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> Not only regarding delivery. You do realize that an electric Amazon van delivering hundreds of packages to your neighborhood pollutes a lot less than you tak

> Not only regarding delivery. You do realize that an electric Amazon van delivering hundreds of packages to your neighborhood pollutes a lot less than you taking your G-wagon to the local store, right? > but also the message it sends to local stores "You're obsolete", which is true? Local stores are usually more expensive, carry less inventory, require you to go there or charge delivery fees, have inexistent or predatory return policies, etc. It's simply a worse experience in every way. There was a time where this was compensated by the vendors having wide knowledge about the subject that they were selling items for, but it's not the case anymore, so really, what's left to local stores? I don't know why people have this tendency to romanticize outdated and objectively worse in every way things just for the sake of "tradition".

chimprich 2y ago
> You do realize [...], right? You are correct, but I don't like this idiom. Your point would come across better if it wasn't delivered in a patronisation sandwich.
0xEF 2y ago
Ignoring the tone of your comment, I agree with you in a way, but I also wonder if that has something to do with where I live. The US suburbs don't really have what I would call "local stores," just big, well known corporate stores. So, when making the choice of where to buy Product X, my options are giving my money to Best Buy, Walmart, Ikea, Kroger, etc...or Jeff Bezos, whose online empire offers slightly more convenience than the others because I don't have to drive if I can wait a day or two. There's no family-owned businesses to hurt here because they were all chased out by the Big Box stores years ago. Heck, I remember when they filled in the pond I learned to fish in as a kid just to put up that Walmart. Sure, Amazon can be held up as contributing toward the death of the small business, but those wheels were spinning long before Bezos was selling books out of a garage or whatever mythology we want to accept. I don't like Amazon. I don't like the idea of one entity having that much influence and control over my consumer habits. I don't like that the business model is just drop-shipping in a trenchcoat of digital services. I don't like that their workers are basically treated as third-world labor. But I do have to admit that they have won the game and as a result, I have to use them. I wish it were otherwise, but we're past the point of no return, on that. We all gave them permission for this to happen by patronizing it for years, even down to the mistreated workers who keep applying for those jobs knowing full well Amazon's employment reputation. Amazon did not kill small business. Consumers did, ever suckered by savings and convenience.
- simoncion 2y ago
  > But I do have to admit that they have won the game and as a result, I have to use them. Try ordering direct from the manufacturer's website. A surprising-to-me number of companies have set this up, and it's what I often do if I know what I want and Newegg isn't selling it for a reasonable price (or at all).
  - coryrc 2y ago
    I've done that, only to get it "fulfilled by Amazon" anyway.
    - simoncion 2y ago
      Weird. I've done it a bunch and not had any indication that Amazon was involved with either the money-handling or the delivery. It makes a ton of sense that it WOULD happen sometimes, but I've yet to see it.
  - amelius 2y ago
    This is probably not the most environmentally friendly solution, though.
    - simoncion 2y ago
      You're right. The most environmentally-friendly solution is to truck, train, or ship things into stores in big cities and let people walk or take public transit to get their things. I'm not sure how you imagine that ordering direct from a manufacturer works, but I'm certain that most of them have their goods in big warehouses and use major delivery services to get those goods to you, much like they would get those goods to an ordinary store. Goods are going to be shipped, flown, and trucked around. Until we invent macro-scale teleportation, there's no reasonable way to stop doing that entirely.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    Unfortunately, Amazon policies prohibit them from selling their product any cheaper on their own website than they do on Amazon. This essentially guarantees that Amazon will always be cheaper, so there's not much point in going to the manufacturer's website where you don't get prime, you don't get the same guarantees, and you pay at best the same and at worst a whole lot more. It's quite an evil genius policy on the side of Amazon.

chimprich 2y ago

> You do realize [...], right? You are correct, but I don't like this idiom. Your point would come across better if it wasn't delivered in a patronisation sandwich.

0xEF 2y ago

Ignoring the tone of your comment, I agree with you in a way, but I also wonder if that has something to do with where I live. The US suburbs don't really have what I would call "local stores," just big, well known corporate stores. So, when making the choice of where to buy Product X, my options are giving my money to Best Buy, Walmart, Ikea, Kroger, etc...or Jeff Bezos, whose online empire offers slightly more convenience than the others because I don't have to drive if I can wait a day or two. There's no family-owned businesses to hurt here because they were all chased out by the Big Box stores years ago. Heck, I remember when they filled in the pond I learned to fish in as a kid just to put up that Walmart. Sure, Amazon can be held up as contributing toward the death of the small business, but those wheels were spinning long before Bezos was selling books out of a garage or whatever mythology we want to accept. I don't like Amazon. I don't like the idea of one entity having that much influence and control over my consumer habits. I don't like that the business model is just drop-shipping in a trenchcoat of digital services. I don't like that their workers are basically treated as third-world labor. But I do have to admit that they have won the game and as a result, I have to use them. I wish it were otherwise, but we're past the point of no return, on that. We all gave them permission for this to happen by patronizing it for years, even down to the mistreated workers who keep applying for those jobs knowing full well Amazon's employment reputation. Amazon did not kill small business. Consumers did, ever suckered by savings and convenience.

simoncion 2y ago
> But I do have to admit that they have won the game and as a result, I have to use them. Try ordering direct from the manufacturer's website. A surprising-to-me number of companies have set this up, and it's what I often do if I know what I want and Newegg isn't selling it for a reasonable price (or at all).
- coryrc 2y ago
  I've done that, only to get it "fulfilled by Amazon" anyway.
  - simoncion 2y ago
    Weird. I've done it a bunch and not had any indication that Amazon was involved with either the money-handling or the delivery. It makes a ton of sense that it WOULD happen sometimes, but I've yet to see it.
- amelius 2y ago
  This is probably not the most environmentally friendly solution, though.
  - simoncion 2y ago
    You're right. The most environmentally-friendly solution is to truck, train, or ship things into stores in big cities and let people walk or take public transit to get their things. I'm not sure how you imagine that ordering direct from a manufacturer works, but I'm certain that most of them have their goods in big warehouses and use major delivery services to get those goods to you, much like they would get those goods to an ordinary store. Goods are going to be shipped, flown, and trucked around. Until we invent macro-scale teleportation, there's no reasonable way to stop doing that entirely.
- freedomben 2y ago
  Unfortunately, Amazon policies prohibit them from selling their product any cheaper on their own website than they do on Amazon. This essentially guarantees that Amazon will always be cheaper, so there's not much point in going to the manufacturer's website where you don't get prime, you don't get the same guarantees, and you pay at best the same and at worst a whole lot more. It's quite an evil genius policy on the side of Amazon.