this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Arizona iced tea is still 99 cents.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Mailbox.org They could go all the way and become "cool and cloud" but decided not to.

Haix While their customer service is not what it used to be they are still more than decent to a point it hurts their sales.

With my last one I am not 100% convinced: Mikrotik. While their stuff I great and cheap for what it does, I also had one really lacking support experience with them (they forgot to pack the rack ears for a switch and neither the vendor nor they could somehow get me ones. Another premium partner of them helped me for free and since then will always get my business). But in total they are still the good guys I think.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago

Dean's Beans coffee. The owner was an amazing guy, fair trade, all that. When he stepped down, he handed ownership to the employees.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

The only quality Bosch product I've used is windscreen wipers. Every other tool or appliance has been pretty average in terms of quality.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

When I go into a Costco, I take a minute to look at the board showing the pictures names of long-time employees. At my local one, they have about 15 people who have been working there for over 30 years.

Met a woman who had been a Costco employee for 25 years. In addition to everything else, she got 6 weeks of paid holidays a year. How many other retail employers come anywhere close to that?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

she got 6 weeks of paid holidays a year. How many other retail employers come anywhere close to that?

Every single one, in about half the countries on earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

Agreed with Costco… and used to agree with Bosch… until seeing this recent video.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

Dischord Records.

dischord.com

Fugazi record label.

Record/CD prices are capped low to cover production and distribution costs.

Personal contact and service, with real people, when ordering.

Live show prices were capped at $5.

A focus on real connection between artists and fans, rather than extracting maximum profit using music as a vehicle.

Live shows were excellent.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

All business have to care about profit or they won't be in business for long. Also if you want employees to get good pay/benefits and such they have to charge more and in turn you can't shop for the cheapest.

That said I think the concern comes when they start trying to squeeze every last cent out regardless of the customer relationship and long term image. As soon as a company goes public you now have a board that will get rid of you if you don't push stock values up another percent. Even if you want to have long term growth and goodwill the board is pushing for profit growth targets this quarter and they pay mostly in shares too. I find the best corporate customer/profit balance comes from private firms.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

All business have to care about profit or they won’t be in business for long

Businesses have always cared about profit; just reasonable profit. They would make a product, determine the cost of manufacture, apply a modest profit margin to it (usually about 30%) and factor in things like employee raises and benefits, expanding the business, and building up a financial safety net.

Businesses were run by humans, for humans.

Hedge fund managers and venture capitalists in the 80s changed that. Rather than assigning a fixed profit margin each year to try to maintain, the rule became "how much profit can we squeeze out by sales and (most damning) by systematically dismantling anything that we pay for that benefits our employees".

This is the end result of having taking human stakeholders out of the business decisions and replacing them with shareholders that are mostly other businesses, hedge funds, and venture capitalists. Profit becomes the ONLY motive, rather than one of many.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Yup. If you are bought by anything with "capital" or "equity" in its name you are fucked.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago

Seems like these guys: https://nubo.coop/en/

They provide email, calendar, contacts, and cloud storage.

On their mission statement page they explicitly have:

not seeking to enrich shareholders

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 weeks ago

Saddleback Leather springs to mind. Their stuff is expensive but they have a 100 year warranty and their tag line is "They'll fight over it when you're dead". I have a couple of their bags, belts, and wallets. I don't expect to ever need to replace them.

First thing I bought from them was a briefcase back in 2011. About three years after I bought it one of the steel D-Rings for the strap failed and they paid courier fees for me to return the briefcase from the UK, replaced the part, cleaned the bag up, and sent it back, no questions asked.

Full disclosure: 1) they're an American company which might put some off buying in the current climate and 2) the founder is a devout Christian which might put others off but none of their products have ever tried to make me a believer so I'm ok with it.

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