5 ms·

Bye, Prime

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
fl4tul4 2y ago
I only keep it (Prime) for Amazon Prime Video really - there are some videos in the catalogue that I enjoy watching again, and new stuff is generally good. It's not about 1-day delivery for me, or anything else. And £9.90 will not make any effect on my month expenses, not as much as the energy impact on my household, which doubled in one year.
- mft_ 2y ago
  I’d be interested in your recommendations; the Reacher series is the only thing I can quickly think of that’s Prime-exclusive and good?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    - Fallout - Good Omens - The Expanse Not for everyone, but I enjoyed: - The Wheel of Time - The Peripheral - On Call - The Boys - The Rig - Gen V - The Power - Night Sky - Paper Girls - The Rings of Power - Bosch - Outer Range - The English Apparently, they now own James Bond, as well: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2025/02/21/troubletown-u-s-a https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2025/02/21/troubletown-u-...
z3t4 2y ago
We need to force companies to be ethical and sustainable. Evil companies hurts everyone except a few who become extremely rich. A first step would be regulating markets where there are less then 5 competitors. A common strategy now is to remove the competition rather then having a better product.
actionfromafar 2y ago
Cancelled it too.
aosaigh 2y ago
An upside of the latest political turmoil is that it’s shown me how apathetic I’ve become over the last 10-15 years. Having seen tech-bro after tech-bro bend the knee recently, it’s prompted me to take more responsibility in my choices and stop giving money to cowards.
- decremental 2y ago
  [dead]
- spiderfarmer 2y ago
  You’re a good man. I hope many more people follow your example.
rckt 2y ago
For me any modern service that uses subscription model feels like unnecessary fraudulent scheme. I use bandcamp to buy music, because it's a clear and a straightforward way to do it. Never ever am I going to subscribe to anything, because every day the market comes up with more and more ideas how to mess with you. It's become a really unpleasant experience and it's depressing to see how people simply don't care and just go with everything the marketing guys come up with.
- eskori 2y ago
  Serious question: how does Bandcamp manage purchases? Are you buying a "license for listening to music" or can you actually download a DRM-free copy etc.?
  - rckt 2y ago
    After the purchase you get to download the audio files. And it stays available to download in your profile.
  - rvense 2y ago
    You can get a ZIP of OGGs if you want. Those will last as least as long as a 2005 DVD rip from Pirate Bay. Feels good. (You can also stream through their site and app, and I think they have all sorts of social features... but you can ignore the hell out of it and just get tunes for money. Really one of my top 5 sites, Bandcamp, though I wish they were still independent.)
    - Semaphor 2y ago
      Zip of FLACs even. As space is cheap and abundant (or at least for me, buying only about 6-12 albums / month) that allows me to not worry about transcoding into whatever at some point in the future.
  - tbolt 2y ago
    You can download drm-free music from iTunes, Amazon, etc today.
  - 2y ago
iLoveOncall 2y ago
> Second, for a lot of things you want to order, the manufacturer has its own online store these days and a lot of them are actually well-built, perfectly pleasant to use. Which in my experience are ALL a combination of: - More expensive, - Very long shipping times, - Paid shipping which removes the benefit of the lower price in the rare event they do exist, - Abysmal customer guarantees and return policies. I think the rest of the article is good but frankly there just isn't a real alternative to Amazon.
- MattPalmer1086 2y ago
  In my experience this has not been the case. I left Amazon years ago because of endless counterfeit stuff, poor search, and prices that aren't actually better than you can get elsewhere. The fast delivery was not reliably fast anyway, and I can wait an extra day for things. I'm not usually in that much of a rush. I have not found buying things from other places to be worse in general. Often cheaper, delivery is fine, and more confidence I'm getting the actual thing I wanted. The only thing Amazon does better is simply that it's a one stop shop for almost everything. But given the other downsides, that is not enough. EDIT: Also, the dark patterns they deploy to try to make people sign up to Prime makes me sick.
- spiderfarmer 2y ago
  That’s not the real point of the article. The point is that we shouldn’t give money to companies we don’t really want to support.
  - iLoveOncall 2y ago
    Hum, no? The author clearly states: > I’m bailing out of Prime not to hurt Amazon, but because it doesn’t make commercial or emotional sense for me just now. So, he doesn't doesn't get the ROI he needs, that's purely a financial transaction.
    - spiderfarmer 2y ago
      Read it again: > Emotional? · Amazon is an US corporation and the US is now hostile to Canada, repeatedly threatening to annex us. So I’m routing my shopping dollars away from there generally and to Canadian suppliers specifically. Dumping Prime is an easy way to help that along. ¶
bezier-curve 2y ago
The more I use the Amazon, the sketchier it feels. I was misguided and spent the last year buying way too many niche things and was invited into their Amazon Vine program. I got a tax bill I can't actually afford but opted to put it on my credit card rather than a loan situation because I don't trust our institutions now that DOGE is pillaging IRS data. Edit: Right, done being discouraged from feeling like an equal participant on a gamified karma platform run by startup jerks.
- decremental 2y ago
  [dead]
jasode 2y ago
>Second, for a lot of things you want to order, the manufacturer has its own online store these days and a lot of them are actually well-built, perfectly pleasant to use. It depends on what you buy but in general, the manufacturer's website will often cost more than Amazon. E.g. In the USA, Apple Watch 46mm GPS+Cellular is currently $429 on amazon.com but $529 on apple.com Also, manufacturers are often contractually required to have higher prices (i.e. MSRP) than the retailers that sell their products. So getting a discount from Amazon is more realistic than the manufacturer's official website. Another example is buying TurboTax software on Amazon ($55.99) costs less than Intuit's website ($80) >Third, Amazon’s prices aren’t notably cheaper than the alternatives. Again, it depends on what types of products you're buying. For things like USB cables and rechargeable batteries, Amazon costs less than Best Buy. Buying a Fiskars garden shears cost $10 less at Amazon than Home Depot and Lowe's. What's happening is that those local stores are using price discrimination to upcharge the impatient walk-in customers who need "instant gratification". Home Depot charges $5 more for a toilet plumbing repair kit than Amazon because they know customers are likely making an emergency purchase. Yes, the local stores sometimes have a "match Amazon's price" policy but it's a hassle to hunt down a manager and get an override of the price at the cash register. Where Amazon often costs more (often 2x because of shipping) is commodity household items like toothpaste and Windex glass cleaner. A local Walmart will have cheaper prices on those. Lastly, I recently went through my 200+ accounts in my password manager to migrate my email address and the lesson I've learned is to avoid creating new accounts at more ecommerce websites. It's not worth it. Maybe I'll make an exception for Shopify in the future because a lot of sellers have consolidated there but I'm going to hold out as long as I can. I really like having my orders history in one website instead of scattered across Newegg, ZipZoomFly, BHPhotoVideo, etc, etc. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Cellular-Smartwatch-Aluminium-Always/dp/B0DGJ74GKP/ https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Cellular-Smartwatch-Aluminium-A... [1] https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-watch/apple-watch https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-watch/apple-watch
- rafaelmn 2y ago
  >It depends on what you buy but in general, the manufacturer's website will often cost more than Amazon. E.g. In the USA, Apple Watch 46mm GPS+Cellular is currently $429 on amazon.com but $529 on apple.com This pretty much, I do not buy from Amazon because of the experience but because of price. Like you said very often Amazon is significantly cheaper than local stores here in Europe, like I was buying woodworking tools and I could get same tool, same manufacturer warranty for 20 percent less. Apple devices cost even more than official Apple store in my country because Apple does have a first party store, meanwhile Amazon has below MSRP prices always. The only downside is that they dont have customization options.
drcongo 2y ago
