> There is also widespread "thrift hauls" on Depop where 20 something rich people ransack thrift stores which are staples in low-income communities

This complaint seems to be based on a profound delusion, which is that the social mission of thrift stores is to provide cheap clothing for people who don't have much money.

The charity aspect of thrift stores, at least historically, has been the money that you give them when you buy stuff there.

So in fact the whole point of the enterprise is to have people who have stuff they don't need donate it to a worthy cause, who sell it to people with money who want it, and then they take the money that they make this way and give it to people who need money or use it to provide needed services etc.

Nobody is "ransacking" a charity by doing the exact thing the charity is hoping people will do, which is giving the charity money that can be used to further charitable activities.

That's actually completely backwards. The public good that a thrift store provides is to make cheap, essential things accessible to people who can't afford anything else. Goodwill is a nonprofit because there is no profit in making cheap, essential things accessible to people who can't afford to anything else.

The first sentence on the wikipedia page on Charity shop [1] (and "Thrift shop" redirects to the same page) says:

> A charity shop (UK), thrift shop or thrift store (USA) or opportunity shop (others) is a retail establishment run by a charitable organization to raise money.

The Goodwill.org page About Us > Our Vision for Transformation [2] has a section "HOW LOCAL GOODWILLS DELIVER IMPACT" the third item of which starts:

> Goodwill retail operations generate revenue that supports our mission work. [...]

So, it's possible these things are dual-purpose and intended to meet both goals, or that some thrift stores have the goal of raising revenue and some have the goal of making recycled items available cheaply. But certainly parent's point is not backward - at least many thrift stores explicitly operate in order to generate revenue as a form of funding for charitable ventures. People with money buying things from charity shops helps the charities. It's what they want.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charity_shop [2] https://www.goodwill.org/about-us/our-vision-for-transformat...