My Resist and Unsubscribe Report Card

Call it virtue signalling, call it ineffective, but action overcomes fear, anxiety and powerlessness.

For the first part of February I was watching Scott Galloway’s Resist and Unsubscribe initiative without thinking too much about it, or how I might partake.

Over the last several days I have read more about it and have heard him explaining it on many podcasts. In doing so, I have come around to a couple of things about it: 1. It resonates with a lot of the actions I have been taking over the last several years to ween of “platforms” and 2. I think he is right. For a regime driven by money, an effective way to counter them is to deny their enablers my money and to spend it with alternative businesses. You can read more about this campaign (or as Galloway calls it, “movement”, on the site linked above).

The companies represented in the report card below are there for two reasons, which Galloway articulates as, “These are the subscription-driven consumer tech companies we have identified as having outsized influence over the national economy and our president.” and “These are the consumer-facing companies that we have identified as active enablers of ICE.” He provides more information about how some of the non-tech platforms on the list aid and abet the regime on the website.

He makes a compelling argument about your subscription payments with the Big Tech companies. Because so many of them trade at such high multiples of earnings, your dollars spent with them are worth far more than your actual spend. For example, Amazon’s Price-to-Earnings Ratio is 28.05 at the time I write this. That means the $139 I am no longer giving them for Prime is actually worth $3,898.95 in market cap for them. For companies whose stock price is so dependent on subscription revenue, even if we can knock a couple of percents off of the targets they gave Wall Street, they will get crushed in stock price. Then, hopefully, their will call their boy and tell him he needs to mend his ways…

It is difficult to speak of these things publicly without sounding self-important or judgemental. I do not care how I come across on the former, but I do not want anyone to feel judged by me. Everyone needs to make the decisions they can for themselves, their families and their personal situations.

I am sharing my experience with this project as a way to encourage those who are willing and able to join me, especially those who are on the fence or are worried about how difficult this might be. I also want to be transparent about what remains of my use of these platforms as an accountability measure and, to paraphrase AA, to state that the goal is progress, not perfection. Do what you can, maybe a little more, but do even a little.

The items that remain in use for me below are (mostly) ones I intend to get away from (Apple hardware might be a bridge too far, I don’t know as of right now), but that are going to require more planning and effort because of the ways they are baked into my workflow and personal or professional infrastructure.

I would be so happy if you would do this with me or tell me how you are thinking and acting in regards to these issues.