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Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

theguardian.com

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Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#81

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

globalise83 wrote: post #5

In some ways Amazon's entshittification is others' gain. For example, Amazon used to be a place you could easily buy and download music files legally. But they entshittified their music product to the point where it was impossible to use. Others stepped in selling lossless format downloads with a good buyer experience and made nice businesses out of them. The same will happen in all other areas previously dominated b…

I'm not sure how. Their warehouses and deliveries are very efficient. I'm sure it cost a fortune to build out. Hard to compete with without a ton of capital.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#82

Post by lkramer »

Foorack wrote: post #77

I haven't read the article, but as a Swede I am stunned by the title. I shop from Amazon a couple of times per month, with Prime subscription. Delivery is always insanely fast (within 1-2 days), I always get exactly what I ordered, prices are always lowest compared to all competition, returns are convenient and human-free, and the additional Prime Videos is a nice bonus. I am honeslty worried of local Swedish busines…

My take is that it's because there is still competition in Sweden to keep them on their toes. Once they have decimated the Swedish high street, like they have in the UK, they will start cutting costs.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#83

Post by Mistletoe »

Foorack wrote: post #77

I haven't read the article, but as a Swede I am stunned by the title. I shop from Amazon a couple of times per month, with Prime subscription. Delivery is always insanely fast (within 1-2 days), I always get exactly what I ordered, prices are always lowest compared to all competition, returns are convenient and human-free, and the additional Prime Videos is a nice bonus. I am honeslty worried of local Swedish busines…

I am in the USA and order lots of stuff from there too and have never once had any of these issues really. I return tons of stuff to them also. Anything you don’t like or need you can just return, as Amazon has the best return policy on Earth. I’m not happy that the world is moving to monoliths like Amazon, but I use what makes life easiest for me and saves me money.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#84

Post by kristianp »

cycomanic wrote: post #66
p1dda wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's behind a pay wall

No it's not?! The guardian does not have a pay wall. They ask for you to subscribe put you can simply refuse.

It's easy to mistake it for a paywall, an enormous wall of text telling you to pay some money.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#85

Post by iLoveOncall »

Foorack wrote: post #77

I haven't read the article, but as a Swede I am stunned by the title. I shop from Amazon a couple of times per month, with Prime subscription. Delivery is always insanely fast (within 1-2 days), I always get exactly what I ordered, prices are always lowest compared to all competition, returns are convenient and human-free, and the additional Prime Videos is a nice bonus. I am honeslty worried of local Swedish busines…

I have the same experience (in the UK) and I have around 400 orders a year...

It's selection bias, people will focus on the one bad experience and ignore the 99% of time where it works as expected.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#88

Post by rjknight »

nullhole wrote: post #2

Maybe I'm prudish, but I really dislike the term 'enshittification'. It sounds ugly, and it makes what would otherwise be polite discussions vulgar. 'Degradation' seems to carry most (all?) of the same meaning and doesn't have those downsides.

I always think of it as the "Perez plateau"[1], but I will grant that this is less catchy.

[1]: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Phases-of-the-S-Curve-Pe...

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#89

Post by Boltgolt »

zeroq wrote: post #43

side note: Amazon is a marketplace, and more and more different vendors came to that place selling cheaper, shady things. They seems to have an open door policy. It's somewhat understandable. But that same strategy got adopted in many different places. Decathlon on their website offer products from other vendors. It's really shady as they advertise hassle free returns everywhere but that only applies to products sold…

This is happening everywhere, making a quick buck and completely ruining your reputation. The main Amazon competitor in The Netherlands bol.com has gone down the exact same path

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#90

Post by sometimes_all »

In India, Amazon has been quite good IFF you have Prime. Deliveries are quite quick, returns and refund rules are clear, and always get processed if eligible. If you're a frequent user, it's well worth the subscription cost.

If you don't have Prime though, it's a different place altogether. But you don't have much of a choice - Flipkart (the other alternative) is worse in every way.

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