This was a timely reminder for me to cancel it too, for pretty much all the same reasons. But also primarily because the content on Prime Video is like the clearance bucket in a closing down Blockbusters and then they had the brass neck to put adverts in something I'm already paying for.
heap_perms 2y ago
> The search-results page is a battle of tooth and claw among low-rent importers. Also it’s just really freaking ugly Yes, the search result page is truly horrendous. It shows many results, while most of them are not actually available.
pbiggar 2y ago
Bray says he doesn't think amazon is any more objectionable than is mandated by capitalism. Perhaps he's right. But their participation in the genocide in Gaza should be objectionable by any definition. It's clear that Israel would not have been able to completely destroy Gaza and kill probably [1] 100,000s of people without the cloud tools provided by Amazon (and Google and Microsoft) [2] [1] Numbers you've heard like 40,000, reflect only the absolute minimum number of people killed directly by Israel, and not those killed indirectly (running out of insulin, starving, etc). https://data.techforpalestine.org/updates/gaza-ministry-casualty-context/ https://data.techforpalestine.org/updates/gaza-ministry-casu... [2] - https://www.972mag.com/cloud-israeli-army-gaza-amazon-google-microsoft/ https://www.972mag.com/cloud-israeli-army-gaza-amazon-google... - https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/5/12/how-us-big-tech-supports-israels-ai-powered-genocide-and-apartheid https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/5/12/how-us-big-tech... - https://www.commondreams.org/news/idf-aws https://www.commondreams.org/news/idf-aws
mrweasel 2y ago
So Amazon Prime never really made sense here as it really didn't do anything for shipping, but you could watch the Fallout show. Amazon it self, the e-commerce site, is sadly determined to destroy itself. Stuff isn't cheaper on Amazon, shipping is expensive as hell, delivery times is in weeks, not day, and the risk of getting scammed is up with about something like 800%. Much easier to just order from a local store, pay a little extra for the item, but less for shipping, and be sure that you get what you order. Also Amazon search has been broke for a decade.
xyst 2y ago
I have been buying direct from manufacturers for a few years now. Sure I don’t get it in 1 day. The common carriers are a hit or miss (FedEx straight up doesn’t deliver on weekends). Sure, I may pay more. I’ll tank the cost if it’s a quality item. Sure, shipping isn’t “free” and return shipping may have a cost. But as I have learned, free shipping and returns is usually built into the cost when most people may not use it.
comrade1234 2y ago
I dropped Amazon a long time ago when: 1) free two-day delivery no longer came in two days 2) I ended up with two counterfeit Vince shirts. They were honestly well-made but the fabric and some stitching was wrong. 3) when there was an eclipse (not the most recent one but the one where Trump was watching it without protection) some people were blinded by using counterfeit eye protection bought from Amazon It’s safer to buy direct than going through Amazon.
- chneu 2y ago
  The issue with buying direct is that it's often fulfilled by Amazon nowadays. I bought something last week from an OEMs website. It showed up the next day in an Amazon envelope. Nowhere was it mentioned when I checked out.
priced_in 2y ago
Same here, I live in the UK and I will not renew my membership. I have about 1.5 T worth of photos store for "free" on Amazon Photos and it was an absolute pain to reclaim possession of those files but, now that I am nearly done, I think it is time to spend locally and stop funnelling money to big tech for a false sense of convenience.
- chneu 2y ago
  If you have the hardware, checkout Immich. It's a really rad self-hosted google photos clone. It's development is very active.
ta1243 2y ago
Interesting how he mentioned prime video, but only because of his dislike of one particular show. I dumped prime when they added adverts. Comments mention The Expanse, and they're right. I'm currently watching it, on Blueray. It's not the price I find objectional, it's the adverts. (I actually went to resubscribe to prime when Clarksons Farm season 3 came out, but there was no option to subscribe on my tv without adverts)
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  This is why some people are turning to piracy for a more pleasant experience. It reminds me of when DVD producers started using unskippable intros to their DVDs - it's basically being hostile to the customers.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    Well as Gabe Newell popularised: "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem" And of course a hierarchy of piracy that Louis Rossman came up with
    - chneu 2y ago
      100% I pirate because I can't stand how bad the apps/UI/service of streaming is. I pay for the hardware to self host. Even pay for a private torrent tracker and usenet. It's not the cost. It's the horrible experience and changing of media. I want a copy of that media that won't change.
      - aeve890 2y ago
        >I pay for the hardware to self host. Even pay for a private torrent tracker and usenet. I'd love to know more!
        chneu 2y ago
        What would you like to know? I have a Beelink n100 device running linux. These lil beelinks are great devices. They can be picked up for ~$140. Then i just keep a look out for cheap 10+tb datacenter drives. For example, I snagged a 12tb one for $75 the other day. Toss those into my raid array. I self host plex, web servers, samba, etc. Right now I have ~100tb of space. I even self-host a great google images alternative called Immich. I use a private torrent tracker and usenet to acquire most of my media. I do those because they're just so easy. It's pretty rare I can't find something within a minute or two. If there is a legal way of obtaining a real copy of media I'll usually do that. Most of my music library is legal, purchased directly from artists, bandcamp or soundcloud. I also have 2gb fiber internet which is helpful in all this. I wouldn't be able to get away with some of the stuff without the upload bandwidth of fiber.
jillesvangurp 2y ago
I've cancelled and resubscribed a few times. I do the same with Netflix, Apple TV, and a few others. Account hopping is a good way to save money. I don't have a lot of time so I don't want to have a lot of active subscriptions I'm under-using. I don't think I order enough stuff via them to make the "free" deliveries really valuable to me (it varies from month to month). But I like the convenience of having just one place to order stuff. Amazon Prime's video offerings are limited but they have a few nice things. I liked the Bosch series. I didn't mind the rings of power thing though it was a bit long winded. I guess if you are a Tolkien nerd, it might be a bit offensive to deal with all the creative liberties the plot takes. They also have some alright movies; including some recent block busters. And there are some older classics. The UI and search are a bit garbage indeed. They do a poor job of exposing the content they actually have. Unless you actively hunt for stuff, you could be missing out. Also, I should mention I watch Amazon Prime via Firefox, which is really effective at blocking the ads they are now injecting. If they "break" that, I'd be more likely to cancel.
gorbachev 2y ago
Shipping times for vast majority of orders I've placed with Amazon in the past two - three years without an Amazon Prime subscription vary between 2 - 3 days. I don't need Amazon photos/music/video/audible, so there's really little value on that subscription tax for me. The only real downside is that I can't put in a $0.50 order without a shipping fee, I need a $25 minimum order for free shipping.
neilv 2y ago
Figuratively, some of Mr. Bezos's famed Two Pizza Teams seem to be throwing their pizza crust ends at The Customer's Chair. (Incidentally, I think that line should let me skip the hiring screen Leadership Principles made-up anecdote STAR recital. :) I make a lot of personal decisions on-principle, but Amazon is too essential for me to boycott it. I also tolerate a number of practical non-customer-focused qualities of the company, of late, because of remaining utility. Overall, I like that I have use of Amazon, even though in some ways it's not as good as it used to be, and there are obvious ways it could improve customer focus but doesn't seem like it's going to. Though, I did cancel Amazon Prime awhile ago. The final nudge was that Prime Video seemed to be getting conspicuously customer-hostile, though I'd come to consider Prime Video to be part of the value for which I was paying. Also, Amazon no longer seemed to be taking 2-day shipping as seriously as they used to. A side effect of canceling Prime is that I recently stopped using my Amazon credit card. Since I'm no longer getting 5% rewards at Amazon and WFM, my non-Amazon 2% cash rewards card is close enough. The last nudge was Chase switching to eight-unhyphenated-digits SMS 2FA, every time I checked my statement. It was a tiniest little customer-unfocused thing, but it annoyed me enough in the moment, on top of ongoing mixed feelings, to energize me to go to the trouble of switching. Another side effect of canceling Prime is that I've been buying a lot less there, because I wait for $35+ orders, to get the free slow shipping, with the effect that I often end up buying the items elsewhere or not at all. (Incidentally, Walmart.com had a chance tonight, to get more of my business, since I hate-hate-hate that Amazon commingles product with questionable third-party sellers. But Walmart.com's product search was was no longer filtering by "Retailer" like it used to, which led me to Web search and learn of a potential problem with their supply chain integrity in general, and I really didn't want to be spraying third-party-sourced counterfeit/returned/shoplifted Flonase up my nose.)
