Introduction
Following in the footsteps of Alexa, Amazon has lost interest in its charity program, Amazon Smile. The program was created in 2013 to let users donate to a charity of their choice automatically just by buying things on the site. All you had to do was make sure you were buying on Amazon through their Smile link, and 0.5% of the total from your purchase Amazon will pay to charity. It was meant to be an easy way for people to donate to their favorite charities without having to do anything outside of their usual routine.
On January 18, Amazon began rolling out emails to users of the program explaining that it would be shutting down on February 20, 2023, only a month after this initial announcement. To make up for this sudden change and short notice, Amazon promised charities that were affiliated with the program a donation of what they earned in a total of 3 months. Additionally, charities may continue to accept any donations received until the program closes completely.
Why?
Their reasoning for its removal? The number of charities simply became too large for the donations to have any meaningful impact on any one organization. Although the total amount of funds donated has been around $500 million in its 10-year lifespan, that ends up being only about $230 or less per charity.
The reality of the situation in terms of the ratio of charities signed up to money donated simply outgrew the shoes of the original idea. Because of how little in donations each charity was getting, they decided to axe the program in pursuit of more philanthropic ventures. These include some of Amazon's charities and community aid organizations across many areas.
The affiliated and internally-created charity funds help out in the fields of housing, computer science, food banks, natural disasters, and community aid. Because of this, they decided to focus their energy on these rather than their Smile program, as one is significantly more impactful than the other.
What's Next?
Each of these programs is well-established and can financially boast more on its own rather than the Smile program, albeit sadly and unfortunately. Now that the Smile program is gone in favor of these, it can potentially cause users to feel they have less agency and choice in matters of helping others and where they give their money.
Conclusion
Although this comes to the dismay of many charities and organizations signed up, hopefully, Amazon will continue its charitable works to make up for this removal. Perhaps they may revive the program in the future, or come up with something entirely new that charities across the world can benefit from more reliably. However, with both this program and Alexa being cut in less than a year, we can also potentially speculate what Amazon might get rid of next.
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