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Hate Amazon? Try Living Without It
- DyslexicAtheist 8y agohaven't ordered anything from Amazon since 2013, and I wouldn't work in a company that utilizes AWS in any kind of way.
- vanekjar 8y agoCare to elaborate? Why AWS?
- adetrest 8y agoBecause it's owned by Amazon probably and parent boycotts amazon?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- reaperducer 8y agoI wouldn't work in a company that utilizes AWS in any kind of way. How would you know? Any company of any size is going to use AWS directly or indirectly. The HR people won't know that some contracted vendor uses it for their API.
- SirLJ 8y agoWishful thinking here...
- adetrest 8y agoCancelling my prime was one of the best thing I did for my future self. I really didn't need half of the crap I ordered from Amazon. It's mostly overpriced, poorly refurbished or low quality junk that I could get for half the price directly from aliexpress. But more importantly, without 1 day delivery on tap it makes you think harder whether you really need to waste your money on yet more junk or if you can live without it. Unsurprisingly, you don't really need it most of the time. And if you're not buying from Amazon, you're not complicit in the company abysmal treatment of its employees, or total disregard for intellectual property laws (fake items are everywhere on amazon)
- adetrest 8y agoTo add to the above, most big box stores carry the same brands for a price very close to Amazon (you'd be surprised how often that's the case of you checked before buying on Amazon) At a big box, I don't have to wait for the delivery company to fail me, I'm not lining amazon's pockets, and if it's cheaper on Amazon most stores will price match anyway.
- jammygit 8y agoIts hard when the 3 bookstores you used to go to close down over the course of 5 years
- prklmn 8y agoYou might be well served by a local library.
- reaperducer 8y agoThat was good advice when public libraries were less used. But these days (at least in the American cities I frequent), they are massively popular. Which means if you reserve a new release, be prepared to wait. Even with 17 copies of a particular newish book, the wait for it from my local library system is in excess of eight months. Wait eight months, or drop $11.95 at Amazon? Easy choice.
- ui-explorer12 8y ago>> Which means if you reserve a new release, be prepared to wait. Except we wait 2 or 3 years for the damn thing to be written; a little delayed gratification until your hold comes up is such a minor, first-world problem. Popular public libraries are most definitely better than the alternative. They can justify better funding and bigger budgets, improve physical facilities and move into new service areas.
- reaperducer 8y agoYep. 95% of the world doesn't live in the imaginary retail utopia the Amazon-haters do. For the vast majority of people, Amazon opens up new retail possibilities. Yes, Amazon has ethical/moral/UX/etc... issues. Be critical of its actual sins, not imagined ones.
- ThJ 8y agoThis is a very American sort of story. The long hours, the lousy paychecks, the lack of universal healthcare, the reliance on fast food. It's possible to not live like that, but America doesn't want to.
- SquishyPanda23 8y agoThe majority of Americans want to, but in America the popularity of a policy is not a strong indicator of whether it will be made into law.
- pessimizer 8y agoIt's not even a weak indicator: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
- CptFribble 8y agoThe concept of "individual freedom" is the single most powerful driver of public opinion in the USA. If you're a politician and you want to keep those private insurance lobbying checks coming, all you have to do is tell your constituents that public healthcare would take away freedoms. Repeat for public transit, reducing the defense budget ("they're fighting for our freedom" is an extremely common refrain), offering even basic human care for migrants, etc, ad nauseum, etc.
- landsman 8y agoNo problem we have Alza.cz
- ciconia 8y ago> Amazon Prime helps alleviate the pressures of a sped-up economy. I don’t use it just because I’m lazy and love to stream “Transparent.” I use it (and other timesaving apps like Seamless and Uber) because I’m overworked and one-click ordering spares me time. That's modern slavery for you: you give away your most precious, limited resource - your time. In return you get the illusion of wealth, in the form of money, only you have to spend it all just to stay afloat until the next payday.
