If anyone's skimming through these comments, it's worthwhile noting that most of my original ideas as seen in my top-level comment have been thoroughly refuted.

tl;dr - My perspective is, in short, echoed on Marginal Revolution:

‘Of course, there are systematic problems with charitable giving. Most importantly, the feedback mechanism is never going to work as well when people are buying something to be consumed by others (as Milton Friedman explains)’ –

Those criticisms that remain and many stronger points of contention are far more eloquently independently explained by Journeyman's critique here.

Anyhow, I don't like the movements branding, which is essentially its core feature. Since the community would probably reorganise around a new brand anyway. Altruism is fictional, hypothetical, doesn't exist.

It has been observed, however, that the very act of eating (especially, when there are others starving in the world) is such an act of self-interested discrimination. Ethical egoists such as Rand who readily acknowledge the (conditional) value of others to an individual, and who readily endorse empathy for others, have argued the exact reverse from Rachels, that it is altruism which discriminates: "If the sensation of eating a cake is a value, then why is it an immoral indulgence in your stomach, but a moral goal for you to achieve in the stomach of others?"

It is therefore altruism which is an arbitrary position, according to Rand.

• W. Pedia.