[papercruncher]

I have been unable to give my money to Home Depot, REI and a growing list of online retailers because they use Akamai EdgeSuite, which just assumes I am a bot and 403s on protected API calls. This happens consistently on any IP and any browser on my Linux desktop/laptop.

[spystath]

There are not enough words to describe how much I hate Akamai EdgeSuite. So many random validation loops and 403s across different physical computers, different operating systems, different connections and even countries. A couple of services I need use it and it's 30% I'll make it past their stupid "protection".

[drew870mitchell]

Same, i'm doing a kitchen reno and gave up on Home Depot because of this

[ksenzee]

It sure makes debugging headers a pain. curl -sLIXGET https://… never mind, that won’t work, _fires up browser yet again_

[userbinator]

Home Depot at least has a physical presence, which you can go and directly give some much-needed feedback to.

[tardedmeme]

It has a zero percent chance of reaching anyone who can do anything about it.

You could try handwriting and posting a letter to their CEO. I think that sometimes works. Probably not very often but there are more than zero CEOs who read those letters.

[petre]

Maybe they'll figure it out when their revenue drops next quorter or the ones after that?

I was thinking in the same terms: you put up a QR capcha, you don't get my traffic and money. Just the amount of extra work needed, let alone the Google tracking turns me off. As if traffic lights, crosswalks and bridges weren't enough of a hassle.

[account42]

You can also send an email if you're lazy. In both cases the CEO probably won't read it but a more than minimum wage secretary probably will pass it on to corporate customer support which IME is a lot more useful and the regular support that the company wants you to use.

[komali2]

REI is allegedly a co-op, maybe there's a committee or something it could be presented to?

[smcin]

REI Co-op has an Annual Members Meeting in Seattle, where it announces the results of the board of directors election. The 2026 one happened Feb 5. Apparently the presentation is only 8m long, some saying it's pre-recorded and it's near-impossible for members to submit a question that actually gets answered:

https://www.rei.com/newsroom/article/2026-rei-board-of-direc...

https://www.rei.com/newsroom/article/rei-announces-2026-boar...

https://www.reddit.com/r/REI/comments/1qw14k6/rei_hosts_thei...

[tardedmeme]

Usually that just means the owners of the individual stores are the shareholders.

[userbinator]

The point is to spread the word.