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The Amazon tax

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Re: The Amazon tax

#321

Post by Defletter »

Henchman21 wrote: post #304
Defletter wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that this holds true for everything. For example, I only just today found out about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8yo7_Inikg&t=1157s , ie, Oracle's apparent complicity in genocide. Now that I know this, I now have to rethink things: what am I using that depends on Oracle that I need to migrate away from? This wasn't something I was concerned about just 24 hours ago. This is not to say it's not a valid…

You’re aware IBM was not just complicit but essentially made the Holocaust possible with their counting machines? Had technicians permanently staffed in the fucking camps ? The the numbers on people’s arms corresponded to IBM punch cards? Are you aware of the world you live in?

I wasn't aware of that, no. I can say that it wasn't a feature of our history lessons in school, nor in various Holocaust documentaries I have watched, nor something that came up in conversation with friends and colleagues, nor have I personally seen it when it's been posted to HackerNews (if this is anything to go by: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=IBM%20holocaust&sort=byDate&ty...). I only learned about Oracle's complicity because it has resurfaced in coverage regarding the current ongoing genocide. But you are proving my point: what do I do now with this information?

Re: The Amazon tax

#322

Post by webdood90 »

Jach wrote: post #236
abixb wrote: post #29

I've slowly shifted all my consumer purchases from Amazon to local shops and other online platforms, including Etsy. I'm now seriously contemplating deleting my Amazon account of 15 years in one whole swoop. The quality degradation is painfully apparent, and the value add of Amazon in my life has been steadily declining for a while. I've also had terrible experiences with AWS, but that's a different story. Amazon's o…

I live in Bellevue so by supporting Amazon I'm supporting a local business. It's hard to imagine replacing most of the things I get from the site with someplace else. (Though it'd be nice to have a Micro Center.) I've even started getting more grocery products as Safeway/QFC/Fred Meyer up their prices, and the Redmond Fred Meyer closed which had the best produce. Etsy is mainly useful to me for the occasional copyrig…

It's a local business to nearly everyone in the US. Anyways, it's not a local shop as the person you replied to called out.

Shopping at Amazon perpetuates the monopolization and consolidation of players in the economy. That means less competition. That means less incentive to improve the value they provide.

Seems pretty clear to me that shopping with Amazon makes things worse for everyone in the long run.

Re: The Amazon tax

#323

Post by tchalla »

runarberg wrote: post #213
tchalla wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And our behavior is that our governments give lax regulations and consumer hostile legislation to growing monopolies which abuse their power dynamics to maximize profits above all else. In other words: blame capitalism, not our value judgement. It’s very easy to blame systems and other people.

Sometimes the easy one to blame is also the right one to blame. But I disagree though. Blaming human nature is much much easier. It means there is nothing we can do except give up and live with it. In contrast, blaming the system means we can still change the system, and changing the system is extremely hard, especially when the rich and powerful have so much interest in keeping the system the way it is.

The system is made for humans, not laws of physics.

Re: The Amazon tax

#324

Post by jonhohle »

jambalaya8 wrote: post #241
delegate wrote: post #224

This has been true for years on Amazon and is true for most big services now. Over time the concept of search has mutated from 'locate the exact item I'm looking for' to 'show me a list of semantic search results'. Somehow nobody noticed. Oh and of course those are not random results - you can literally feel how the platform is trying to nudge you into buying what IT wants, not what you wanted. The search is just pur…

Searched for jeans a few days ago. I got about 3.3% each, scattered through several dozen pages, of two American brands; 1.65% each another couple of brands; a smattering of one or two results for another couple of brands; the remaining approximately 90% were the almost exact same jeans (maybe the same), under several names... pages and pages of them. It is almost impossible to shop for clothes on Amazon now. It used…

It’s not just clothes. Unless the item is a very specific name brand thing, I find Amazon nearly useless for discovery. It’s effectively Ali Express with much higher markup and much faster shipping. I suppose there’s a market for that.

Unfortunately for them, I’d rather buy cheep Chinese crap from a local retailer where there is still a human buyer in the loop choosing something that’s not the lowest bottom of the barrel junk.

