I wish Amazon had been honest about why it’s sunsetting AmazonSmile

Whenever I come across a sales campaign that boasts, “if you buy our product, we’re going to give part of our profit to this deserving charity,” I’m often tempted to call a doctor and consult them about all the grains of (to me) forbidden salt I’ve just eaten. I’m very well aware that the amount of money that is going to be moved to that charity is probably very small, that the tax advantages to the company will be worth more than what it may lose in immediate profit, and that I’d be better off just sending some cash to the organizations I support.

All that being said, I must admit that I made an exception (practically and emotionally) for the AmazonSmile program. This decade-old program let me, as an Amazon customer, choose among a...

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