Because of our Sinterklaas gift giving event on 5 December people would have been out shopping for presents in any case (like Xmas presents, just earlier and with the OG Santa instead of the Coca Cola dude), so in terms of footfall it doesn't change much, but it was just too good of an opportunity to pass up I guess.
Refreshingly, one national household items chain (Dille & Kamille) closed its store in my town today, with a notice stating the staff was out picking up litter around the city centre instead of submitting to the consumerist Black Friday phenomenon. Interesting, but on-profile for their brand. Good deeds are a marketing opportunity too of course.
(Yes I know (I think) that it did not originate in the us.)
"In all EU countries traders are obliged, when offering a discount, to indicate the lowest price applied to the item at least 30 days before the announcement of the price reduction."
Of course, enforcement of such rules is the problem here. But if you notice such discrepancies, you are more than encouraged to file a complaint to the shop and then to your national agency responsible for the protection of consumers if the seller doesn't act in good faith. I was fairly surprised to see how well the latter has worked against a large company in my Balkan country.
Source: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat...
In EU language, this is pretty strong distancing from such positions.
If the discount is fake, delay buying into March or something like that. Prices tend to fall in January/February.
I personally don't do that. But I see people doing it with a good amount of success.
So you’re right that Black Friday might not be the best time to buy something, but it’s fine if you want to get something at a good price and don’t feel like putting any effort into tracking prices throughout the year.
Used prices also tend to go down during sale periods proportionally.
Beeing unrich[1] for years have given me this skill. I don't frivolously spend money.
[1]: wouldn't say poor as I have had a car most of my adult life, but definitely not rich, maybe "not always knowing in advance how to pay for food towards the end of the month" and "being very happy hand me downs" is a good explanation?
Complete abstinence has a philosophical purity but humans weren't meant to live like monks.
They were rather meant to hunt for black friday deals and dive into consumerism?
I'd say, I don't know and suspect no one knows how we are meant to live. We can just find out and decide ourself.
(I've met monks who were way more content, than your average consumer, but it is not my way of living either)
What does this mean in this context?
Buy Nothing Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38398548 - Nov 2023 (2 comments)
Buy Nothing Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29347827 - Nov 2021 (3 comments)
Adbusters: 25 Nov. Buy Nothing Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13037015 - Nov 2016 (2 comments)
Buy Nothing Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13036942 - Nov 2016 (2 comments)
Buy Nothing Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4822951 - Nov 2012 (77 comments)
If you want to make a difference, do something small, but do it every day.
I believe the "minimalism" movement has been far more impactful in the long-run despite fewer adoptees, just by being a trend that capitalized on the benefits in its messaging. Those who optimize for minimalism consume less, but constantly.
The number of people who buy things only because the deal was really good is astounding. You didn't save any money if you don't need the thing you spent money on. I do not, have not, nor will I ever understand that mindset.
My family, unless the thing we need is an actual emergency, writes it down on a whiteboard on the fridge. If we still need it 30 days later, we start setting price alerts and cruising eBay and other auction sites. If it survives the month long cooling off period, if we can't find it for half price we definitely don't need it.
And as a bonus, we've gotten really good at finding things we actually do need for cheap when we actually need them (like school supplies or food and the like).
It's about being aware of what you're buying to avoid extreme consumerism. If you literally don't buy anything at all, what do you do for fun and entertainment?
These kinds of purity tests have absurd logical conclusions. Why not view people with a little compassion and grace?
Look, I’m all on board with reducing consumerism but AFAICT you have plenty of ego and hubris of your own. (Hint: if you’re trying to control others, you have ego.)
I tend not to go to the store otherwise except for food shopping which is ideally ALDI and a company I actually enjoy patronizing.
So we're not shopping but we can't really do nothing right now. After work tho - we fully commit to nothing.
Any Call To Action that can be circumvented by buying all you need for the week on Tuesday so that you can By Nothing On Friday is just part of that ideological problem.
Got a free weekend, time to do some repairs I’ve been putting off.
Would we still consider it a problem then?
In Star Trek there is no money and you can replicate whatever you need/want.
Is that utopia or are we still doing something wrong?
Where does the replicator input come from? What happens to all the matter that's produced? It's a fascinating idea, and I appreciate the exploration of a moneyless society. Yet even in that fiction they so often complain about the replicator quality, trade disputes, and resource wars.
I don’t see why a culture significantly less prone to desiring items that aren’t actually all that beneficial, would be incompatible with capitalism?
Now that that has been said:
What, like lower classes have zero agency regarding their desires? Are advertisements mind control or something? I acknowledge that cultural influences can be strong, and can influence desires like this, but I don’t see why it would be necessary within capitalism that those that hold substantial capital must collectively have a stranglehold on the cultural values of the population.
Now, if people with power want to make it so that people in lower classes practically need to buy more things, by making them required for their jobs, that may well be feasible. Like, in a sense this has been nearly done with cell phones, and internet connection. But I don’t think “people buying things because they are needed for their job (or similar)” really counts as the kind of consumerism under discussion.
I mean, I personally don’t buy things much. And I don’t even block ads (a deliberate choice), so it isn’t like I’m preventing myself from being influenced by ads by limiting my exposure to them.
(I guess mostly it is just that I dislike having to think about whether a clearly-unnecessary purchase would be excessive, so I just strongly default to not getting things?
(Of course, it would be possible for me to be more frugal than I am, in that I buy fast food not that infrequently, when it would be cheaper to prepare food from ingredients from the grocery store, but I am too impatient for that.))
But like, how would they make me want stuff?
‘Tis the time of year when people love to give me and my family loads of shit we don’t want or need. And then it becomes my job to figure out how to best dispose of it all. They’ve given me the best gift of all, another chore I hate.
And then I’m obligated to guess what shit other people want when they’re perfectly capable of getting it for themselves if they want.
I like the family gatherings. I like seeing everyone and talking and laughing with them. I really do enjoy it. But I dread the part when it’s time to open all the wrapped up shit no one really needs.
Even as a kid it made me uncomfortable but I didn’t know why. Looking back I see it was because even then I was realizing I didn’t need more toys and I was learning that even if I enjoyed it or wanted it, that feeling was fleeting and I would soon forget about it. It began to see how wasteful it all was and realize I was happier just not getting more crap I didn’t actually need.
No more shit-giving this holiday, just enjoy each other’s company.
If people actually stopped purchasing goods and services we would find ourselves in a depression and tech jobs are far far from the last to cut. Seems people didn't pay attention to the v in their macroeconomics class.
If people don't spend it on things they actually want then the government has to step in and spend it on things they think people want and I assume folks intuitively grok that keeping the central-planning of the economy to a minimum is a good thing. Anti-consumerism can be a good thing for you as an individual or family but it's a virtue that is only afforded to you because most people don't join you.
Perhaps I should have phrased it differently.
Seems like you might be approaching this from a different perspective / this is a confusion over the mutual meaning of words. But the GP is basically a slogan or an axiom, not worthy of serious rebuttal.