dan.pandori
Posts 3
Comments76
Great post. I started reading and expected to find the explanation totally divorced from why I (a lacto-veg EA) am uninvolved in animal activism. But the high level explanation 'it is unpleasant & often unrewarding moment-to-moment' really resonated with me.
Making a community is really hard. Godspeed & good luck :)
Verifiability remains very difficult even with PFG, where the 'verifiability' is that companies donate all of their profits.
Companies that make money on marginal sales have a large amount of discretion on what they classify as net profit. For example, as the CEO & founder you could increase your own salary. This decreases the net profit, as salaries are part of operating expenses. It doesn't change gross profit (under most definitions), but by the time you're discussing gross vs net profit consumers have already stopped listening. It isn't just binary based on ownership or truthfulness of donating all profits.
Companies also have discretion about what charities to donate to, and it is hard to evaluate how effective a given charity is.
I'm also genuinely confused about whether Humanitix is profitable. This site [1] suggests that in 2021 it had ~3M in revenue, of which ~1.6M was from grants (so 1.4M left for its core services). Its total expenses were listed at 2.1 million, with a little less than 300K in grants, so 1.8M in expenses ignoring grants. 1.4M - 1.8M is a 400K yearly deficit. Businesses are totally allowed to lose money, but I think it weakens the case of Humanitix as a success story. Their more recent yearly reports have all figures redacted [2,3], and so I can't really verify anything about what they donated vs how much they received. I'd be curious if folks could find some unredacted statements that I missed.
[1] https://www.acnc.gov.au/charity/charities/0db4989a-3aaf-e811-a961-000d3ad24182/documents/341f993f-e644-eb11-bb23-000d3ad1f9f4
[2] https://www.acnc.gov.au/charity/charities/0db4989a-3aaf-e811-a961-000d3ad24182/documents/
[3] https://acncpubfilesprodstorage.blob.core.windows.net/public/0db4989a-3aaf-e811-a961-000d3ad24182-e4b9f279-5504-4905-952f-ef0ba115c816-Financial%20Report-b67689aa-6b37-f011-8c4c-00224894978f-Humanitix_Limited_2024_Financial_Redacted.pdf
Fair point. I got confused because the examples highlighted are much more expensive than their natural competitors, and I incorrectly thought that meant the author believed them to match their description.
EX. a 'thankyou.' pack of 2 microfiber cloths (plus a glass cloth) is 17.95$ [1] vs Amazon sells a 12-pack for 7.99$ [2]. Similarly, 'Good.store' sells a coffee kit with 12 ounces of coffee and a mug for 50$ [3].
As far as I can tell no one meets the author's bar of selling identical products at identical prices while solving real problems.
[1] https://thankyou.co/collections/cleaning-tools/products/microfibre-cloths-3pk
[2]https://www.amazon.com/Microfiber-Cleaning-Towels-Assorted-Yellow/dp/B098D79MQB/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Uuyh4_VJcHdo5GS9oyjYoqhkQV4bx8B9ubn7bn49wZ0PPkZqCdSf-lei8XMFfMlEgSntrqK6MxGT_M8mTfLkws9OACyFY1vgAXfjP6ouTzRUNGk9FV_JABD40PxK9ZJ4osLmjbwf3vd9et5VHJeLXcJ0Lu1D0Lv4CCFavjDCHuc5-SwC1Cid7WJvQHVW9HjSJSbR67z4iR0wNkYu2pL9Q2sxho8kHKHCOyXYRlRywOwpaer86jQavMWNnMNXEamdU5V7GevNQlpwtqoTHRN9rzjfqTvNAQoT0HtgQxUJdpY.9ou4bL3nGy_-oU2u-zBFYHCxwYFXQIb0UC2R_kArVeA&dib_tag=se&hvadid=570596319494&hvdev=c&hvexpln=0&hvlocphy=9031923&hvnetw=g&hvocijid=11735289936918653588--&hvqmt=e&hvrand=11735289936918653588&hvtargid=aud-2443232233122%3Akwd-357431965329&hydadcr=8100_13493226&keywords=microfiber%2Bcloths%2Bamazon&mcid=9515a202da2d3465a66d8470c3bdd6b9&qid=1762833283&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1)
[3]https://good.store/products/coffee-bundle
No, people will not generally pay non-trivial amounts more for companies that 'do good'.
Some salient counter examples:
- Companies that use more humanely raised meat & eggs are not wildly successful (though I'd like them to be).
- Alternative proteins are not wildly successful (though I'd like them to be).
- Co-op stores generally don't scale, and folks are more likely to shop at ordinary grocery stores & retailers.
Verifiability is also very hard. For more humane animal products, there are many competing labels. Even as a vegetarian and animal rights supporter, I have only the most rudimentary understanding of what is meant by cage-free vs free-range eggs in practice. You get about 5 words [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4ZvJab25tDebB8FGE/you-get-about-five-words]. Any label will get co-opted by industry, and teaching people which labels are real/meaningful is fighting an uphill battle against a superiorly funded adversary.
Status quo bias says that the largest & most successful companies are for-profit, and will stay that way in the near future.
Why is it generally better for individuals to donate to 501(c)(4) organizations than to (c)(3)'s? I'm deeply ignorant in this space, so it's a genuine question.
My super naive read is that c3's are tax deductible (which is nice), presumably you think there is more than a 50% bonus in effectiveness of c4's?
Fully agreed that praise is an incredibly weak tool. Its all the weaker if its viewed as done with ulterior motives, like here.
RE: governments' relationship with high tax payers. I think this is highly variable. My hometown in Iowa had a very positive relationship with the largest taxpayers/businesses/business owners. I think the Midwest has an understanding that there are many options for business owners, and so actively try to woo them.
In contrast, a large tech hub like San Francisco is much less replaceable, and so can afford to squeeze businesses much harder.