this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
55 points (100.0% liked)

Australia

64 readers
22 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
lodion@aussie.zone
Fluid@aussie.zone
bestusername@aussie.zone
eatham@aussie.zone
55
Is there an Australian equivalent for boycotting american products ? (lemm.ee)
submitted 5 days ago by x4740N@lemm.ee to c/australia@aussie.zone
31 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I've seen guides for Canada and the EU to boycot american stuff but do we have any of that here in Aus

top 31 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] shirro@aussie.zone 22 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

A lot of money goes to the US in IP licensing and services. We could make a big collective difference there.

Most of my software has been free and open source for years though I still pay money to Gaben for games.

If creatives can't use free software for some reason there are some alternatives to Adobe. Davinci Resolve is supposed to be excellent and is from Blackmagic who are Aussie(Melbourne) and have a lot of other cool high end gear. The Affinity Suite was from the UK but got bought by Canva who are Aussie founded(Perth) but not sure I would trust them and they look to have a lot of US VC. Also in the creative area Røde Microphones are Aussie(Sydney) vs companies like Shure from US.

I stopped all payments on Paypal and closed it but I had been meaning to do that for ages for other reasons. Amazon Prime went - they are a shit greedy anti-union, anti-Australian company anyway. No loss. Most streaming went over the last few years due to the great enshitification.

I am sure a lot of supermarket products are US owned but thankfully fuck all is made there.

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 7 points 4 days ago

So you're saying sail?

[–] Gnugit@aussie.zone 2 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Have you found a PayPal alternative?

[–] gwildors_gill_slits@lemmy.ca 5 points 5 days ago

Wise might work for you. They're a UK company I believe. Not totally sure if they're 1:1 on features with PayPal as I hardly ever use PP but they probably can do pretty much the same things. In my experience the service is very good and also very cost effective, at least when it comes to transferring money overseas.

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 4 points 4 days ago

Not really. I was only using it as a visa alternative for some online payments so it was redundant. PayPal runs scams like Honey and was founded by Nazis so they had to go. Unfortunately visa is also US controlled but it seems the lesser evil until I find something better.

[–] Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

What's your use case? I haven't used it to give/receive money ever since payid became a thing, instant and secure.

For more secure payments than giving out your card details you have options like Revolut that can create temporary digital cards, and bank of Melbourne has a digital card with a cvv that changes automatically every 24 hours, but still let's you set up subscriptions/recurring payments that don't break like Revoluts temp card would.

[–] Gnugit@aussie.zone 2 points 4 days ago

I have a super small ko-fi page that I sell products from.

[–] Nath@aussie.zone 8 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Sure. I promise not to buy anything from the USA today. 😆

Looking around me, about the only things in my vicinity that came from the USA are my phone and iPad. And they were both purchased 2+ years ago. I don't think there is that much in my bubble that comes from the USA. Maybe some oranges or avocados at the shops sometimes? Whatever is on offer from the USA is going to be such a teeny portion of their export market that they aren't going to notice any action we might take.

[–] Salvo@aussie.zone 10 points 5 days ago (3 children)

They were manufactured in China.

The best things to boycott are Services. If everyone cancels their Netflix, Amazon Prime, AppleTV/Music and YouTube Premium for an extended period it would definitely send a message.

I’m currently looking at an alternative to iCloud Drive for my family’s backups. The Apple One Family subscription is still the most cost-effective solution for backing up everyone’s Phones and iPads, but a Roll-Your-Own solution is on my project sheet, especially after what happens in the UK!

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 6 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I got a message on my netflix account saying from April it will have ads. Spoke to the wife and from April we won't have netflix.

Prime gone, Disney gone, netlfix about to be gone then we see what Stan does.

After stan is gone I guess I gotta relearn sailing to pass my time

[–] eureka@aussie.zone 6 points 4 days ago

There arr some great sailing guides on !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

[–] techno_analyst@aussie.zone 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I’ve just cancelled Disney+ this morning after finding out about their most recent price increase. I’ve still got nearly a year left before it runs out, but I’m not spending $200+ a year for a product that started <$100 a few years ago.

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 3 points 3 days ago

Yeah, that's what had my wife cancel fuck em

[–] skribe@aussie.zone 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Nextcloud? I was looking for a friend and there was a German company that was offering 1TB for €5. The friend wanted something in Germany, but I suspect you can find similar deals elsewhere.

[–] Salvo@aussie.zone 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

NextCloud looks like the go.

It appears that running it on my Synology is a bit of a hack so I just need to decide whether to go for a dedicated mini NAS or to find a host.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 7 hours ago

Synology has its own NextCloud-like service you can self-host at pretty much the push of a button. Go into the Synology package manager and install Synology Drive, I believe.

