I no longer buy anything from Amazon that could be faked.
So I’ll add “if you need to guarantee the accuracy of the information in whatever you’re buying… avoid Amazon as well”
If I do that, I always make sure I'm buying from the seller and not a reseller or distributor; I meant to say no other party besides the Seller and Amazon.
It’s all fake. Every bit of it.
PreserVision -> I've never heard about that brand, so I would have never bought it. What was the reason behind your purchase decision?
In the "cannot be faked" category, you can have:
- products so cheap that making a fake wouldn't make sense. for example an unbranded glass jar won't be faked because anything that looks like a glass jar but isn't a glass jar will be more expensive than a glass jar.
- products too complex and/or too low margin to be worth faking. For example, you will probably never find a fake desktop printer, as even the most simple printers are hard to make and sold at a low margin, maybe even at a loss. However, consumables are (very) high margin and you will find fakes, lots of them.
- products that have effective anti-counterfeiting systems. For example, Nintendo Switch games.
We've (my wife and I) tried to stop using Amazon. But recently, I've run into issues where I need particular specialized bits and pieces (e.g. just today, a low profile 4" HVAC 90 degree elbow) that are only available via Amazon. A variation is where the item is available from one or two other places, but at a 10x markup.
We need to convince vendors to also avoid Amazon, and that may be even more of a difficult sell (no pun intended).
ps. Amazon employee #2, and I approve this message.
I just read your Vox article and the comment "We exist with multiple hats" really resonated with me. I find it difficult to interact with a lot of people in tech because they too often seem to be overly dogmatic and unable to consider that other valid perspectives can and do exist... and that they might not know everything.
Sometimes I just want to say to those people, "I want to live in your world, where everything is black and white and you have all the answers in your pocket. It sounds comfortable and easy."
I still do make the occasional order out of laziness or a lack of other options. However, I looked up all my orders from the lifetime of my account and charted them a couple weeks ago. After 6 years of year-over-year order increase, and a 17+ year overall uptrend in orders... they fell off a cliff once I cancelled. My orders fell by 60% the year after I cancelled Prime, and it's on pace to drop even further this year. I even did all my Christmas shopping last year without any Amazon orders, while previous years were 100% Amazon.
Going down to 0 can be hard, but even big drops in orders will have an impact. And if that money goes to other retailers, and demand grows, they can invest in more inventory and a wider array of goods that people need. Any percentage shift away from Amazon is progress, especially in done my the masses.
I'd encourage everyone to dump their Prime membership. If you order more than $35 you can still get free shipping (you just have to be explicit in selecting it and be vigilant during checkout to avoid the multiple traps to try and get you to sign back up... lots of dark patterns). Shipping times are a little more unpredictable. Sometimes it still only takes 1-2 days, while other times it seems to take a week or two. Most things aren't urgent. If they are, I try to find them locally.
I've also tried to stop obsessing about finding the "best" whatever it is I'm looking for. When online, there are a lot of traps, but one of the things I expect retail stores to do is make sure they are carrying quality products they'd stand behind. They don't want returns or to get a reputation for selling junk. I was getting a toaster a while back and instead of spending hours researching online, I just went to a store I frequent, looked at the 5 options they had, and picked the one I liked the best. Hours of time saved, and the toaster works fine. I expect I'll have it for many years to come.
wow, that must have been quite an interesting experience. Do you have any anecdotes that you were willing to share about the experience. Thanks
It is astonishing to me that brick-and-mortar retailers have not banded together to put an on-line front-end onto their stock. It would technically straightforward (albeit not trivial) to build a web site as easy to use as Amazon, but with guaranteed same-day or next-day delivery via a partner like doordash, and with more reliable quality because local vendors have more of an incentive to vet their suppliers. I would love to use a service like that, but AFAICT it doesn't exist.
Someone here, please build this. I will be your first customer.
The problem is that buying specialized things actually makes sense to do online. But online buying has the problem that an average online retailer gives no guarantee that they will fulfill an order faithfully (I still remember trying to order shoe from Target online and getting ... a used masked and I assume others remember online "burn" as well) so Amazon has a key position of online guarantor. As a "natural monopoly", one might imagine such a role would be regulated but not in the present climate, ha ha ha.
I've also seen where stores won't have it at the store I have selected, but it will also check the stock of nearby stores to tell me of one of those other stores have it.
It's not ubiquitous yet, but I'm seeing it more and more. I've also found with things like Apple Pay that checkout on random online stores is just as fast and easy as Amazon, which is quite nice.
Calling retail stores to do anything other than to see if they're open or, in the case of restaurants, get a reservation is just wasting time. At least for the retailers that I've communicated with.
Your username suggests otherwise
You could open a brick and mortar store tomorrow but you'd be selling the exact same products that come from the same factories as Amazon.