- mindslight 8y agoThese anecdotes really just mean Amazon is in the same position as Walmart and Amtrak - serving the underclass, not as a deliberate specialty - but because it's the lowest common denominator and they've fallen through the cracks everywhere else. Just because OP themselves cannot fathom checking other (more appropriate) vendors first or doing independent product research, does not mean that it's impossible. If I had family members addicted to Amazon in this way, I'd be worried about them being blatantly ripped off from Amazon's dark patterns, or being harmed from co-mingled counterfeit goods. Somehow Amazon has built a business around people just accepting these pitfalls, and I still can't understand how. That sunk cost of "Prime" must be a hell of a drug.
- yifanlu 8y agoI haven’t used amazon for a while (and haven’t had prime in years) and a couple months ago, after reading some posts about amazon I decided to see what my life would have been like if I had used amazon exclusively for all my non-grocery shopping. Rules: I only buy it if it’s Prime eligible, otherwise it’s skipped. If I bought something because it’s on sale, I take the lowest price amazon ever offered for that item (with prime). Otherwise, I take the price of the item on the same day. Results: https://i.imgur.com/kDeM2pM.jpg https://i.imgur.com/kDeM2pM.jpg I saved about $330 by not having a prime membership and buying stuff only from prime eligible stores. However I spent at most 27 more days waiting for items (in reality a lot of these shipping times overlapped). So the takeaway is that amazon made things easier and faster but not cheaper. I know a lot of people still think amazon is the cheapest place to get things but that hasn’t been true for a while.
- reaperducer 8y agoAmazon is like a Turkish spice bazaar. Bargains exist, but you don't necessarily go there to save money. Rip-off artists exist, and you have to be careful. The reason you go is for the vast variety of stuff, and the ability to buy things you can't get anywhere else all in one place. This is how Amazon conquered large-scale retail: by out department-storing the department stores. When the stores cut back ("laser focused!") inventory in response to Amazon's pressure, Amazon expanded further, bringing in even more people and sending the big stores into a death spiral. I did all of my online Christmas shopping through Amazon Global, and Marks and Spencer. Both ship things to my country that I wouldn't be able to get any other way. That's the value of Amazon to me.
- ikeboy 8y agoSavings because other stores didn't charge tax and Amazon did shouldn't count, because that'll change soon as the Supreme Court overturned Quill earlier this year
- metaphor 8y agoMoney leaving my layman bank account today looks all the same regardless if it's colored product, shipping, or tax. When the Supreme Court's decision becomes the global ecommerce status quo, a reassessment of value will clearly be in order. Until then...
- lh7777 8y agoPretty much off topic, but the opening paragraph of this article highlights what I think is a little-known benefit of Prime membership. The author notes that "sharing an Amazon Prime account with loved ones is surprisingly intimate" but it doesn't have to be if you use Amazon Household: "Sharing benefits through Amazon Household requires both adults to link their accounts in an Amazon Household and agree to share payment methods. Each adult keeps their personal account while sharing those benefits at no additional cost."[1] It's limited to two adults (plus teens), so not a solution for all cases. [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200444180 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId...
- krrrh 8y agoThey seem to offer this in most markets, but puzzlingly not Canada.
- angarg12 8y agoI don't want to take the spot away from the topic of the article, but what horrified me the most is the appalling conditions of end-of-life care of the health system in the US. If there is one reason I'm glad I was born in a EU country is that I can escape that madness when the time comes.
- baroffoos 8y agoWasn't long ago that most of Australia was super hyped to see amazon come here and then it did open and it was the same price as everything else that we already had here. I wonder if a higher minimum wage here meant they weren't able to cut the prices lower than everyone else.
- superkuh 8y agoUh, okay, done. Amazon is a pretty crappy place to shop unless you buy into the lock-in and let them control you. Prices are high and shipping take a long time. eBay is much better.