- kennysoona 2y ago
  > I make a lot of personal decisions on-principle, but Amazon is too essential for me to boycott it. Or just too convenient? You survived at some point without being dependent on Amazon. You really couldn't do so again?
  - neilv 2y ago
whywhywhywhy 2y ago
In my country at least Amazon delivery drivers are the only reliable and trustworthy ones, they call when they can't get in the building, they never pretend to deliver something, they never pretend you were not in they deliver fast and reliably, you can get it delivered to lots of stores if you know you wont be in and Amazon customer service actually sorts it out and dispatches replacements fast in the rare cases it does go wrong or and its next day. Any other delivery service just causes way more stress. Feel like this article is downplaying which was the real reason because it's definitely only one of the three things listed and we can rule out ethics if you happily used it for decades you didn't suddenly start caring about that out of nowhere.
- jasoncartwright 2y ago
  Same here in London. I've ordered items from Amazon even if they are more expensive there, because I know it'll be delivered. Random storefronts relying on Royal Mail or who knows what delivery service just can't compete and waste my time.
  - physicsguy 2y ago
    This one depends a ton on where you live though. I'm in the Midlands and we have parcels go missing and ending up at neighbours houses down the road probably 30% of the time. Royal Mail and Evri are bizarrely the most consistent. Our house is not difficult to find. I found when we lived in a flat it was a total write off, things never went in the right place.
- m463 2y ago
  fedex (home delivery) is the worst. Ordered some shelves and found them dropped in front of the bushes of the neighbors. It's hard to tell who's responsible though, it's like shell corporations all the way down. I remember talking to one delivery driver and even though the van said their name, they were a private contractor and the van wasn't owned by the company.
INTPenis 2y ago
Prime never made sense to me in Sweden because I've been getting packages within 1-2 work days for years already. And I prefer having them delivered to a drop off station like a bluetooth controlled locker, or a pick-up point in a local store. Our system here has worked for many years and I much prefer it over people leaving packages at my doorstep.
- baq 2y ago
  Here in Poland Amazon delivers to a pickup point no problem.
- cess11 2y ago
  I agree. We also have a lot of other last-mile services delivering home as well, though I never use them if it can be avoided since they routinely abuse their employees.
spiderfarmer 2y ago
I went through all my US based SAAS subscriptions yesterday and only found EU replacements for some of them. But I will continue to do so for the coming years. I was also saving money for a family trip to the US in the coming years, but my kids now want to go to Australia instead as they hate everything about the current administration’s rhetoric.
jackgavigan 2y ago
> I think the pressures of 21st-century capitalism have put every large company into a place where they really can’t afford to be ethical or the financial sector will rip them to shreds then replace the CEO someone who will maximize shareholder return at all costs, without any of that amateurish “ethics” stuff. Insightful observation.
throwaway2037 2y ago
> I think the pressures of 21st-century capitalism have put every large company into a place where they really can’t afford to be ethical or the financial sector will rip them to shreds then replace the CEO someone who will maximize shareholder return at all costs How do you explain companies like Costco? They treat their customers and employees very well. I am sure there are many others we could name, but I think Costco is a great example. They also have a maximum profit margin on all products.
- poncho_romero 2y ago
  Please name some others that are similar in size to Costco. I would love to live in a world where there were more businesses like it, but it my experience it really does seem unique.
StayTrue 2y ago
I’ve canceled Amazon Prime free trials a couple times. Never noticed any difference in shipping speed with Prime so paying for it never made sense. Perhaps it varies by location (I’m not in a major center).
- dwighttk 2y ago
  Recently every once in a while they will use the full length of the pleb free shipping with me. But it is pretty rare.
Philpax 2y ago
My Prime subscription lapsed due to my card expiring before updating it, and I can't say I've been missing it much. I miss some content from Prime Video, sure, but knowing I'm not supporting the Bezoian empire as a consumer makes up for it.
rho4 2y ago
I've decided not to worry anymore about privacy/security/ethics/politics-related problems with stuff I use. For me, it's just not worth the time and emotional stress anymore. My most important criteria is: What does my social circle use. About once a year I try to cancel all subscriptions, and then resubscribe to those that I miss.
- chneu 2y ago
  Thanks for admitting it/saying it! I don't mean that negatively. I think a large amount of people think/feel the same way you do but are too afraid to admit it. It prevents us from having honest conversations, or even relevant conversations.
blenderob 2y ago
I live on the other side of the pond and frankly I've never understood the appeal of services like this. I get almost everything I need in my local supermarket. And there are supermarkets at every corner of the city. On my way back from work, I can step into the supermarket, pick what I need, do a self-checkout and leave. Adds a total of only 10 minutes to how much time I'd have spent if I was coming straight to home. I think everyone around me does the same. So whenever I read an article about these services and the comments on HN, it leaves me very curious why local supermarkets don't work for them. Is prime somehow better than going to your local supermarket? Why? I'd like to be enlightened. I know some people may not be in a position to walk down to the local supermarket and that's fair. An online service is life-saver then. But is the proportion of this demographic so large that offers like using prime becomes the default way of shopping? It must be because no doubt it is so popular. I'd just like to understand why.
- manfre 2y ago
  For most of the US, there are few or no stores within walking distance.
- kelnos 2y ago
  > I've never understood the appeal of services like this Because it sounds like you assume everyone lives in the same sort of conditions you do, and that's just not the case. In most places in the US, you have to drive to make all of these purchases, and in many places you won't even find stores that have things you need and can find on Amazon.
- chneu 2y ago
  I'll go against the other comments and say that as an american on the west coast of the US, I've always lived within biking/walking distance of my grocery/goods stores. Even when I lived in Montana I could still walk to the grocery store. It's a priority to me. It isn't really difficult to do, people just make excuses. I'd wager that the vast majority of Americans think biking 1 mile each way to the store is out of the question. Im not saying everyone can/should live within a mile of their grocery store. I'm making the point that even if most Americans did live within walking/biking distance they would still drive.
binarno_sp 2y ago
European here: rationally it may make no sense at all, but my gut feelings made me ditch Amazon Prime and replace a Kindle reader with a Kobo in February.
- williamdclt 2y ago
  I’ve always used kobo because kindle seemed much more closed, but god is it a shit device… I can’t count the number of times it got almost bricked, either not turning on or being stuck on a loader forever, and I’ve had to somehow do a full reset (which loses reading progress on all books ofc). It’s happened many times over 3 different devices, every time I pick it up I don’t know if it’s going to work. At least twice it refused to turn on _in the plane on my first day of holiday_, a day after I loaded new books. Useless for the whole trip. Inexcusable. Would still pick it over kindle, but it’s out of hate for Amazon, not love for kobo.
kjellsbells 2y ago
