links. Amazon was super easy to setup, but there are many companies with better programs in the space.
guestbest 4y ago
It’s effective altruism
- ornornor 4y ago
  Ah come on, it’s amazon and Bezos we’re talking about here… hardly paragons of virtue.
  - frollo 4y ago
    That's exactly what "effective altruism" means. It's just philosophical marketing to dress the basest selfishness as altruism. Google the phrase up the next time you feel you have too much faith in humanity.
    - derefr 4y ago
      Figuring out which charities 1. aren’t scams; 2. aren’t wasting 90% of your money on on overhead; and 3. are doing something impactful rather than something frivolous with your money, is “the basest selfishness”? If that’s not how you personally define Effective Altruism, then what name would you give to the concept I just described?
      - cogman10 4y ago
        That's not what "Effective Altruism" is. [1] Effective altruism plays the game where you can say "What's better, to give $10 today, or should I invest that $10 and then give it away when I die?" It's all about coming up with scenarios like this where you can justify selfishness because "eventually, the amount of good I'll do will pay off". It's popular with the rich and famous because they can justify building huge empires and hording large amounts of resources (while spending a bit on themselves of course) because, some day, they'll give back what they made. It's quiet literally the philosophy SBF used in the FTX fiasco to justify setting up a ponzie scheme. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism
        4y ago
IshKebab 4y ago
How would it be a tax write-off? Or are you one of the many many people who think "tax write-off" is some mysterious financial trick to turn a loss into profit?
- swyx 4y ago
  the venn diagram of "corporations are always evil no matter what" people and "haha i cannot do math but i know whats right and wrong" people has a huge overlap
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- m348e912 4y ago
  You don’t think Amazon can say “we donated x dollars of our revenue to 501c charities based on amazing smile contributions and we’re deducting it off our gross revenue”?
  - cmeacham98 4y ago
    Of course they can, but Amazon would have made _more_ money if they just kept the money and didn't donate it to anyone. However on the internet, people seem to believe "tax write-off" means Amazon is coming out equal or even net-positive compared to not donating the money.
RheingoldRiver 4y ago
I read somewhere that it was a way to get you into the habit of going directly to Amazon rather than searching for the product on Google and then clicking the first retailer. That's why you had to type smile.amazon.com directly into your browser. So in that way, it earned them a huge amount of customer loyalty.

jcadam 4y ago

Maybe too much money was going to non-profits Amazon doesn't approve of?

tass 4y ago
The thing that keeps coming to mind is that they dealt with tens of thousands of charities, with the potential of requiring expensive customer service. The cost of running the program is surely a good fraction of the total amount donated.
- int_19h 4y ago
  Did they actually deal with the charities directly, or through one of well-established platforms like e.g. Benevity?
  - tass 4y ago
    Couldn’t tell you, but who would ultimately have to answer for payouts being incorrect, etc.? I’m imagining hundreds or thousands of questions like “why am I only getting $2 this quarter when I got $10 last quarter”
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    You’d get a check once or more a year based on how much you had coming. Our little league would make a few hundred bucks a year off of it. About half was board members buying stuff for the league. You really had to push it to make anything - the most successful example I found was a league that used the same logo as a college sports team across the country. They made a “store” for parent gear that just went to Amazon Smile links. Amazon was super easy to setup, but there are many companies with better programs in the space.

guestbest 4y ago

It’s effective altruism

ornornor 4y ago
Ah come on, it’s amazon and Bezos we’re talking about here… hardly paragons of virtue.
- frollo 4y ago
  That's exactly what "effective altruism" means. It's just philosophical marketing to dress the basest selfishness as altruism. Google the phrase up the next time you feel you have too much faith in humanity.
  - derefr 4y ago
    Figuring out which charities 1. aren’t scams; 2. aren’t wasting 90% of your money on on overhead; and 3. are doing something impactful rather than something frivolous with your money, is “the basest selfishness”? If that’s not how you personally define Effective Altruism, then what name would you give to the concept I just described?
    - cogman10 4y ago
      That's not what "Effective Altruism" is. [1] Effective altruism plays the game where you can say "What's better, to give $10 today, or should I invest that $10 and then give it away when I die?" It's all about coming up with scenarios like this where you can justify selfishness because "eventually, the amount of good I'll do will pay off". It's popular with the rich and famous because they can justify building huge empires and hording large amounts of resources (while spending a bit on themselves of course) because, some day, they'll give back what they made. It's quiet literally the philosophy SBF used in the FTX fiasco to justify setting up a ponzie scheme. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism
      - 4y ago

IshKebab 4y ago

How would it be a tax write-off? Or are you one of the many many people who think "tax write-off" is some mysterious financial trick to turn a loss into profit?

swyx 4y ago
the venn diagram of "corporations are always evil no matter what" people and "haha i cannot do math but i know whats right and wrong" people has a huge overlap
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
m348e912 4y ago
You don’t think Amazon can say “we donated x dollars of our revenue to 501c charities based on amazing smile contributions and we’re deducting it off our gross revenue”?
- cmeacham98 4y ago
  Of course they can, but Amazon would have made _more_ money if they just kept the money and didn't donate it to anyone. However on the internet, people seem to believe "tax write-off" means Amazon is coming out equal or even net-positive compared to not donating the money.

RheingoldRiver 4y ago

I read somewhere that it was a way to get you into the habit of going directly to Amazon rather than searching for the product on Google and then clicking the first retailer. That's why you had to type smile.amazon.com directly into your browser. So in that way, it earned them a huge amount of customer loyalty.