When I worked there a long time ago I spoke to the search team about moving more towards a New Egg style filtering model. When I’m looking for something there’s often very specific features I want. Now they’ve decided to go in the complete opposite direction and it doesn’t matter what type, they’ll show me the items they think I want. I’ve bought more than a few wrong things due to this. Returns must not factor into whatever fees they’re making off everything else.

Re: The Amazon tax

#325

Post by adolph »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #134
abixb wrote: post #29

I've slowly shifted all my consumer purchases from Amazon to local shops and other online platforms, including Etsy. I'm now seriously contemplating deleting my Amazon account of 15 years in one whole swoop. The quality degradation is painfully apparent, and the value add of Amazon in my life has been steadily declining for a while. I've also had terrible experiences with AWS, but that's a different story. Amazon's o…

eBay is my first go-to.

publicsurplus.com has everything a person might need and you are supporting local government.

You can find yourself a nice laptop for cheap. "It's got a cop CPU, an i5 10th gen. It's got cop RAM, cop SSD, cop 12v power input."

Re: The Amazon tax

#326

Post by lucianbr »

Henchman21 wrote: post #304
Defletter wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that this holds true for everything. For example, I only just today found out about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8yo7_Inikg&t=1157s , ie, Oracle's apparent complicity in genocide. Now that I know this, I now have to rethink things: what am I using that depends on Oracle that I need to migrate away from? This wasn't something I was concerned about just 24 hours ago. This is not to say it's not a valid…

You’re aware IBM was not just complicit but essentially made the Holocaust possible with their counting machines? Had technicians permanently staffed in the fucking camps ? The the numbers on people’s arms corresponded to IBM punch cards? Are you aware of the world you live in?

> Are you aware of the world you live in?

Certainly this world comprises many other things than the Holocaust and IBM's support of it. Perhaps your awareness is lacking if you think that is the main thing to be aware of in this world.

Re: The Amazon tax

#327

Post by SoftTalker »

delegate wrote: post #224

This has been true for years on Amazon and is true for most big services now. Over time the concept of search has mutated from 'locate the exact item I'm looking for' to 'show me a list of semantic search results'. Somehow nobody noticed. Oh and of course those are not random results - you can literally feel how the platform is trying to nudge you into buying what IT wants, not what you wanted. The search is just pur…

I still sometimes get "zero results" on general DDG searches, if I'm specific enough. Never on a shopping site, though.

Re: The Amazon tax

#328

Post by PowerElectronix »

Enshittification for everyone that comes into contact with a corporation run with only profit (and profit growth) in mind.

One would be tempted to think that doing things different and actually providing a good service for consumers, sellers, etc would be a multibillion dollar business, but somehow it seems like it isn't.

Re: The Amazon tax

#329

Post by knollimar »

laurencerowe wrote: post #317
mutinyy wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday I tried to buy a light bulb for my kitchen hood on Amazon. I searched for 130V 40W light bulb. I ended up buying a 120V one because I gave up trying to find the one I wanted. I think I'll run over to the hardware store next time.

Is there a difference between a 120V bulb and a 130V bulb? I thought we basically had 110-130V North American voltage and 220-240V Euro and others voltage as the actual voltage you get from the grid varies within a range.

Yeah no way theres a transformer stepping up the voltage in his hood.

Its 130V rated for safety but realistically hes getting like 115

Re: The Amazon tax

#330

Post by SoftTalker »

paconbork wrote: post #285
muvlon wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has that actually happened in retail stores? All I can find on the topic is about online purchases (or ordering/paying online and picking it up at the store). To do this in brick-and-mortar, you'd have to use remotely programmable price tags and detect who is looking at what, which seems doable, but then you still run into all kinds of tough questions with no good answers. If I happen to see the price tag change from…

"Please scan this item with our app to see the price"

As of now, my local supermarkets still have price tags on the shelves. And if there's a higher price at the register when the item is scanned, they will honor the shelf price if you call it to their attention. The biggest supermarket now has e-ink shelf tags so I assume those are synced with their item database so that doesn't happen anymore.
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