Looks like Day 2 snuck up on Amazon while they weren't looking. The retail site is drowning under a wave of off brand no name muck. Even buying a brand name (say, Oxo kitchen tools) gives one no comfort that what arrives wont be a knockoff. The purchase experience, once world beating, remains excellent, but not especially different from other stores. That leaves delivery, which with Prime is still a differentiator, but then again when it asks me to defer shipping for a few days to save boxes, which I do, I start to wonder why I'm paying for fast shipping only to pick slower shipping when I check out. As for the TV, it has an uncanny valley feel for me. The documentaries, for example, seem like the kind of low grade filler you get on inflight TV. A few talking heads, voiceovers over still images, etc.
- m463 2y ago
  > no name muck if they have a name, it is ALLUPPERCASENONSENSE and the images look exactly like UPPERCASEOTHERGUY but 1 cent cheaper. I really hate what amazon is doing to brands. Brands can be abused, but sometimes they actually stand for engineering, design, reliability and trust.
mft_ 2y ago
Prime in Germany is excellent - just suuuuuper-reliable. I’d actually like to use it a lot less, but: 1) My experience of shopping in either our small town or the major city nearby is that finding anything remotely out of the mainstream (eg hobby supplies, food ingredients that aren’t routine for a supermarket) is really difficult (like, hours can be spent scouring individual shops) and simple items are often priced much higher than the online cost (especially tech). 2) Failing the local option, shopping via third-party websites is often really frustrating, due to a combination of bad UX, individual signups per website, and high postage costs (€4.99 seems to be the minimum for even very small items, and €7+ is not at all uncommon). — If you want to challenge Amazon, we need innovation: - if local shops all used a single stock-taking system that also allowed live location-aware item searches, it would be a game changer. Imagine searching for an item you want and knowing, for sure, there was one in stock in a local shop, and the price. (My belief is many people would love to shop locally if it wasn’t such a PITA.) - if online shops would collaborate on a system allowing a single user account to be used to buy items across multiple stores, it would massively lessen the friction. If they could also figure out a way to compete somewhat on the cost of shipping, that would also help.
- DrNosferatu 2y ago
  Try idealo.de. It will point you to the most affordable site for your product.
  - fransje26 2y ago
    Idealo is all right for a comparative overview, but then you still end-up on a site that will slap you with a €7 shipping cost with 5 day shipping, even for "expensive" products..
    - DrNosferatu 2y ago
      There’s an option to sort prices with included delivery.
    - RGamma 2y ago
      Would you rather have "free shipping" and the cost of logistics priced into the product?
DrNosferatu 2y ago
[flagged]
- socksy 2y ago
  How did you come to that conclusion? That wasn't my take away from the blog post at all.
  - DrNosferatu 2y ago
    > I think the pressures of 21st-century capitalism have put every large company into a place where they really can’t afford to be ethical or the financial sector will rip them to shreds then replace the CEO someone who will maximize shareholder return at all costs, without any of that amateurish “ethics” stuff.
    - financetechbro 2y ago
      I think it’s a fair point the author is making. There is no ethical production or consumption under capitalism. I’m not saying (and I don’t think the author is either) that Amazon or Bezos are the victims here… more so I think the author was just framing their discontent with Amazon not around the ethics of it (which is an easy cop out, I guess) but from a more practical standpoint. Also I do agree with the author here. The system/machine is built to incentivize operations like Amazon to thrive. If Amazon wasn’t around doing what they do (displacing small businesses, being a horrible employer, delivering cheap made in china junk in one day, forcing small sellers to adhere to their strict pricing schemes, etc) there would be another company doing that. Just the reality of things from my perspective
      - DrNosferatu 2y ago
        So you don't believe in Free Will?
        financetechbro 2y ago
bambax 2y ago
In France you still get free shipping for orders > €35; it's not "next day" but it's extremely rare one would need something so urgently as for 24 hours to make a difference. In fact nowadays the biggest competitor to Amazon is Aliexpress. Extremely reliable, free shipping for orders > €10, and prices often 50-60% less than on Amazon, for exactly the same products. The only drawbacks are 1/ shipping takes 10 days and 2/ returns are complicated. But for less than half the price it's worth it. The main problem with Prime is that Amazon tries to justify its super high cost with Amazon Video, which nobody asked for, and nobody wants because of the incredibly low quality of the catalog. I'm not sure I even understand the strategy. Is it working? Do people actually like Amazon Video Prime and watch it, rather than the myriad other streaming services they're probably also subscribed to? Or is it still an experiment for Amazon?
- wiether 2y ago
  There is a few interesting things on Prime Video, and I was willing to suffer through their garbage apps. But then they put ads during the episodes. Back to torrenting then.
- aembleton 2y ago
  My father-in-law subscribes to prime for the tennis on Amazon video. He hardly ever buys anything from their site.
dutchCourage 2y ago
This is one of those times where the shared article isn't very insightful but the topic and discussion that ensues are interesting. I've had Prime every now and then to watch some shows. I've now stopped using it entirely because I don't want to support the company. Unsubscribing within the Prime Video app was a horrendous experience where I got stuck in a loop. I've also been re-subscribed without my knowledge and the only reason I can find to explain this is that opening the app on my TV and clicking "ok" once re-subscribes me. I have since removed my payment methods from the site. As an e-commerce platform, it's been going downhill for a long time. Now it just feel like a more expensive Temu/Wish.com. Full of dark patterns, low quality items, and cheating 3rd party resellers.
- chneu 2y ago
  My roommate got a counterfeit Amazon Basics HDMI cable from Amazon. That pretty much says it all.
  - aembleton 2y ago
    How did they know it was counterfeit?
    - chneu 2y ago
      Once you took a hard look at it you could tell that the injection molding was pretty low quality. I also tested it. The cable was faulty and wasn't the HDMI standard we ordered. Both are pretty good indicators that it's a counterfeit product. Amazon co-mingles all their goods. So the likelihood of counterfeits, even in amazon basics products, is high.
  - rsanek 2y ago
    Seems unlikely -- Amazon Basics already have razor-thin margins, I struggle to see the motivation of someone counterfeiting such a budget brand.
    - consteval 2y ago
ergl 2y ago
I wonder if I'm an outlier here, or if buying from Amazon depends on where you live. I doubt I have ordered more than 10 items _ever_ from Amazon, going back 14 years (the last time I ordered something from Amazon was a travel pillow, in 2023, that you could only buy there). It's not like I don't buy things online, but I struggle to think of something I can't get somewhere else, be it computer accessories (any other online shop or directly from the retaler) or books (order it at a local book shop or buy from the publisher), which are actually the only physical items I order online. The shopping experience on Amazon is meh, so I can't imagine that anyone enjoys using it for every day items, like groceries.
- alwayslikethis 2y ago
  > The shopping experience on Amazon is meh I wouldn't say it's especially good, but most others are worse. As a start, many online shops show me a captcha from Cloudflare before saying "You have been blocked" or refuse to show me anything altogether on Firefox with RFP. Amazon has never given me a captcha to buy something, at least.
Despacito2019 2y ago
I am based in europe and i am disgusted by the current us politics, i have sold all my US stocks (it's a large number) for the one i didn't loose too much to come back to EU based stocks.... I am reviewing all my spending to keep the bare necessary to don't go to the us, it's nothing compared to the greater thing but it makes me feel better and sleep at night
- aaomidi 2y ago
  You weren’t disgusted before when the US was killing and torturing brown people across the world?
nunez 2y ago
Common take but the author makes it interesting (Tim Bray was an L8 distinguished engineer at Amazon who, IIRC, contributed to the XML spec). I canceled my Prime and Subscribe and Save in 2023. I still order from Amazon from time to time, but they are a merchant of last resort for me now.
hilti 2y ago
I recently discovered buying DVDs at flea markets again. Most of the time a fraction of what would I pay to rent a movie on Prime. And it‘s a different feeling to have something physical in your hand.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

