Not buying something because you disagree with the politics of the corporate structure is a really tough stance to keep. If I were to stick to that I would have to move to a cabin in the woods.

You don’t have to take it to the extreme, as if it was an absolute. In this case it’s avoiding Tesla, which isn’t really that hard.

Exactly. Some boycotts are easier than others. Lots of companies sell good electric cars now.

For a long time I also tried to boycott the shittiest oil companies, but after Deepwater Horizon, I realised that's all of them, and I still don't have an electric car.

Although in the case of Tesla, there are also less principled reasons to avoid it: after seeing his handling of Twitter, it's hard to believe he's actually a good CEO. Can I really trust Tesla's quality? Not to mention what effect his erratic behaviour may have on the support I would depend on.

Firing people who disagree with you reflects in your product.

The quality control of Teslas is terrible. I have heard extremely mixed things from friends that have one and at least 2_returned them within a year.

It’s not. It’s also an extremely effective way to protest against things you don’t like. I don’t use a single FB product and haven’t over ten years. That includes React. And I am all the better for it. Never buying a Tesla will be quite easy. Not that I would’ve before because I think they’re overpriced for the quality.

I share the same views as OP / yourself regarding not working at these places or using their products, but boycotting open source tech by <shitty company> seems unesessary limiting, and saying you're "better" for not having touched technology that powers a large portion of the modern Web, I'm not so sure either.

You're correct. There is no ethical consumption under late-stage capitalism.

All civilization requires is to politely ignore each other. But if somebody goes out of their way to make themselves obnoxious, they make politely ignoring them impossible.

So you might choose to pretend you didn't overhear the local dry cleaner manager making racist comments on the phone. But when a fast food chain goes out of its way to make it clear that they support anti-gay causes, I will never shop there again.

My choices won't be consistent with yours. They won't even be consistent with each other. But I won't let inconsistency stop me from taking at least a stab at doing the right thing.

Outside of musk, I imagine there’s plenty of reason to forgo purchasing a Tesla.

Mostly due to the prejudice most shops have against working on them, to the point they flat out refuse, leaving most to figuring out where to get their car serviced.

Might be different on the coasts, but in the Midwest most chain shops won’t touch them for basic things like tires.

Why? When you say prejudice, is it a technical thing or a political thing? It's strange trying to parse the issue - I think of electric cars as a left thing (though Musk's biggest innovation was creating them as a status symbol which doesn't really cut along political lines very cleanly), but Musk as a champion of the right wing these days. From what I can tell, the cars themselves are technically pretty good and seem like a good deal with a tax incentive (the Model 3 at least).

And, conversely, there are many whom support Musk's endeavors.

Popularity on reddit isn't exactly a great heuristic for spending or not-spending 70k on a new vehicle.

Something a bit more authoritative, though your point is still supported ("there are many who support [...]"):

https://fortune.com/2023/05/24/elon-musk-tesla-reputation-ax...

https://www.axios.com/2023/05/23/corporate-brands-reputation...

There is a choice quote here that hilariously illustrates the ethical bankruptcy of this topic:

>According to the 25th annual RQ study, Tesla’s score fell 6.4% to 74.3 out of a possible 100. Only U.K. energy group BP, best known for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, saw a greater percentage decline in reputation, with a 6.6% decline, from the 2022 results.

The media has whipped redditors up into a comparable frenzy over a guy who doesn't like the large role social media companies have been playing in the suppression of free speech as companies responsible for major ecological disasters.

That is beyond parody.

"The media" didn't do it. He did it himself.

BP had competent PR people running the show while Musk never lets an opportunity to damage his own reputation pass by.

No, I don't find that to be a fair claim.

It's obvious that the political and social biases of journalists play a large role in constructing narrative.

What you're saying just isn't compelling because it exonerates the role that media outlets have played in narrative formation.

> No, I don't find that to be a fair claim.

> It's obvious that the political and social biases of journalists play a large role in constructing narrative.

> What you're saying just isn't compelling because it exonerates the role that media outlets have played in narrative formation.

Lots of words just to say that you're blaming it all on the media rather than Musk's own decisions to disband PR teams at every single one of his companies only to vent into thin air e.g that he wants Ukraine to take a peace deal with land concessions to Russia.

That you're blaming this on the press rather than Elon's own decisioning in spite of a plainly evident trail of blood from Elon's use of footguns speaks volumes.

> The media has whipped redditors up into a comparable frenzy over a guy who doesn't like the large role social media companies have been playing in the suppression of free speech as companies responsible for major ecological disasters.

I think blaming this on "the media" and "redditors" is highly exaggerated. My entire social circle went from neutral leaning positive to negative leaning highly negative in about 5 years. My boomer dad, my friends from college who live in the bay area and own Teslas, my wife who is completely disconnected from tech, everybody.

Every upstart goes through a phase where they transition from a hip, sort-of-underground brand to being Big Business and all the reputational risks that come with being Big Business.

During that transition, it takes a lot of effort for brands to keep a professional image. How much money and effort does a $3Trillion company like Apple put into remaining somewhat cool despite being the very definition of Big Business? Google was once a do-no-evil darling and now struggles to keep their brand positive. Facebook was extremely cool and now practically synonymous with "evil".

And what does Elon Musk do during this transition? He shitposts on Twitter daily, broadcasts political opinions, and starts flame wars. This guy is considered THE tesla guy, and he does absolutely nothing to keep Tesla's brand image during the hip-to-corporate transition.

His antics were great in the mid/late 2010s when people would excitedly share on social media about flamethrowers or boring company swag.

No fucking wonder Tesla's brand image is going down, and good riddance. The CEO who was right for Tesla the scrappy underdog isn't the same CEO that's right for Tesla the trillion dollar megacorp.

Good choice, I deeply regret having fallen for the words of this petty, childish, intellectually dishonest techie con man.

As a current Tesla owner, I’m glad that so many other car brands are adopting the Tesla charging standard because I can now switch away.

The two reasons we got a Tesla were:

1. Charging network is the best by a significant margin.

2. When we bought it, there were no good alternatives. We had to replace our old car and wanted to go electric, and didn’t want to drive ICE while waiting years for the competition.

Now there’s a plethora of EV choices so 2 isn’t an issue any more. By the time this car hits the 10-year mark , everyone will be on NACS.

We won’t be replacing it with another Tesla primarily due to Elon. That extends from his behaviour to his constant penny pinching on features we use regularly.

The Boring Company was always a cynical device for creating opposition to rail and subway transit projects.

Boring helps trains too. Separate loop project from boring machine.

Boring only digs 12 foot tunnels. That is big enough for London Tube trains but not normal trains. There is no indication that they can make regular tunnels cheap, or that their tunnels are particularly cheap. Their main product is Loop, which is driving Tesla cars in tunnels.

And big enough for mass public transport.