Companies you avoid, and why...

[pythonmegapixel]

Personally I avoid Huawei, because I'm concerned that if I buy a Huawei device it will become unsupported prematurely because of ongoing tradewars between the US and UK.

Also Amazon because of their ethical dubiousness.

Most clothing retailers because they play obnoxiously loud music which impairs my ability to think.

Finally, electronics retailer Currys PC World because of their notoriously poor customer service.

 

Anyone else have a list of companies that they don't like buying from for whatever reason?

[Praesi]

This will not end well ^^

 

I dont buy Apple. Reasons should be clear.

[Shammikit]

I avoid HTC mobile devices. Thy have a bad habit of not releasing updates to their phones, sometimes even to their top end models. And when they screw up on an update they silently wait without doing anything. Plus for the price u pay the features they offer are not competitive enough, comparison to other phones in the market for the same price.  

[airborne spoon]

I have a Huawei P30 it still works great but i'll prob upgrade later this year.

I used to have an HTC phone i dont remember which one but i absolutely loved it. Was my favorite phone and i hope something awesome gets released by them soon.

I don't buy apple because well their products suck and their fanboys annoy me

I don't buy foreign cars because i like the design, comfort, ease of repair of American ones, Mustang, Harley, Tesla

[piratemonkey]

Apple for obvious reason, google (except for phones), facebook like the plague

 

oh and of course linus tech tips. their 3090 video was bad. uNsUbScRiBeD

Spoiler

That's of course a joke

 

[TotallyNotGigabit]

Facebook if anything. And the companies they touch.

[Derkoli]

Apple: However, my fiancee own's an iPhone 11 pro, and I must admit it's pretty good. It complain's about our Sonos Connects sometimes however, which is kinda odd. Meh.

 

I'm most likely going to avoid Honda for my next car. The sales representative's at my local dealer are the proper numbskulls that try to upscale the car. Apparently my CRV came with turbocharging? Most likely going for Porsche for the next car sometime within in the next couple of months. The Taycan and Cayenne tickle my fancy.

 

Linustechtips: Socks and sandals are not a good look. Try tights and sandals next time. Skrub.

 

Primark: So many ethical issues. At the risk of sounding like a posh twat, I'd rather go to Flannels and pay £20-£50 for a T-Shirt from a brand such as Lacoste that I know isn't full of human right's violations. Plus the crocodile is cute.

 

Flybe: Even though it's gone now, they fucked over my fiancee and so many other staff after they went into administration. She had barely started flying commercially then got fucked over. Didn't follow through with their legal obligations then just dipped. Doesn't help that it was right after we got engaged aswell.

 

Just a bunch due to ethical issues:
 

ASDA

 

Walmart

 

PETA

 

[Jisagi]

I'll throw two into the ring. First is LC-Power for their shitty PSUs in their cases which already fried one complete system and the second one is Thermaltake because of the bullshit they pulled over the years

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

1 hour ago, Derkoli said:

I'm most likely going to avoid Honda for my next car. The sales representative's at my local dealer are the proper numbskulls that try to upscale the car. Apparently my CRV came with turbocharging? Most likely going for Porsche for the next car sometime within in the next couple of months. The Taycan and Cayenne tickle my fancy.

I like how you're going from a Honda CRV and directly upgrading to a Porsche for your next car purchase. That's quite a jump hahahaa. Though I must say, I was surprised with how low the starting price for the Macan is. Was not expecting a Porsche to have a starting price of $57,800 CAD. Spending that extra 10 grand to get a Macan over the Audi Q5 might be worth in terms of resale value down the road. Porsches certainly retain their value much better than Audis. 

[wall03]

Intel except for storage and (sometimes) wireless.

Google in general, because privacy.

[Guest]

Razer, they are very hypocritical, and really just product black MacBooks with better graphics cards. 

[Derkoli]

44 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

I like how you're going from a Honda CRV and directly upgrading to a Porsche for your next car purchase. That's quite a jump hahahaa. Though I must say, I was surprised with how low the starting price for the Macan is. Was not expecting a Porsche to have a starting price of $57,800 CAD. Spending that extra 10 grand to get a Macan over the Audi Q5 might be worth in terms of resale value down the road. Porsches certainly retain their value much better than Audis. 

I do enjoy my CRV, but it was used mostly for moving crap around. But I have a van now so it's kinda useless.

 

It is a fair jump, but it's a porsche so the fanboy within me agrees with the decision to get a porsche.

 

Really, I just want one for the reliability and of course the resale value. the 911 GT3 RS' barely lose 10k of value over 3-4 years. Which isn't awful in the world of cars.