I only keep it (Prime) for Amazon Prime Video really - there are some videos in the catalogue that I enjoy watching again, and new stuff is generally good. It's not about 1-day delivery for me, or anything else. And £9.90 will not make any effect on my month expenses, not as much as the energy impact on my household, which doubled in one year.

mft_ 2y ago
I’d be interested in your recommendations; the Reacher series is the only thing I can quickly think of that’s Prime-exclusive and good?
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  - Fallout - Good Omens - The Expanse Not for everyone, but I enjoyed: - The Wheel of Time - The Peripheral - On Call - The Boys - The Rig - Gen V - The Power - Night Sky - Paper Girls - The Rings of Power - Bosch - Outer Range - The English Apparently, they now own James Bond, as well: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2025/02/21/troubletown-u-s-a https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2025/02/21/troubletown-u-...

z3t4 2y ago

We need to force companies to be ethical and sustainable. Evil companies hurts everyone except a few who become extremely rich. A first step would be regulating markets where there are less then 5 competitors. A common strategy now is to remove the competition rather then having a better product.

actionfromafar 2y ago

Cancelled it too.

aosaigh 2y ago

An upside of the latest political turmoil is that it’s shown me how apathetic I’ve become over the last 10-15 years. Having seen tech-bro after tech-bro bend the knee recently, it’s prompted me to take more responsibility in my choices and stop giving money to cowards.

decremental 2y ago
[dead]
spiderfarmer 2y ago
You’re a good man. I hope many more people follow your example.

rckt 2y ago

For me any modern service that uses subscription model feels like unnecessary fraudulent scheme. I use bandcamp to buy music, because it's a clear and a straightforward way to do it. Never ever am I going to subscribe to anything, because every day the market comes up with more and more ideas how to mess with you. It's become a really unpleasant experience and it's depressing to see how people simply don't care and just go with everything the marketing guys come up with.

eskori 2y ago
Serious question: how does Bandcamp manage purchases? Are you buying a "license for listening to music" or can you actually download a DRM-free copy etc.?
- rckt 2y ago
  After the purchase you get to download the audio files. And it stays available to download in your profile.
- rvense 2y ago
  You can get a ZIP of OGGs if you want. Those will last as least as long as a 2005 DVD rip from Pirate Bay. Feels good. (You can also stream through their site and app, and I think they have all sorts of social features... but you can ignore the hell out of it and just get tunes for money. Really one of my top 5 sites, Bandcamp, though I wish they were still independent.)
  - Semaphor 2y ago
    Zip of FLACs even. As space is cheap and abundant (or at least for me, buying only about 6-12 albums / month) that allows me to not worry about transcoding into whatever at some point in the future.
- tbolt 2y ago
  You can download drm-free music from iTunes, Amazon, etc today.
- 2y ago

iLoveOncall 2y ago

> Second, for a lot of things you want to order, the manufacturer has its own online store these days and a lot of them are actually well-built, perfectly pleasant to use. Which in my experience are ALL a combination of: - More expensive, - Very long shipping times, - Paid shipping which removes the benefit of the lower price in the rare event they do exist, - Abysmal customer guarantees and return policies. I think the rest of the article is good but frankly there just isn't a real alternative to Amazon.

MattPalmer1086 2y ago
In my experience this has not been the case. I left Amazon years ago because of endless counterfeit stuff, poor search, and prices that aren't actually better than you can get elsewhere. The fast delivery was not reliably fast anyway, and I can wait an extra day for things. I'm not usually in that much of a rush. I have not found buying things from other places to be worse in general. Often cheaper, delivery is fine, and more confidence I'm getting the actual thing I wanted. The only thing Amazon does better is simply that it's a one stop shop for almost everything. But given the other downsides, that is not enough. EDIT: Also, the dark patterns they deploy to try to make people sign up to Prime makes me sick.
spiderfarmer 2y ago
That’s not the real point of the article. The point is that we shouldn’t give money to companies we don’t really want to support.
- iLoveOncall 2y ago
  Hum, no? The author clearly states: > I’m bailing out of Prime not to hurt Amazon, but because it doesn’t make commercial or emotional sense for me just now. So, he doesn't doesn't get the ROI he needs, that's purely a financial transaction.
  - spiderfarmer 2y ago
    Read it again: > Emotional? · Amazon is an US corporation and the US is now hostile to Canada, repeatedly threatening to annex us. So I’m routing my shopping dollars away from there generally and to Canadian suppliers specifically. Dumping Prime is an easy way to help that along. ¶

bezier-curve 2y ago

The more I use the Amazon, the sketchier it feels. I was misguided and spent the last year buying way too many niche things and was invited into their Amazon Vine program. I got a tax bill I can't actually afford but opted to put it on my credit card rather than a loan situation because I don't trust our institutions now that DOGE is pillaging IRS data. Edit: Right, done being discouraged from feeling like an equal participant on a gamified karma platform run by startup jerks.

decremental 2y ago
[dead]

jasode 2y ago

>Second, for a lot of things you want to order, the manufacturer has its own online store these days and a lot of them are actually well-built, perfectly pleasant to use. It depends on what you buy but in general, the manufacturer's website will often cost more than Amazon. E.g. In the USA, Apple Watch 46mm GPS+Cellular is currently $429 on amazon.com but $529 on apple.com Also, manufacturers are often contractually required to have higher prices (i.e. MSRP) than the retailers that sell their products. So getting a discount from Amazon is more realistic than the manufacturer's official website. Another example is buying TurboTax software on Amazon ($55.99) costs less than Intuit's website ($80) >Third, Amazon’s prices aren’t notably cheaper than the alternatives. Again, it depends on what types of products you're buying. For things like USB cables and rechargeable batteries, Amazon costs less than Best Buy. Buying a Fiskars garden shears cost $10 less at Amazon than Home Depot and Lowe's. What's happening is that those local stores are using price discrimination to upcharge the impatient walk-in customers who need "instant gratification". Home Depot charges $5 more for a toilet plumbing repair kit than Amazon because they know customers are likely making an emergency purchase. Yes, the local stores sometimes have a "match Amazon's price" policy but it's a hassle to hunt down a manager and get an override of the price at the cash register. Where Amazon often costs more (often 2x because of shipping) is commodity household items like toothpaste and Windex glass cleaner. A local Walmart will have cheaper prices on those. Lastly, I recently went through my 200+ accounts in my password manager to migrate my email address and the lesson I've learned is to avoid creating new accounts at more ecommerce websites. It's not worth it. Maybe I'll make an exception for Shopify in the future because a lot of sellers have consolidated there but I'm going to hold out as long as I can. I really like having my orders history in one website instead of scattered across Newegg, ZipZoomFly, BHPhotoVideo, etc, etc. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Cellular-Smartwatch-Aluminium-Always/dp/B0DGJ74GKP/ https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Cellular-Smartwatch-Aluminium-A... [1] https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-watch/apple-watch https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-watch/apple-watch

rafaelmn 2y ago
>It depends on what you buy but in general, the manufacturer's website will often cost more than Amazon. E.g. In the USA, Apple Watch 46mm GPS+Cellular is currently $429 on amazon.com but $529 on apple.com This pretty much, I do not buy from Amazon because of the experience but because of price. Like you said very often Amazon is significantly cheaper than local stores here in Europe, like I was buying woodworking tools and I could get same tool, same manufacturer warranty for 20 percent less. Apple devices cost even more than official Apple store in my country because Apple does have a first party store, meanwhile Amazon has below MSRP prices always. The only downside is that they dont have customization options.

