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Reasons not to buy from Amazon

stallman.org

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Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon

#21

Post by tacos »

I've only seen rants of this tone, format and length from bona-fide crazy people. There's a line here and I hope stays on the side where I can continue to respect him.

If he wants me to use GPL3 I'll take it under advisement. If he wants to tell me where to buy toothpaste I won't.

I'm a fan of outsiders, the 60s, the whole deal. I love the whole idea of Stallman. I want more Stallmans! I also disagree with nearly everything he says while agreeing almost completely with the results he seeks to achieve.

But posts like this pain me regardless of the source.

Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon

#22

Post by scrumper »

codewithcheese wrote: post #17

"A study found that people who read novels on the Amazon Swindle remember less of the events." You only need to make a good point once. Adding additional lesser points just weakens it. A fair few dubious and ridiculous claims here, same sort of claims can be made about any multi-national. No smoking gun here.

This does ring true; I'm sure I remember a study of retention of read material comparing paper books with e-readers which supports that point. I think it was something to do with not having an easy way to intuit position in a book with e-readers.

Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon

#23

Post by _broody »

basseq wrote: post #2

Stallman raises some interesting points, but calling the Kindle a "Swindle" doesn't make for a very rational argument.

It's very childish, which is sadly a recurring occurrence with Stallman at times.

All of the tech giants (Apple/Google/MS/Facebook/etc.) are as shady as the Amazon described here on a regular basis even when it's completely unnecessary, unfortunately. Amazon has drawn a lot of bad publicity to itself due to the poor treatment of its blue collar workforce (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3641184 ), but I can't imagine the rest of the big players being any better... Only difference is that due to the nature of its operation, Amazon is forced to operate its sweatshops in U.S. soil.

Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon

#24

Post by baddox »

picks_at_nits wrote: post #13
basseq wrote: post #2

Stallman raises some interesting points, but calling the Kindle a "Swindle" doesn't make for a very rational argument.

So, are you saying that Stallman makes points 1, 2, 3, ... n , and many are interesting, but point 37 is irrational? Or are you saying that although many of the points are interesting, point 37 is irrational, therefore the entire thing--points 1 though n --is tainted?

I'm not basseq, but I'm saying that making childish pun insults is not a prudent way to pose arguments, including valid arguments.

Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon

#26

Post by theVirginian »

Sabotaging Customers: I have no reason to believe that they would ever sabotage me.

Restricting and Shafting Customers: I have never had a problem with my kindle or any other media from Amazon. If I ever do I'm sure I can find an alternative source in a matter of minutes.

Censorship: They are Amazon's servers and it is their right to enforce their rules on them. If Wikileaks believes that they were unlawfully cut off then they should take Amazon to court.

Exploiting workers mercilessly: good luck finding a retailer that has not done this at some point. This is an unfortunate reality as far as I am concerned and while I support fighting for better worker's conditions, I see no reason that refusing to buy through Amazon helps the problem.

Shafting others in the publishing world: I'm not a publisher, their industry is none of my concern. If Amazon is so bad for them then I'm sure there is another way they can sell their books.

Dodging Taxes: The government should close tax loopholes. I don't blame Amazon for being competitive. If it's legal it's fair as far as I'm concerned.

Other reasons: These all seem to be trivial to me though I don't feel like typing out the reasons why.

I've never had a problem with Amazon particularly and this article seems rather strange to me.

Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon

#27

Post by Crito »

specialk wrote: post #16

> "Amazon cut off service to Wikileaks, claiming that whistleblowing violates its terms of service. It had no need to go to court to prove this, because if you rent a server from Amazon, you have no rights." I find it highly amusing that RMS doesn't seem to agree with Amazon's restrictive ToS agreement but his GNU software license is one of the most restrictive licenses out there. If I include a GNU licensed library…

> "his GNU software license is one of the most restrictive licenses out there."

Of "open source" licenses perhaps. In the grand scheme of software licenses, it is pretty fucking permissive. Most software licenses don't let you anywhere near the source, don't let you modify the code, and don't let you redistribute or share the software.

Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon

#28

Post by bsimpson »

Zikes wrote: post #9

I'm finding there are a growing number of very good reasons to never buy anything from anybody. Some companies I boycott myself, for some of those reasons, but I can't fault anybody on their choices of whether or not to participate in any boycotts. Edit: That said, I think posts like these are necessary so that consumers can make the sort of informed decisions they need to make regarding whom they purchase from.

> never buy anything from anybody

reminds me of this College Humor video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqevO_zrxsA

Re: Reasons not to buy from Amazon

#29

Post by baddox »

philtar wrote: post #11
basseq wrote: post #2

Stallman raises some interesting points, but calling the Kindle a "Swindle" doesn't make for a very rational argument.

What he calls it really makes no difference to the actual argument. Only your perception of it.

Given that this is very clearly intended as a persuasive article, perceptions are important.
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