Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

blog.thenewoil.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 221 posts

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#101

Post by nextos »

SoftTalker wrote: post #4
Animats wrote: post #2

A real reason to avoid Amazon is fake merchandise. I'd been buying a vitamin supplement from them for years. Then they sent me a notice that it was being recalled as a fake.[1] (Archive [2]) They paid a refund for the last purchase. But that's all. Amazon won't respond to questions about what was in it or who the real seller is. I no longer buy anything from Amazon that could be faked. [1] https://www.amazon.com/ask/…

Good rule of thumb is that if it goes on or in your body do not buy it from Amazon.

I think it's even worse. They have a completely chaotic returns policy meaning they re-sell used things pretending they are new all the time. I stopped buying from Amazon UK after I received 6 opened and used items in just 20 orders. Some were even missing components. I even received used underwear (yuck!) from a brand that sells boxers inside sealed packages and doesn't allow returns. I heard some scammers were exploiting this returns policy by purchasing phones, installing malware, and sending them back to Amazon.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#102

Post by jedimastert »

One of the people I follow on tiktok suggested abstaining from shopping from large corporations for Lent except for sundays. I tried it and ended up finding out some things about myself I did not realize, which I guess is kind of the point.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#103

Post by zhivota »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #72
lisper wrote: post #62

I would love to avoid Amazon, and indeed I would love to support local retailers, but more often than not it is simply impossible. The only way I can find out if a local vendor carries an item I'm interested in, and if they have it in stock, is to physically go there. The amount of time that requires is orders of magnitude more than what it takes to order the item on Amazon, where I am all but guaranteed that it will…

I've been hoping someone would build the same thing. Even without delivery, I'd love to be able to search for products across multiple stores through a web interface and see their availability in a map view, with price and in-stock status. I would be happy to go to the store and buy it, as long as I only need to make one trip and I know it will be in stock and at a certain price.

I worked on this, it was called Milo.com. we had crazy scraping and xml/csv feed ingestion. It was a terribly difficult business because most retailers hated us. ebay bought it and eventually killed it.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#104

Post by Dylan16807 »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #48
jvanderbot wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be this guy, really, but did you consider that hypocrisy and anti-hypocrisy is basically what OP meant by "feelings" since they are based on (mostly self) perceptions? (Have you ever pointed out hypocrisy to someone? They are quick to tell you why you're wrong - it's absolutely about self justification not external judgement)

I don't understand the point you're making. Someone is living according to their principles and we're playing games with semantics as if "feelings" is a bad word? Okay, you win, it "feels" better to satisfy one's values.

If those principles don't make a difference on the world around you then it's not bad but it is quite limited. It's fine to do things that don't make a difference, but it's important to keep perspective.

In particular, if you have an urge to make a difference on a regular basis, that's a great urge, but you need to make sure you don't fall into the trap of doing something that feels good but has negligible effect and thinking the job is done.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#105

Post by paxys »

______ wrote: post #57

A good first step is not paying for Prime. 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 c…

Especially since the base Prime Video has ads now, so that aspect of your prime membership is useless.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#106

Post by gibbitz »

djoldman wrote: post #30

Regardless of what one thinks about Amazon, one's actions have approximately zero effect on it. 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.

I've been a vegetarian for 30 years. Big beef is still raging despite all the Hindus and abstainers. Doesn't mean I'll grill a burger and chow down. It would be great if suddenly the world woke up and thought about consequences of what they do in a myriad of things. It will never happen, but acting unaware when you are aware is something you have to live with. Some people think morals are divine, but I guess some people think of them as "feelings".

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#107

Post by ranger_danger »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #58

> Amazon needs to be stopped, and legislation will not do so. Only its loyal consumers – who keep the beast alive – can do that by taking their money elsewhere. 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…

Thank you for your perspective, I 100% agree.

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."

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#108

Post by vector_spaces »

lisper wrote: post #62

I would love to avoid Amazon, and indeed I would love to support local retailers, but more often than not it is simply impossible. The only way I can find out if a local vendor carries an item I'm interested in, and if they have it in stock, is to physically go there. The amount of time that requires is orders of magnitude more than what it takes to order the item on Amazon, where I am all but guaranteed that it will…

> via a partner like doordash

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

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#109

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

hinterlands wrote: post #64
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #58

> Amazon needs to be stopped, and legislation will not do so. Only its loyal consumers – who keep the beast alive – can do that by taking their money elsewhere. 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…

The other problem are people doing price arbitrage. You find the item on eBay and think to yourself, "cool, I'd rather patronize a small business" - but as it turns out, the item is drop-shipped from Amazon, Walmart, or the like.

Yep, had this happen to me a couple of months ago, for a bike component. Incredibly annoying, since they still marked up from the Amazon price!

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#110

Post by curamious »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #58

> Amazon needs to be stopped, and legislation will not do so. Only its loyal consumers – who keep the beast alive – can do that by taking their money elsewhere. 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…

> ps. Amazon employee #2,

wow, that must have been quite an interesting experience. Do you have any anecdotes that you were willing to share about the experience. Thanks

Post reply on HN