drcongo 2y ago

This was a timely reminder for me to cancel it too, for pretty much all the same reasons. But also primarily because the content on Prime Video is like the clearance bucket in a closing down Blockbusters and then they had the brass neck to put adverts in something I'm already paying for.

heap_perms 2y ago

> The search-results page is a battle of tooth and claw among low-rent importers. Also it’s just really freaking ugly Yes, the search result page is truly horrendous. It shows many results, while most of them are not actually available.

pbiggar 2y ago

Bray says he doesn't think amazon is any more objectionable than is mandated by capitalism. Perhaps he's right. But their participation in the genocide in Gaza should be objectionable by any definition. It's clear that Israel would not have been able to completely destroy Gaza and kill probably [1] 100,000s of people without the cloud tools provided by Amazon (and Google and Microsoft) [2] [1] Numbers you've heard like 40,000, reflect only the absolute minimum number of people killed directly by Israel, and not those killed indirectly (running out of insulin, starving, etc). https://data.techforpalestine.org/updates/gaza-ministry-casualty-context/ https://data.techforpalestine.org/updates/gaza-ministry-casu... [2] - https://www.972mag.com/cloud-israeli-army-gaza-amazon-google-microsoft/ https://www.972mag.com/cloud-israeli-army-gaza-amazon-google... - https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/5/12/how-us-big-tech-supports-israels-ai-powered-genocide-and-apartheid https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/5/12/how-us-big-tech... - https://www.commondreams.org/news/idf-aws https://www.commondreams.org/news/idf-aws

mrweasel 2y ago

So Amazon Prime never really made sense here as it really didn't do anything for shipping, but you could watch the Fallout show. Amazon it self, the e-commerce site, is sadly determined to destroy itself. Stuff isn't cheaper on Amazon, shipping is expensive as hell, delivery times is in weeks, not day, and the risk of getting scammed is up with about something like 800%. Much easier to just order from a local store, pay a little extra for the item, but less for shipping, and be sure that you get what you order. Also Amazon search has been broke for a decade.

xyst 2y ago

I have been buying direct from manufacturers for a few years now. Sure I don’t get it in 1 day. The common carriers are a hit or miss (FedEx straight up doesn’t deliver on weekends). Sure, I may pay more. I’ll tank the cost if it’s a quality item. Sure, shipping isn’t “free” and return shipping may have a cost. But as I have learned, free shipping and returns is usually built into the cost when most people may not use it.

comrade1234 2y ago

I dropped Amazon a long time ago when: 1) free two-day delivery no longer came in two days 2) I ended up with two counterfeit Vince shirts. They were honestly well-made but the fabric and some stitching was wrong. 3) when there was an eclipse (not the most recent one but the one where Trump was watching it without protection) some people were blinded by using counterfeit eye protection bought from Amazon It’s safer to buy direct than going through Amazon.

chneu 2y ago
The issue with buying direct is that it's often fulfilled by Amazon nowadays. I bought something last week from an OEMs website. It showed up the next day in an Amazon envelope. Nowhere was it mentioned when I checked out.

priced_in 2y ago

Same here, I live in the UK and I will not renew my membership. I have about 1.5 T worth of photos store for "free" on Amazon Photos and it was an absolute pain to reclaim possession of those files but, now that I am nearly done, I think it is time to spend locally and stop funnelling money to big tech for a false sense of convenience.

chneu 2y ago
If you have the hardware, checkout Immich. It's a really rad self-hosted google photos clone. It's development is very active.

ta1243 2y ago

Interesting how he mentioned prime video, but only because of his dislike of one particular show. I dumped prime when they added adverts. Comments mention The Expanse, and they're right. I'm currently watching it, on Blueray. It's not the price I find objectional, it's the adverts. (I actually went to resubscribe to prime when Clarksons Farm season 3 came out, but there was no option to subscribe on my tv without adverts)

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
This is why some people are turning to piracy for a more pleasant experience. It reminds me of when DVD producers started using unskippable intros to their DVDs - it's basically being hostile to the customers.
- ta1243 2y ago
  Well as Gabe Newell popularised: "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem" And of course a hierarchy of piracy that Louis Rossman came up with
  - chneu 2y ago
    100% I pirate because I can't stand how bad the apps/UI/service of streaming is. I pay for the hardware to self host. Even pay for a private torrent tracker and usenet. It's not the cost. It's the horrible experience and changing of media. I want a copy of that media that won't change.
    - aeve890 2y ago
      >I pay for the hardware to self host. Even pay for a private torrent tracker and usenet. I'd love to know more!
      - chneu 2y ago
        What would you like to know? I have a Beelink n100 device running linux. These lil beelinks are great devices. They can be picked up for ~$140. Then i just keep a look out for cheap 10+tb datacenter drives. For example, I snagged a 12tb one for $75 the other day. Toss those into my raid array. I self host plex, web servers, samba, etc. Right now I have ~100tb of space. I even self-host a great google images alternative called Immich. I use a private torrent tracker and usenet to acquire most of my media. I do those because they're just so easy. It's pretty rare I can't find something within a minute or two. If there is a legal way of obtaining a real copy of media I'll usually do that. Most of my music library is legal, purchased directly from artists, bandcamp or soundcloud. I also have 2gb fiber internet which is helpful in all this. I wouldn't be able to get away with some of the stuff without the upload bandwidth of fiber.

jillesvangurp 2y ago

I've cancelled and resubscribed a few times. I do the same with Netflix, Apple TV, and a few others. Account hopping is a good way to save money. I don't have a lot of time so I don't want to have a lot of active subscriptions I'm under-using. I don't think I order enough stuff via them to make the "free" deliveries really valuable to me (it varies from month to month). But I like the convenience of having just one place to order stuff. Amazon Prime's video offerings are limited but they have a few nice things. I liked the Bosch series. I didn't mind the rings of power thing though it was a bit long winded. I guess if you are a Tolkien nerd, it might be a bit offensive to deal with all the creative liberties the plot takes. They also have some alright movies; including some recent block busters. And there are some older classics. The UI and search are a bit garbage indeed. They do a poor job of exposing the content they actually have. Unless you actively hunt for stuff, you could be missing out. Also, I should mention I watch Amazon Prime via Firefox, which is really effective at blocking the ads they are now injecting. If they "break" that, I'd be more likely to cancel.

gorbachev 2y ago

Shipping times for vast majority of orders I've placed with Amazon in the past two - three years without an Amazon Prime subscription vary between 2 - 3 days. I don't need Amazon photos/music/video/audible, so there's really little value on that subscription tax for me. The only real downside is that I can't put in a $0.50 order without a shipping fee, I need a $25 minimum order for free shipping.

