in all these amazon threads over the years, i've never chimed in before, but what the hell, just this once. i think you can have a better than 50/50 chance of

in all these amazon threads over the years, i've never chimed in before, but what the hell, just this once. i think you can have a better than 50/50 chance of getting a decent item from amazon. you just have to be picky about what you buy from them. for example, i would never buy an apple charging cable from amazon. no matter what the listing says, it is probably going to be a cheap chinese knockoff that might set my house on fire. for that particular case, i'd buy it from apple instead. about ten years ago, i paid US$1500 for a brand-new sony teevee, from amazon. it has always worked fine, and i am still using it today. (i'm glad i bought it before "smart" teevees that phone home to the mothership became the norm.) my trust in amazon was much higher in those days. really doubt i would ever do that again. for any moderately expensive piece of high tech gear, i'd try to buy it directly from the manufacturer, or from a reseller that specializes in that particular type of thing. if you limit your amazon purchases to medium-expensive items that are not easily cloned in china, you'll probably be fine. it is kind of a shame that you have to be so cautious, though. okay, actually, i lied: i wouldn't buy anything at all from amazon these days. they are looking far too much like a monopoly for my tastes, and i do not approve of the way they treat their minimum-wage workers. it has been a struggle, but i recently abandoned my amazon account, created in 1998, and have moved 100 percent of my substantial amount of e-commerce to other sites: chewy.com, target.com, crutchfield.com, b&h photo and video, newegg, ebay, and so on. almost all of them have a substantially worse experience than amazon did, but i am willing to suffer a bit of inconvenience for this particular bit of principle.