I tend to use Amazon a lot. I live in a pretty rural location. So its pretty handy to be able to order pretty much anything I want and [thanks to Prime] have it

I tend to use Amazon a lot. I live in a pretty rural location. So its pretty handy to be able to order pretty much anything I want and [thanks to Prime] have it turn up within a couple of days. The 7 or 8 quid a month I pay for Prime is less than I'd spend on fuel, if I had to drive to the nearest reasonably big town, to shop for stuff. That's not to say I don't agree with much of the sentiment of the article though. Trying to wade through the eleventy billion ident-i-kit versions of every item, to try and find the right balance between price and quality is a pain in the arse. On the one hand there are some quality Chinese brands out there and, on the other hand, a lot of formerly quality western brands products are now visually indistinguishable from aforesaid eleventy billion Chinese clones --which makes me wonder are they all rolling of the same production line, anyway. Fun fact: lots of manufacturers on Ali Baba will allow you to have your own logo/branding printed on their generic items, such as USB sticks, charging cables, tools etc. even with relatively small orders. So there's never been a lower bar to entry to become your own hi-tech brand.