neilv 2y ago

Figuratively, some of Mr. Bezos's famed Two Pizza Teams seem to be throwing their pizza crust ends at The Customer's Chair. (Incidentally, I think that line should let me skip the hiring screen Leadership Principles made-up anecdote STAR recital. :) I make a lot of personal decisions on-principle, but Amazon is too essential for me to boycott it. I also tolerate a number of practical non-customer-focused qualities of the company, of late, because of remaining utility. Overall, I like that I have use of Amazon, even though in some ways it's not as good as it used to be, and there are obvious ways it could improve customer focus but doesn't seem like it's going to. Though, I did cancel Amazon Prime awhile ago. The final nudge was that Prime Video seemed to be getting conspicuously customer-hostile, though I'd come to consider Prime Video to be part of the value for which I was paying. Also, Amazon no longer seemed to be taking 2-day shipping as seriously as they used to. A side effect of canceling Prime is that I recently stopped using my Amazon credit card. Since I'm no longer getting 5% rewards at Amazon and WFM, my non-Amazon 2% cash rewards card is close enough. The last nudge was Chase switching to eight-unhyphenated-digits SMS 2FA, every time I checked my statement. It was a tiniest little customer-unfocused thing, but it annoyed me enough in the moment, on top of ongoing mixed feelings, to energize me to go to the trouble of switching. Another side effect of canceling Prime is that I've been buying a lot less there, because I wait for $35+ orders, to get the free slow shipping, with the effect that I often end up buying the items elsewhere or not at all. (Incidentally, Walmart.com had a chance tonight, to get more of my business, since I hate-hate-hate that Amazon commingles product with questionable third-party sellers. But Walmart.com's product search was was no longer filtering by "Retailer" like it used to, which led me to Web search and learn of a potential problem with their supply chain integrity in general, and I really didn't want to be spraying third-party-sourced counterfeit/returned/shoplifted Flonase up my nose.)

kennysoona 2y ago
> I make a lot of personal decisions on-principle, but Amazon is too essential for me to boycott it. Or just too convenient? You survived at some point without being dependent on Amazon. You really couldn't do so again?
- neilv 2y ago

whywhywhywhy 2y ago

In my country at least Amazon delivery drivers are the only reliable and trustworthy ones, they call when they can't get in the building, they never pretend to deliver something, they never pretend you were not in they deliver fast and reliably, you can get it delivered to lots of stores if you know you wont be in and Amazon customer service actually sorts it out and dispatches replacements fast in the rare cases it does go wrong or and its next day. Any other delivery service just causes way more stress. Feel like this article is downplaying which was the real reason because it's definitely only one of the three things listed and we can rule out ethics if you happily used it for decades you didn't suddenly start caring about that out of nowhere.

jasoncartwright 2y ago
Same here in London. I've ordered items from Amazon even if they are more expensive there, because I know it'll be delivered. Random storefronts relying on Royal Mail or who knows what delivery service just can't compete and waste my time.
- physicsguy 2y ago
  This one depends a ton on where you live though. I'm in the Midlands and we have parcels go missing and ending up at neighbours houses down the road probably 30% of the time. Royal Mail and Evri are bizarrely the most consistent. Our house is not difficult to find. I found when we lived in a flat it was a total write off, things never went in the right place.
m463 2y ago
fedex (home delivery) is the worst. Ordered some shelves and found them dropped in front of the bushes of the neighbors. It's hard to tell who's responsible though, it's like shell corporations all the way down. I remember talking to one delivery driver and even though the van said their name, they were a private contractor and the van wasn't owned by the company.

INTPenis 2y ago

Prime never made sense to me in Sweden because I've been getting packages within 1-2 work days for years already. And I prefer having them delivered to a drop off station like a bluetooth controlled locker, or a pick-up point in a local store. Our system here has worked for many years and I much prefer it over people leaving packages at my doorstep.

baq 2y ago
Here in Poland Amazon delivers to a pickup point no problem.
cess11 2y ago
I agree. We also have a lot of other last-mile services delivering home as well, though I never use them if it can be avoided since they routinely abuse their employees.

spiderfarmer 2y ago

I went through all my US based SAAS subscriptions yesterday and only found EU replacements for some of them. But I will continue to do so for the coming years. I was also saving money for a family trip to the US in the coming years, but my kids now want to go to Australia instead as they hate everything about the current administration’s rhetoric.

jackgavigan 2y ago

throwaway2037 2y ago

> I think the pressures of 21st-century capitalism have put every large company into a place where they really can’t afford to be ethical or the financial sector will rip them to shreds then replace the CEO someone who will maximize shareholder return at all costs How do you explain companies like Costco? They treat their customers and employees very well. I am sure there are many others we could name, but I think Costco is a great example. They also have a maximum profit margin on all products.

poncho_romero 2y ago
Please name some others that are similar in size to Costco. I would love to live in a world where there were more businesses like it, but it my experience it really does seem unique.

StayTrue 2y ago

I’ve canceled Amazon Prime free trials a couple times. Never noticed any difference in shipping speed with Prime so paying for it never made sense. Perhaps it varies by location (I’m not in a major center).

dwighttk 2y ago
Recently every once in a while they will use the full length of the pleb free shipping with me. But it is pretty rare.

Philpax 2y ago

My Prime subscription lapsed due to my card expiring before updating it, and I can't say I've been missing it much. I miss some content from Prime Video, sure, but knowing I'm not supporting the Bezoian empire as a consumer makes up for it.

rho4 2y ago

I've decided not to worry anymore about privacy/security/ethics/politics-related problems with stuff I use. For me, it's just not worth the time and emotional stress anymore. My most important criteria is: What does my social circle use. About once a year I try to cancel all subscriptions, and then resubscribe to those that I miss.

chneu 2y ago
Thanks for admitting it/saying it! I don't mean that negatively. I think a large amount of people think/feel the same way you do but are too afraid to admit it. It prevents us from having honest conversations, or even relevant conversations.

blenderob 2y ago

I live on the other side of the pond and frankly I've never understood the appeal of services like this. I get almost everything I need in my local supermarket. And there are supermarkets at every corner of the city. On my way back from work, I can step into the supermarket, pick what I need, do a self-checkout and leave. Adds a total of only 10 minutes to how much time I'd have spent if I was coming straight to home. I think everyone around me does the same. So whenever I read an article about these services and the comments on HN, it leaves me very curious why local supermarkets don't work for them. Is prime somehow better than going to your local supermarket? Why? I'd like to be enlightened. I know some people may not be in a position to walk down to the local supermarket and that's fair. An online service is life-saver then. But is the proportion of this demographic so large that offers like using prime becomes the default way of shopping? It must be because no doubt it is so popular. I'd just like to understand why.

manfre 2y ago
For most of the US, there are few or no stores within walking distance.
kelnos 2y ago
> I've never understood the appeal of services like this Because it sounds like you assume everyone lives in the same sort of conditions you do, and that's just not the case. In most places in the US, you have to drive to make all of these purchases, and in many places you won't even find stores that have things you need and can find on Amazon.
chneu 2y ago
I'll go against the other comments and say that as an american on the west coast of the US, I've always lived within biking/walking distance of my grocery/goods stores. Even when I lived in Montana I could still walk to the grocery store. It's a priority to me. It isn't really difficult to do, people just make excuses. I'd wager that the vast majority of Americans think biking 1 mile each way to the store is out of the question. Im not saying everyone can/should live within a mile of their grocery store. I'm making the point that even if most Americans did live within walking/biking distance they would still drive.

binarno_sp 2y ago

European here: rationally it may make no sense at all, but my gut feelings made me ditch Amazon Prime and replace a Kindle reader with a Kobo in February.

williamdclt 2y ago
I’ve always used kobo because kindle seemed much more closed, but god is it a shit device… I can’t count the number of times it got almost bricked, either not turning on or being stuck on a loader forever, and I’ve had to somehow do a full reset (which loses reading progress on all books ofc). It’s happened many times over 3 different devices, every time I pick it up I don’t know if it’s going to work. At least twice it refused to turn on _in the plane on my first day of holiday_, a day after I loaded new books. Useless for the whole trip. Inexcusable. Would still pick it over kindle, but it’s out of hate for Amazon, not love for kobo.