I buy a lot from Amazon Japan as well, and I haven’t had the problems with shoddy or counterfeit products that others have reported. I don’t know if that’s just my luck or if Amazon Japan screens its suppliers better. But it’s nice to have strong competitors to Amazon in online shopping. In addition to Yodobashi, there are Rakuten, Yahoo Japan, Bic Camera, and Yamada Denki for a wide range of products, as well as Kinokuniya, Maruzen Junkudo, Sanseido, and others for books.
[1] https://www.yodobashi.com/product/100000001004349962/
[2] https://www.yodobashi.com/ec/product/stock/10000000100434996...
I do technical consulting for small food companies
This is an immediate non-starter for most local retail businesses because of the steep (25+%) transaction fees Doordash and other consumer last-mile providers charge, and the razor-thin margins of many retail stores
To be clear I agree with your proposal overall and suspect this particular challenge is surmountable, but it's very difficult to get it right, and either way relying on another parasitic platform won't be the answer
It
It's like $140 annually now... and if you're mostly just buying things and not watching their content, it's a nice speed bump to just accumulate items in the cart until you hit the minimum free shipping and only order then.
When you occasionally do for some reason need an instant item, you can pay the shipping then. It's kinda like for most people, having a second or third car is much more expensive than just renting one when you actually need it.
That said, I am close to a Costco so that's where I get most of my bulk items - the Amazon stuff tends to be more discretionary.
Amazon is very convenient when needing something one off. But we are not going to renew Prime and slowly ween off it.
Still looking for alternatives though, Costco is okay, but when you want something asap, you need either to drive to stores or pay for same day delivery and tips.
Amazon could have quietly (or loudly in 2025) lifted the ban at any point in the last five years to much nothing in the terms of pushback.
I like hunting for bargains as much as anybody, I love checking out the used games at Gamestop or items on clearance at Best Buy, not least the reuse center at Ithaca where I might find a cassette or Video CD deck with karaoke features or a minidisc player.
Prime Day seems to be just a waste of time. I don't see any attractive prices on anything I want to buy. So many web sites scour Amazon for good deals and can't find any. It's a snoozer.
It's literally been a decade or more since Prime Day, or Amazon in general, had the best prices online.
If they wanted instant gratification, they'd buy it from a local store and get it immediately rather than having to wait a couple days.
It's also cited as evidence that Amazon is now more powerful than the US Government which is just factually fucking false. It really is a different breed of person that thinks some millions of dollars > sovereign power. It's like, yeah, they lobby, but they also have people lobbying against them, including near-competitors. The dynamic is not as simple as spend some $X millions of dollars and get some amount of equivalent benefit. You lobby because an entity with sovereign power can trivially destroy your business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ed...
People who want to write stuff like this really need to reckon with the fact that Amazon is and remains the superior product, and by a very significant degree.
They're not winning because they "hate democracy" or are "full-stop evil" or whatever. They're winning because they're the best.
I have moved anything I don’t need quickly off Amazon as much as reasonably possible, and I do avoid some things from Amazon as well, but for too many things they’re the cheapest and fastest option, or the 2nd cheapest and fastest option.
Also if I think there is a reasonably high chance I’ll return an item, I also go through Amazon, because they haven’t once in 20 years I’ve been using them giving me an issue, charged a restocking fee etc.
Other online shops simply don’t match enough of these Amazon value prop to sway me over
Amazon often costs 5 cents less and you might find that all the issues of Bocci the Rock are at Amazon and one is missing from Walmart, but Walmart is taking the fight to them.
For photography stuff in particular, I buy from B&H, Adorama or direct from vendors such as Red River Paper. Often the prices are better than Amazon and the service is much better (e.g. the owner of the later has schooled me on details of papers and printing that most people couldn't imagine)
[1] Not against giving the tip, just against saying I don't like the comparison against free shipping from other vendors.
Which sounds like an agreement with my point, no? Buying stuff without Amazon was in aggregate "more expensive" for you in the broader sense of value that includes effort/experience/whatever. So you didn't.
And, bravo? I'm all for efficiency and reasonable asceticism, and likely agree with you about the general consumerist bent of our society.
All I'm saying is that constitutes an argument in FAVOR of Amazon as a retailer product, and not an indictment.
They are also actively preventing other marketplaces from being better. For example, for exclusive audiobooks on audible, the producers are paid 40% but only 25% for non-exclusive ones.
The biggest addiction of the modern era is convenience. Once people have it, it is very difficult to give up. We are all addicted to this, we aren't running this site via the letters column in a newspaper, because of convenience. But it also means we tend to ignore the negatives of said services.
Your point of them winning because they're the best, that can also be true. But because of that and the convenience addiction they provide, we let them get away with all the other stuff.
I'm not saying this is an excuse to use Amazon, I have never used it. I am just saying it is a hard hurdle for some to overcome.
Or you could compromise your morals for convenience, I guess.
To the point of the post, Amazon engages in lawful tactics to conquer the retail market. Consumers are incentivelzed to get the best value out of their money. If you want change legislation is needed. Your approach of shaming people for using their services isn't scalable. And I also don't agree with plenty of the premises in your article but it doesn't matter.
