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Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
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I want something like amazon as a public utility. But much better, Amazon is such shit as a website today. And with 0% take from producer. And make online banking and instant wire transfer as easy as using paypal. Two factor authentication using phone is a fucking plague.
Stop using Google as a verb. "Search" company name.
The old way (2007ish - 2026) is the shit way.
Genericize the word google so their trademark becomes useless. Google everything on duckduckgo
Yeah they will often just USPS that.
Step 6: Product comes shipped in an Amazon box using Amazon couriers :facepalm:
At least you tried
happened to me a few times too 😅 I guess it's not worth for a company to have multiple different shipping procedures if most of their orders are via Amazon anyway
half of you wouldn't have survived the pre-internet world, "oh no i have to shop locally??"
Got that backwards. These sites killed local businesses and even local specialty chains. No amount of "consumer choice" is going to fix this because like 80% of the business is driven by other businesses.
Yelling at like your local mid size companies for buying things off amazon would do a lot more good than just yelling at random people on the digital street.
I miss shopping locally.
Specially in the mall.
Hot day, in the middle of summer? Go to the mall. soak up the air conditioning, wander through the stores checking out the cool shit, grab lunch in the food court, maybe grab a movie after wards, hit up a few more stores, maybe grab a show if one was happening somewhere, then go home for dinner.
Malls always depressed me tbh. Everything just felt off.
They are monuments to consumption, and there is no ethical consumption.
If Amazon's algorithms detect that a seller is offering the same item cheaper elsewhere (including on the seller's own e-commerce site, then Amazon will immediately strip the listing of the "Add to Cart" or "Buy Now" buttons. The algorithm will also hide or suppress the listing from search results. And for repeated or severe violations (especially related to price-gouging), Amazon may suspend or terminate selling privileges completely for sellers selling cheaper off site. And they call this "Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy". F- Amazon.
Ugh. Fuck Amazon
Source?
A few sources around, here's one from https://news.law.fordham.edu/jcfl/2024/03/13/understanding-amazons-alleged-anticompetitive-practice:
the FTC claims Amazon punishes third-party sellers for offering lower prices on other websites.[2]
Select Competitor – Featured Offer Disqualification (SC-FOD).[6] SC-FOD is an algorithm that prevents a seller from “winning the Buy Box” if it finds that the seller sells that product for less on a Select Competitor’s website.[7]
References for 2, 6, 7:
[2] Complaint at 85, FTC v. Amazon, W.D. Wash. Case No. 2:23-cv-01495-JHC (Nov. 2, 2023).
Thanks
While I support the intent, I've personally found that:
I just try to buy what I can locally and avoid the larger companies that are all pretty disgusting. While Bezos is definitely the richest and most evil, make no mistake that the other companies would be in his place in a heartbeat if they could.
Or - as a Canadian - they DO have an online store but it doesn't ship here :-(
Yeah, I was going to say the advice in the meme in kind of dumb. I can order the same product on Amazon or the website of the product, but on Amazon returns are super easy, shipping is overnight, and I am not dealing with some weird 3rd party payment system.
Now if the product is made locally at a small business, and is similarly priced, then absolutely, that's my preferred way to do things.
Yes, I don't ever shop with Amazon, but they use their massive anti-competitive scale to be the most convenient option.
I simply reject that convenience, because fuck Amazon. Fuck billionaires. Fuck executives. And fuck shills.
I'll just pay $10 more and wait an extra week for my toaster. This is nothing compared to shopping in the 90s.
Step 6: Company is a US only company, and Im not in the US so it'd be a lot more money due to increased shipping fees, later shipping times, and import fees.
Haven't used Amazon for the last three years. There are plenty of other online shops in my country. Unlike Amazon, they are not flooded with cheap noname trash, but have a well curated inventory.
Tried that, the company fulfills web orders with Amazon.
Now I just buy local.
The disappearnce of brick-and-mortar stores is one the biggest catastrophes caused by Big Tech. The 'free to return if dissatisfied' option creates higher prices for everything you'd have avoided purchasing at the store, along with the added environmental costs of two wasted trips, and the product possibly being disposed-of.
The brick-and-mortar loss also means that consumers of necessities have far fewer options to buy locally.
This isn't always an option, unfortunately. Some books for example are only available on Amazon. When I go to the author's website, they just link to Amazon.
I tried that last year with a power supply, but the little German company that made it sold it only on Amazon :-(
Yeah, this is frustrating. Especially when they don't tell you they use Amazon for fulfillment, and Amazon shows up at your door unexpectedly.
Any suggestions on buying lots of cheap random electronic parts for projects and avoiding racking up shipping costs from ordering from multiple sites? E.g. I had to order ~20 different cheap parts (boost converter, charge controller, micro switches, a cheap devboard, USB breakouts, etc) for a personal hobby project recently. I used Amazon unfortunately. Curious about good alternatives for this kind of stuff.
Same boat, somewhat. I keep a digikey cart and when it gets big enough, I'll order there. There's also digikey marketplace but the shipping costs aren't great. I need to start comparing prices on Newegg and Mouser to Amazon.
The Amazon shit is sketchy but it's cheap and fast for things like interconnects, boost modules, i2c boarded sensors, etc.
Just aliexpress has all the same stuff cheaper but when you need a widget by the weekend, it doesn't work.
One big antitrust issue with Amazon is that they require vendors to use their fulfillment services in order to get the best terms on being listed on Amazon: prime shipping, etc.
That deal for shipping/fulfillment itself isn't too bad, even if they charge a pretty high price to sellers for the service, because the seller is actually getting something valuable in return, and it's hard for Amazon to promise fast shipping not in their control.
But the FTC lawsuit a while back alleged that Amazon does more than that. They downgrade the search results of anyone who isn't a paying advertiser, so they're squeezing sellers in more ways than one. And worse, part of the contract for fulfillment is a prohibition on competing with Amazon's listed price.
So if you're selling something that you need $30 to earn a profit, and it costs you 40% to list on Amazon, you'll need to list it at $50 on Amazon in order to make your profit, and you've hamstrung yourself from selling that same thing for $30 on your own site and turning the same profit by cutting Amazon out. That's what's anticompetitive and harms the consumer, even when that consumer intentionally avoids Amazon and goes straight to the seller's own site.
If you can find a unique product or part number for the product, searching that will often bring up a short list of sites that sell that exact product.
I haven't bought a single thing off Amazon in over ten years, since they pissed me off. I don't even comparison shop Amazon to see whether I'm paying more, that's how much I hate them. I'll pay more to not use Amazon. Also, nothing I'm buying online is something I can't do without, and sometimes I just don't buy it--shocking, I know.