- reaperducer 8y agoI cancelled my eBay account because I was tired of getting ripped off by sellers. At Amazon, I might get a co-mingled knock-off. But at least I'll get something, and not six weeks of shipping excuses followed by radio silence.
- superkuh 8y agoSorry to hear that. In general I find eBay's rating system for buyers/sellers much more reliable than Amazon's. But of course I don't always shop at eBay. Going to the sites of individual companies that sell the product I want saves a lot of money too. And there's generally better support. I can do this because unlike Amazon eBay doesn't pressure me with incentives and sunk costs to only shop there.
- masonic 8y agoeBay's rating system for buyers/sellers There is no meaningful rating system for buyers anymore given that you can't leave any buyer negative or even neutral feedback... even if they never pay.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- voltagex_ 8y agoI haven't had full Amazon for long (Australia) so I won't be giving it up just yet. It's a godsend when you're mobility impaired and can't get to all the brick and mortar stores. At the moment they're not running a full Marketplace and they're definitely not pricing as aggressively as they could in Australia.
- paganel 8y agoI live very well without Amazon, what am I missing? Granted, I live in a dense European capital where there's a grocery store open every day till mid-night located 200 meters away from my building's entrance and I do prefer to buy my books directly from a book-store, but even when I used to live a little farther away from a grocery store I was still not purchasing anything from Amazon or Amazon-like websites.
- chrisseaton 8y agoHow is a book store any more direct than Amazon?
- pessimizer 8y agodirectly from your eye to your hand?
- chrisseaton 8y agoThey buy from the same publishers. They’re both middlemen. It’s not like you’re buying from the author.
- reaperducer 8y agoMove to the hinterlands, several hours from the nearest city, and get back to us in six months.
- mcguire 8y agoWait...A grocery store open until midnight in Europe? What sorcery is this?
- paganel 8y agoIt's Eastern Europe, actually, and yeah, we kind of love it and I must admit I miss stores being open post 6PM whenever I visit European cities located more to the West.
- codyb 8y agoI gave up my prime membership at the last renewal about four months ago and haven't been to the site much since. Granted, I was in Portugal at the time which doesn't get great shipping apparently? Not that I was going to order anything, I had trouble enough getting my luggage back as it was! That being said, I'd been pretty turned off by the articles about their workforce at their warehouses, and also this recent development with their headquarters initiative. In my opinion NYC should have come up with a package to present to Amazon and then turned around and used it to benefit small businesses. Why we're throwing money at one of the world's largest corporations by revenue is quite beyond me, especially for a city like NYC which could use that money for their subways and already is incredibly vibrant economically. I enjoy going to the stores, chatting with people, touching products, and trying things on. It's mild exercise, it's social, it's something to do, so for me it's pleasant, and I'll pay a premium if I have to because of that. The one thing I do like about Amazon is that I've heard it's more energy efficient for products to be sold that way as opposed to in individual brick and mortar stores which need heat and electricity. Finally, I really enjoy putzing around on AWS and feel less conflicted about using that (especially since my personal use is all on the free tier) since their engineers and tech teams are well compensated (although I've heard and have no idea if this is true, worked hard). All that being said, if I was in any of the articles situations or lived in a less dense locale shopping wise, I'm sure I'd use it or similar services. It is certainly true that there is a ton better variety online for a lot of items.
- kerng 8y agoI just quit my Prime Membership - wow, I had to click so many confirmation buttons, it was funny. At least 3-5 times click ok, really ok, are you sure it wasn't a mistake? It just too expensive with little value anymore. I also started shopping books at Barnes & Noble primarily, although it is less convenient, I feel better to keep supporting alternatives.
- Nomentatus 8y agoBad news: you aren't done. You've hardly started. You're going to have to keep clicking no to reinstating Prime, if you use Amazon at all. You'll be confirming this again and again before Amazon will let you do anything on the site, for days or weeks, or more. Dark pattern after dark pattern. Market power creates endless abuse.