[–] DiaDeLosMuertos@aussie.zone 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yo, what happens in the UK ?

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The probably meant to say "happened". A few weeks ago it leaked that Apple in the UK had been pressured to provide a backdoor to allow authorities to access users who had set their iCloud data to be "ADP"—which basically makes all your iCloud data & backups fully encrypted so not even Apple can access it.

But worse: the UK authorities asked Apple to ensure that the backdoor would let them get into all users' data. Worldwide. It's suspected other companies also received this request, and that only Apple leaked to the public.

Apple refused to do this, and instead disabled ADP in the UK. Which means that for UK users it's much like Apple actually did cave and put in the backdoor...only it's less like a backdoor and more like they took away the walls of the entire building. But at least it means users elsewhere in the world are safe, for now.

[–] DiaDeLosMuertos@aussie.zone 4 points 5 days ago

Thanks for the explanation Zag. Much appreciated.

[–] DiaDeLosMuertos@aussie.zone 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Well people could stop buying those big Rams and all that. Having said that, I got talking to a Kiwi bloke that comes into work as a contractor. His has a 6.4 litre diesel engine and it gets better fuel economy than my Subaru Outback. Like WTF !?

He also told me all the comparisons with his LandCruiser, and the Ram wins absolutely.

Also, it's not America in general, it's that fuckung orange piece of shit and his cyber robot that were really against. What a bad shit show. Lots of people siding with Russia all of a sudden. Talk about blind sheep, sheeeesh.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Fuel economy isn't really about engine size.

I recently sold a 2002 Subaru liberty that consumed about 13L/100km. Our 2018 Subaru Forrester consumes about 6L/100km. They're the same engine size.

[–] DiaDeLosMuertos@aussie.zone 1 points 5 days ago

Well yes ok. But in this case I'm talking about a huge monster that is twice as big. And has an engine that is more than twice as big. Not actually the same comparison as the one you made. However I'm fully aware of changes in fuel economy in recent years which is fantastic. ( The fuel economy that is, not the fact that I'm aware of it. )

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 days ago

going to be such a teeny portion of their export market that they aren't going to notice

That's not how boycotts work though. Any single person could say that wherever you are.

[–] zero_gravitas@aussie.zone 5 points 5 days ago

Barcode numbers can sort of give an indication.

The first three digits are determined by the country the barcode was assigned in. The barcode can't tell you the country of origin of the product, but it's fairly likely the company that made the product is headquartered in the country indicated by the code (or at least has some administrative presence there).

Here's a list of country codes for reference: https://www.barcodestalk.com/learn-about-barcodes/resources/barcode-country-codes

Here's a Snopes article about what the country codes can't tell you: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bar-code-origin-point/

[–] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 5 points 5 days ago

For computer services, I generally just look at the EU guides - because the EU is pretty good, and my main goal is to avoid mega-corps (not necessarily buy local stuff).

But for physical goods I do make some effort to buy locally made stuff. And fortunately we have good enough labeling laws that it is easy enough to tell what is Australian made and what isn't. (Not so easy to tell which companies are 'independent' though.)

[–] squigum@aussie.zone 5 points 4 days ago

https://www.ethical.org.au/ has info on company ownership.

[–] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Theres a list of Aussie made goods here Australian Made

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Is Australian made actually Australian made or is another scam like nearly every other sticker on a product?

Because some shit designed in Aus, built in China, and packed in Aus is not what I would consider Australian Made.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The details are here:

https://australianmade.com.au/why-buy-australian-made/about-the-logo/

Basically, if it has the Australian Made Australian Grown logo it's predominantly grown, made, and packaged in Australia.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Australian Made

The product has undergone its last substantial transformation in Australia.

So what’s a substantial transformation, packaging?

Ah, now this is the good one

Product of Australia

All of the product's significant ingredients come from Australia; and All, or nearly all of the manufacturing or processing has been carried out in Australia.

So make sure the words under the kangaroo say “Product of Australia” not “Australian Made”

[–] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 2 points 4 days ago

This is a good (readable) guide Avoiding unfair business practices - a guide for businesses and legal practitioners - ACCC

This is the legislation, COMPETITION AND CONSUMER ACT 2010 a hard read, but as they say in theguide above, theres no substitute for the Act.

I wanted to go on a big speil and talk about it a bit, but i've not had mych time to sit down. Suffice to say i think we have really well reasoned country of origin legislation, and consumer protection generally in this country. Even if its appliaction isn't always ideal.