kjellsbells 2y ago

Looks like Day 2 snuck up on Amazon while they weren't looking. The retail site is drowning under a wave of off brand no name muck. Even buying a brand name (say, Oxo kitchen tools) gives one no comfort that what arrives wont be a knockoff. The purchase experience, once world beating, remains excellent, but not especially different from other stores. That leaves delivery, which with Prime is still a differentiator, but then again when it asks me to defer shipping for a few days to save boxes, which I do, I start to wonder why I'm paying for fast shipping only to pick slower shipping when I check out. As for the TV, it has an uncanny valley feel for me. The documentaries, for example, seem like the kind of low grade filler you get on inflight TV. A few talking heads, voiceovers over still images, etc.

m463 2y ago
> no name muck if they have a name, it is ALLUPPERCASENONSENSE and the images look exactly like UPPERCASEOTHERGUY but 1 cent cheaper. I really hate what amazon is doing to brands. Brands can be abused, but sometimes they actually stand for engineering, design, reliability and trust.

mft_ 2y ago

Prime in Germany is excellent - just suuuuuper-reliable. I’d actually like to use it a lot less, but: 1) My experience of shopping in either our small town or the major city nearby is that finding anything remotely out of the mainstream (eg hobby supplies, food ingredients that aren’t routine for a supermarket) is really difficult (like, hours can be spent scouring individual shops) and simple items are often priced much higher than the online cost (especially tech). 2) Failing the local option, shopping via third-party websites is often really frustrating, due to a combination of bad UX, individual signups per website, and high postage costs (€4.99 seems to be the minimum for even very small items, and €7+ is not at all uncommon). — If you want to challenge Amazon, we need innovation: - if local shops all used a single stock-taking system that also allowed live location-aware item searches, it would be a game changer. Imagine searching for an item you want and knowing, for sure, there was one in stock in a local shop, and the price. (My belief is many people would love to shop locally if it wasn’t such a PITA.) - if online shops would collaborate on a system allowing a single user account to be used to buy items across multiple stores, it would massively lessen the friction. If they could also figure out a way to compete somewhat on the cost of shipping, that would also help.

DrNosferatu 2y ago
Try idealo.de. It will point you to the most affordable site for your product.
- fransje26 2y ago
  Idealo is all right for a comparative overview, but then you still end-up on a site that will slap you with a €7 shipping cost with 5 day shipping, even for "expensive" products..
  - DrNosferatu 2y ago
    There’s an option to sort prices with included delivery.
  - RGamma 2y ago
    Would you rather have "free shipping" and the cost of logistics priced into the product?

DrNosferatu 2y ago

[flagged]

socksy 2y ago
How did you come to that conclusion? That wasn't my take away from the blog post at all.
- DrNosferatu 2y ago
  > I think the pressures of 21st-century capitalism have put every large company into a place where they really can’t afford to be ethical or the financial sector will rip them to shreds then replace the CEO someone who will maximize shareholder return at all costs, without any of that amateurish “ethics” stuff.
  - financetechbro 2y ago
    I think it’s a fair point the author is making. There is no ethical production or consumption under capitalism. I’m not saying (and I don’t think the author is either) that Amazon or Bezos are the victims here… more so I think the author was just framing their discontent with Amazon not around the ethics of it (which is an easy cop out, I guess) but from a more practical standpoint. Also I do agree with the author here. The system/machine is built to incentivize operations like Amazon to thrive. If Amazon wasn’t around doing what they do (displacing small businesses, being a horrible employer, delivering cheap made in china junk in one day, forcing small sellers to adhere to their strict pricing schemes, etc) there would be another company doing that. Just the reality of things from my perspective
    - DrNosferatu 2y ago
      So you don't believe in Free Will?
      - financetechbro 2y ago

bambax 2y ago

In France you still get free shipping for orders > €35; it's not "next day" but it's extremely rare one would need something so urgently as for 24 hours to make a difference. In fact nowadays the biggest competitor to Amazon is Aliexpress. Extremely reliable, free shipping for orders > €10, and prices often 50-60% less than on Amazon, for exactly the same products. The only drawbacks are 1/ shipping takes 10 days and 2/ returns are complicated. But for less than half the price it's worth it. The main problem with Prime is that Amazon tries to justify its super high cost with Amazon Video, which nobody asked for, and nobody wants because of the incredibly low quality of the catalog. I'm not sure I even understand the strategy. Is it working? Do people actually like Amazon Video Prime and watch it, rather than the myriad other streaming services they're probably also subscribed to? Or is it still an experiment for Amazon?

wiether 2y ago
There is a few interesting things on Prime Video, and I was willing to suffer through their garbage apps. But then they put ads during the episodes. Back to torrenting then.
aembleton 2y ago
My father-in-law subscribes to prime for the tennis on Amazon video. He hardly ever buys anything from their site.

dutchCourage 2y ago

This is one of those times where the shared article isn't very insightful but the topic and discussion that ensues are interesting. I've had Prime every now and then to watch some shows. I've now stopped using it entirely because I don't want to support the company. Unsubscribing within the Prime Video app was a horrendous experience where I got stuck in a loop. I've also been re-subscribed without my knowledge and the only reason I can find to explain this is that opening the app on my TV and clicking "ok" once re-subscribes me. I have since removed my payment methods from the site. As an e-commerce platform, it's been going downhill for a long time. Now it just feel like a more expensive Temu/Wish.com. Full of dark patterns, low quality items, and cheating 3rd party resellers.

chneu 2y ago
My roommate got a counterfeit Amazon Basics HDMI cable from Amazon. That pretty much says it all.
- aembleton 2y ago
  How did they know it was counterfeit?
  - chneu 2y ago
    Once you took a hard look at it you could tell that the injection molding was pretty low quality. I also tested it. The cable was faulty and wasn't the HDMI standard we ordered. Both are pretty good indicators that it's a counterfeit product. Amazon co-mingles all their goods. So the likelihood of counterfeits, even in amazon basics products, is high.
- rsanek 2y ago
  Seems unlikely -- Amazon Basics already have razor-thin margins, I struggle to see the motivation of someone counterfeiting such a budget brand.
  - consteval 2y ago

ergl 2y ago

I wonder if I'm an outlier here, or if buying from Amazon depends on where you live. I doubt I have ordered more than 10 items _ever_ from Amazon, going back 14 years (the last time I ordered something from Amazon was a travel pillow, in 2023, that you could only buy there). It's not like I don't buy things online, but I struggle to think of something I can't get somewhere else, be it computer accessories (any other online shop or directly from the retaler) or books (order it at a local book shop or buy from the publisher), which are actually the only physical items I order online. The shopping experience on Amazon is meh, so I can't imagine that anyone enjoys using it for every day items, like groceries.

alwayslikethis 2y ago
> The shopping experience on Amazon is meh I wouldn't say it's especially good, but most others are worse. As a start, many online shops show me a captcha from Cloudflare before saying "You have been blocked" or refuse to show me anything altogether on Firefox with RFP. Amazon has never given me a captcha to buy something, at least.

Despacito2019 2y ago

I am based in europe and i am disgusted by the current us politics, i have sold all my US stocks (it's a large number) for the one i didn't loose too much to come back to EU based stocks.... I am reviewing all my spending to keep the bare necessary to don't go to the us, it's nothing compared to the greater thing but it makes me feel better and sleep at night

aaomidi 2y ago
You weren’t disgusted before when the US was killing and torturing brown people across the world?

nunez 2y ago

Common take but the author makes it interesting (Tim Bray was an L8 distinguished engineer at Amazon who, IIRC, contributed to the XML spec). I canceled my Prime and Subscribe and Save in 2023. I still order from Amazon from time to time, but they are a merchant of last resort for me now.

hilti 2y ago

I recently discovered buying DVDs at flea markets again. Most of the time a fraction of what would I pay to rent a movie on Prime. And it‘s a different feeling to have something physical in your hand.