They have a tighter control on their supply chain and don't have a truly open "market" where anyone can sell crap (or stolen crap).
A lot of this comes down to limited stocking and shelf space. Amazon effectively has unlimited storage space. Hence their ability to show off 6000 drop shipping products which are actually the same product.
Walmart and Target, on the other hand, have to be somewhat judicious because shelf space is limited. They can't have a row of the same products under different labels. And if what they choose to sell has quality problems they get hit harder for it. They take the loss for the unsold counterfeit goods. Amazon, by their nature, sees minimal hits when products are determined to be counterfeit. That usually just means they blacklist a seller. They are hardly impacted.
Also, funnily enough, it's why I don't worry about counterfeits at Wholefoods even though it's parent company is Amazon.
Amazon is becoming more and more like AliExpress and Temu. They can always do it cheaper, but it's very touch and go when it comes to the quality of the merchandise you'll receive.
If that quality isn't a concern for you, Temu and AliExpress can give you similar quality for much less. Take a screenshot of the item on Amazon with Google Lens and use the image search on either of these platforms to get the item even cheaper.
I have avoided Amazon since ~2004 when I accidentally bought two box sets (double clicked) and there was no way to undo one. Clearly a Dark Pattern. Fuckers
I have succeeded. I always find another source for everything (mostly books, some small electronics).
I am not in the USA, I am in the South Pacific, a long way away however you measure it (except we speak English, mostly, here too). I have to wonder if that is a reason? Yet we use the same Internet
I started avoiding Amazon because they dishonestly ripped me off 20 years ago. I would start to avoid them today because they are evil
But I am unsure that this will convince anyone not already convinced.
We need good political messaging to bring them, them all, down and to get economic freedom
I agree with the authors conclusion about Amazon, but even if you don’t, you should think about how polarized the nation is and what political issues we can try to coalesce on.
Kind of like the "didactic" voice that the young men on YouTube use when they're cosplaying documentarians or newscasters.
It works better for authors who genuinely know what they're talking about--but in most cases, the closer you look at something, the more complexity you notice, and the less breezily confident you are about it. So often, it's like this—"reheated nachos," do the kids call it? A big sassy omnibus "take" of "takes," more than, like, facts and analysis? All building up to a meaningless language-of-empowerment call to action?
What facts is the author not presenting?
Even if one controlled, 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 people and commanded them to not use Amazon, it would have little effect.
If someone opts to stay away from Amazon, they should at least do it with clear eyes: they are doing it to feel something and will not actually affect the company.
"For context, the US federal government spent $53 million on public education in 2022" Hilarious, the federal government probably spent more on photocopiers for the department of education in 2022 than that.
I tried using Otto for some time but it just cannot compare. Sure. I could also shop from multiple shops but that is kinda waste of time. Amazon is a real one-stop shop.
I've been thinking about the poor quality and availability of Communist goods in the 1980s. I think about the bread lines every time I shop at Costco. What happened to make us so complacent?
And it really doesn't help develop trust when the citations used to support one's points directly contradicts them (like that bit about Amazon providing real-time surveillance from Ring doorbells to police without owners' knowledge - the one and only thing I decided to read the source for which said quite the opposite).
It's a shame too since I'm sure the author had some good points, but I have neither the time nor energy to research every single claim made to see which ones aren't bullshit.
Does Rekognition perform poorly? Maybe it does, but it’s a best effort service, not a police officer in a box. That AWS was shamed into not selling it to law enforcement doesn’t mean law enforcement won’t have access to facial recognition, only that the vendor they choose isn’t capable of being embarrassed by bad PR.
I can only assume the author didn't think anyone would read the links they provided.
"Amazon only stopped for PR reasons at the start of the George Floyd protests, and even then they only issued a “one-year moratorium.” This has since been extended indefinitely, but frankly that doesn’t matter."
So he's... blaming them... for doing what he wishes they would do?
When an act has both a potentially good and bad effect Philosophers like to distinguish the morality of this act of "cooperating with evil" by analyzing the degrees to which your cooperation is:
- formal or material (do you want the bad thing to happen and that's why you're buying from Amazon?)
- immediate or mediate (are you supplying a critical component such that without your specific instance of cooperation the evil could not occur?)
- proximate or remote (Do you work for Amazon?)
To learn more about this principle of double effect:
https://thinkingthoughtout.com/2021/01/24/cooperation-with-e...
Standing in line for 2 hours to buy milk with my grandma is a childhood memory that's burned into my brain.
Searching for a product category on Google won‘t allow you to find a big number of brands either. Because they will push certain products as well.
So be aware that these platforms will limit your options.
But I admit that Amazon has a very polished UX. It‘s a one-stop shop, returns are handled very generously, and you don’t need to visit a dozen sites to get various products.
Not to mention the real reason we hate Jeff Bezos. Because you wouldn't like it if I mentioned it.