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I hate Amazon because of their refusal to free their stack despite using and distributing plenty of AGPL software. I hate Amazon because they push software pate
by caslon 5y ago
I hate Amazon because of their refusal to free their stack despite using and distributing plenty of AGPL software. I hate Amazon because they push software patents. I hate Amazon because they're anti-union. I hate Amazon for lots of reasons.
At the same time, I also realize that there are plenty of good things about their existence, as someone who grew up in an area without a good library.
Being good for a specific thing that is partially their fault (Amazon supports terrible intellectual property laws as much as any big company with their political donations, which prevents the market from being able to function efficiently; there's no reason Chinese sellers shouldn't be able to print out-of-print technical books, for example) doesn't make them good, or make me hate them any less.
I don't buy from Amazon, and I don't invest in Amazon, and I don't work for Amazon. I'm relatively consistent, but even people who aren't consistent aren't hypocrites for participating in society when they disagree with how it functions.
I think that voting isn't ideal, but I still vote, because it's available. This is pretty natural; it isn't some shocking abandonment of moral principles. Nor is using a company's services despite it being an awful actor in society because you can't afford anything else (partially because of their position and participation in society, which is worth pointing out).
I'm as capitalistic as anybody, but Amazon's a bad actor that's contributing to the destruction of capitalism by encouraging intellectual property laws and making political donations encouraging ending things that actually help the market like ePacket.