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I don't want an open marketplace. I want somewhere I can conveniently find most things I need from my laptop for a reasonable price. If Amazon came alone with

I don't want an open marketplace. I want somewhere I can conveniently find most things I need from my laptop for a reasonable price. If Amazon came alone with insane, draconian policies and made it a very closed market, I'd be ok with that as a consumer so long as I can find what I need.

webXL 11y ago
> I want somewhere I can conveniently find most things I need from my laptop for a reasonable price. That sounds like Monoprice or Newegg. Slightly more focused for our needs, but not as fast search results or affordable shipping.
- lmm 11y ago
  They don't have the range of products you can find on Amazon. If Amazon is supposed to replace Wal-Mart then they need to sell the same range of stuff - and with a certain minimum quality standard.
  - fluxquanta 11y ago
    Anecdotally, 4 or 5 years ago I used to go to Amazon to shop with only a "general idea" of what I wanted to purchase. There were many times when I ended up buying more than I wanted, or something more expensive than I originally intended, because I was influenced by reviews and how the items were presented to me on that site (like "People also bought..." listings). But after getting burned a few times with products that did not live up to the standards presented in bogus reviews or product rankings, now I only use Amazon for the fast shipping. Instead of spending the majority of my time on Amazon doing the research there, I'm spending it on blog posts, reddit, or YouTube looking at real testimonials and going to Amazon only when my shopping is already done. Those extraneous checkout-line addons are no more. In this way, Amazon definitely does itself a disservice by (seemingly) shifting their priorities away from what they used to excel at to more "big picture" ideas.
    - stcredzero 11y ago
      If they can control ever growing swathes of the world's economy, they are not doing themselves a disservice. Maybe they are giving you less service than before, but they are simply doing what big companies do.
      - fluxquanta 11y ago
        Again I said it was anecdotal, meaning that it was just a story that illustrates a point that the parent comments were making. But for fun I decided to look at my order history and found that from 2013 to 2014 the money I spent on Amazon dropped 55%, and from 2014 to 2015 it dropped 86%. I'm only one customer, but clearly I'm not the only one with a growing frustration, and this case (since that's the only one I can attest to) they're losing real money, and I would cause that a disservice.
        stcredzero 11y ago
        But if they are making more money overall being a crappier online store, they are only doing you a disservice, whereas their shareholders would be happy.
        fluxquanta 11y ago
        If they're okay with losing loyal customers, I'm okay walking away from them. Doesn't sound like a sustainable business strategy to me.
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        Unless either 2014 or 2015 had a negative total, you did the math badly wrong on that "dropped 622%" line (most likely by using the end year rather than the start year as the base.)
        fluxquanta 11y ago
        You're right, thanks. I'm a moron. Clearly not a data analyst over here. 86% should be better.
  - eip 11y ago
    "Walmart" "minimum quality standard" Pick one.
    - eru 11y ago
      Aldi has pretty decent quality..

webXL 11y ago

> I want somewhere I can conveniently find most things I need from my laptop for a reasonable price. That sounds like Monoprice or Newegg. Slightly more focused for our needs, but not as fast search results or affordable shipping.

lmm 11y ago
They don't have the range of products you can find on Amazon. If Amazon is supposed to replace Wal-Mart then they need to sell the same range of stuff - and with a certain minimum quality standard.
- fluxquanta 11y ago
  Anecdotally, 4 or 5 years ago I used to go to Amazon to shop with only a "general idea" of what I wanted to purchase. There were many times when I ended up buying more than I wanted, or something more expensive than I originally intended, because I was influenced by reviews and how the items were presented to me on that site (like "People also bought..." listings). But after getting burned a few times with products that did not live up to the standards presented in bogus reviews or product rankings, now I only use Amazon for the fast shipping. Instead of spending the majority of my time on Amazon doing the research there, I'm spending it on blog posts, reddit, or YouTube looking at real testimonials and going to Amazon only when my shopping is already done. Those extraneous checkout-line addons are no more. In this way, Amazon definitely does itself a disservice by (seemingly) shifting their priorities away from what they used to excel at to more "big picture" ideas.
  - stcredzero 11y ago
    If they can control ever growing swathes of the world's economy, they are not doing themselves a disservice. Maybe they are giving you less service than before, but they are simply doing what big companies do.
    - fluxquanta 11y ago
      Again I said it was anecdotal, meaning that it was just a story that illustrates a point that the parent comments were making. But for fun I decided to look at my order history and found that from 2013 to 2014 the money I spent on Amazon dropped 55%, and from 2014 to 2015 it dropped 86%. I'm only one customer, but clearly I'm not the only one with a growing frustration, and this case (since that's the only one I can attest to) they're losing real money, and I would cause that a disservice.
      - stcredzero 11y ago
        But if they are making more money overall being a crappier online store, they are only doing you a disservice, whereas their shareholders would be happy.
        fluxquanta 11y ago
        If they're okay with losing loyal customers, I'm okay walking away from them. Doesn't sound like a sustainable business strategy to me.
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        Unless either 2014 or 2015 had a negative total, you did the math badly wrong on that "dropped 622%" line (most likely by using the end year rather than the start year as the base.)
        fluxquanta 11y ago
        You're right, thanks. I'm a moron. Clearly not a data analyst over here. 86% should be better.
- eip 11y ago
  "Walmart" "minimum quality standard" Pick one.
  - eru 11y ago
    Aldi has pretty decent quality..