 

I think Porsche gets the idea that some people want a decent, high-end car that has more than 2 seats but doesn't cost over 100k. I would love a 911 or 718, but it isn't hugely practical. And I'm not into the idea of being stereotyped as a wannabe racer. Plus I might want to take something over than a van to go to the beach or with family somewhere.

[Derkoli]

1 hour ago, valdyrgramr said:

several audio companies including Skull Candy and Beats

I totally forgot about brands like this.

 

Here's a list!

 

Beats

 

Skull Candy

 

Raycon's

 

Those shitty airpod rip-offs that celebs promote

 

Snake oil cable manufacturers.

 

Taotronics kinda. They've had some dodgy stuff.

 

And plenty of others.

 

 

List of genuinely good audio companies you should put your money towards if possible:

 

McIntosh - Hugely expensive but the craftmanship and sound quality is second to none. Gorgeous products. Just look at an example:

 

 

Adam Audio - Huge praises. They've helped me with some of my issues incredibly quickly and effectively.

 

Sennheiser

 

Audeze

 

HiFiMan

 

Audio-Technica

 

JBL

 

KZ Audio

 

Fiio

 

And literally any other audio company that has some sort of following or love in the audio community.

[r2724r16]

4 hours ago, pythonmegapixel said:

Anyone else have a list of companies that they don't like buying from for whatever reason?

Nope. I think that every product/service should be evaluated individually and that making generalizations is useless.

 

Pretty much EVERY company makes both good and bad products/services.

[Grabhanem]

I tend to avoid anyone who locks me into their "ecosystem" unless there is literally no viable alternative. So apple, oculus/facebook, etc.

 

Other than that, it's a product by product thing. I won't buy a cheap Gigabyte B350 board because of the shitty analog PWM but don't hate Gigabyte in general, for example.

[Derkoli]

Just now, valdyrgramr said:

For me I mostly avoid BT due to the problems that come with it.   I got a free BT speaker to use in the bathroom when I'm showering last month aka my only exception to the rule.  XD  Audio Technica's more popular headphones aka the M series are mostly bad, but I do enjoy their mics more than their headphones.   I have Mackie JBL rivals for bookshelf speakers, iBasso IT-01s for IEMs, and AKG K712 Pros for open backs.  Currently I have the FX Audio DAC X6, but I plan to replace it eventually with a stack of a JDS Labs Atom Amp and a Modi for a DAC.

I actually am semi-fond of the M series from AT. Atleast the M40X are decent. Quite bass heavy though.

 

Mackie is also good. I tend to associate them with PA gear mostly for whatever reason, even though they make a good bit of studio gear. I use a good lot of their mixers for my staff/students as they're near indestructible and actually really versatile. My main mixer is an Allen&Heath model however.

 

The chinese audio companies really confuse me. Alot of their products seem really similar under different names, sold by the same seller. I suspect most of them are actually the same brand named differently. Good products nevertheless.

[Derkoli]

Just now, valdyrgramr said:

Well, only one in the M series is considered good from what I remember.   Which was the 40 I believe, but that's also if you do the mode.    Mackie is known for PAs, but they're also kinda JBL's rival in the bookshelf speaker market.   As for  the rest that's just your common OEM concept.

Mackie and JBL do seem to be in the same boat a bit. Maybe the same class of boat.

 

JBL makes most of their revenue off of theater installations and large PA installations in america.

 

JBL don't really make a huge amount in the UK festival market. We have Martin Audio over here. I have a pair of their MLA Mini's and I fucking love them. Glastonbury uses Martin Audio aswell.

 

I think JBL's largest rival in the studio monitor world is probably Focal, Ocean Way Audio and Adam Audio on the higher end of things and KRK on the cheaper side.

 

It was the M40X that was the good one from the M series. I use it for bimbling around town as it doesn't isolate as much as most closed back headphones. It's also decently easy to drive, and I'm not worried massively about getting sub 100 dollar headphones broke or stolen.

[Derkoli]

Just now, valdyrgramr said:

Actually, it's Mackie on the cheaper side too.   I talked to audio people here and on the Discord about that, and they kinda trashed hard on KRK from what I remembered.

True. KRK has had some issues with their monitors expelling the magic white smoke. I think competition is alot tougher on the cheaper side of things. On the higher end you can just pick what attributes you want from the speaker, then buy that speaker. On the cheaper side it's more important to get those base features in for a certain price point. On the high end you can do stuff like Neumann or Genelec and invest millions into R&D to make a near-perfect speaker.

 

I think JBL will always have a slight advantage on the cheaper side however. Their 3 series of speakers use so much trickle-down technology it's kind of astounding. Plus JBL has all the buying power and in house driver development. JBL can literally tell a group of engineers to make a certain driver, with certain dispersion, FR, displacement etc. and they can go do that. Their 3 series speakers are amazing for the price.

 

The waveguide on the 305/306/308 comes from their M2 monitor. I have the M2 and 308P MK2, and the waveguide is very similar. Obviously the M2's waveguide could swallow a child and the 308P's can't, but the overall shape is effectively the same. The 308 just sounds like a smaller version of the M2. Which is amazing given the price difference, displacement difference and amplification power difference.

[Andreas Lilja]

Is Dynex still around?

 

Everything I've had broke after two uses.

[Donut417]

Apple haters be haters. I like my iPhone, but I wouldn't say its better than Android, but Id also say Android isn't better than iOS. Its more about the platform. I like the integration the iPhone has with my MacBook. 

 

As far as companies I actively avoid:

 

1. BP 
2. Taco Bell 
3. Belle Tire
4. DLink 
5. Subway
6. HP

[atxcyclist]

1 hour ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Is Dynex still around?

 

Everything I've had broke after two uses.

 

My little office has had a 10/100 Dynex router (hooked to a gigabit switch for the workstations) now for well over a decade. Their products are hit and miss, but when you get one that's decent they last forever.

 

 

The only computer-related company I won't buy a product from is Western Digital. I had so many of their drives fail after they dropped their long warranty in the late 90's, I vowed never to trust one of them again.

 

[Bombastinator]

SMOK.  Far and away the poorest production quality of any e-cigarette.  Their Attys aren’t terrible, but their non-mech mods are generally of incredibly poor quality and occasionally lousy to the point of dangerous.  Paying 20% less for a device that lasts 1/4 as long is a false economy.

[YellowJersey]

I'll tackle this from a slightly different perspective. Instead of listing the companies I avoid (which are many), I'll explain the types of companies I avoid, or at least try to avoid whenever possible.

 

In no particular order:
1) American and Chinese companies

2) Huge global mega corporations (your walmarts, amazons, etc)
3) Companies with unreasonably high environmental impacts
4) Companies that support political parties and governments I disapprove of
5) Companies that are vocally against things I think are good

There are probably more, but I think you get the idea. I try to avoid companies that have unreasonably negative effects on what I value. Now, that said, it's impossible for me to avoid these companies all the time. For example, I can't afford an electric car, so I have to fill up my car with petrol, and there are no oil and gas companies I enjoy giving my money to. I only go to walmart or amazon if I literally cannot buy the product I want anywhere else.

 I try to be as socially responsible as I reasonably can with my money and so try to avoid the types of companies listed above whenever reasonably possible. Unfortunately, sometimes I don't have much of a choice. 

[Sarra]

I avoid Apple, for obvious reasons as well.

 

I also will not buy ASUS products. Why? Back in the PII and PIII days, I got an ASUS board that was slot 1, and could do PII and PIII slot 1 CPU's. The PII I was using with it died, so I tossed a PIII 667 in it, and it worked fine for about 20 minutes, then it shut off. In the process of booting the second time, the CPU popped. I tossed a junk PII in it, got into BIOS, and realized the VRM was fried. Instead of the 1.9v or 2v or whatever, it was pumping 3.5v into the CPU.

 

So, I RMAed the board. I got a new board back, and without thinking about it, I dropped a PIII 600 from a matched pair that came from a server in it, and it insta-popped. Same issue. I got so mad that I destroyed the board, and never touched an ASUS product again.

 

I also avoid Epic Games. I dislike Wal*Mart, but I do sometimes have to shop there, but I hate every second I'm in the store.

[sora.sky]

Discord

The corporate moderation team on Discord has much to be left desired and has been embroiled in too many controversies. I also have seen a few photos of Discord employees in employee-only sweaters browsing NSFW booths at places like anime conventions; goes to show their professionalism. Their client is a resource hog, like all Electron apps are (Slack, VSCode); I believe there's an unofficial and TOS breaking third party client that uses a tiny fraction of system resources the official client does. Also a privacy nightmare in which those moderators can view DMs if you report it. I legitimately hope that Riot.FM and the new release of Teamspeak "5" takes off.

 

Mercedes-Benz

Against my advice, my parents leased a Mercedes C class that has been nothing but headaches until it was returned under California Lemon Law. The dealership and service employees' customer service skills were in my opinion A+, and many other automakers and dealerships could learn from them, but I would avoid those vehicles like the plague. I'll be sticking with Japanese vehicles.