The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#131

Post by bilsbie » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 11:57 PM UTC

wredcoll wrote: post #42

bilsbie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m having trouble finding alternatives. Do I really have to go to four or five different websites to buy my supplements.

Um. Exactly how many supplements do you need?

I don’t mind sharing in the interest of discussion:

600mg tongkat Move free advanced 3 pills 1700mcg l-5 methyltetrahydrofolate Zinc picolinate 22mg Taurine 3g Copper 2 mg Selenium K2 mk7 45 mcg Creatine monohydrate Magnesium as needed Sunbathing for vitamin d

Going for general health/longevity, joint health, and fighting high homocysteine (mthfr homozygous)

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#132

Post by agnishom » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 11:58 PM UTC

When I lived in the US, I tried to order stuff from Amazon as less as possible. The problem was the lack of decent urban areas and public transport. Going to a shop in my city where they had the same thing which I wanted would take the better part of a day.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#133

Post by cavisne » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 11:59 PM UTC

"Do you think police have too much funding?" No.

"For context, the US federal government spent $53 million on public education in 2022" Hilarious, the federal government probably spent more on photocopiers for the department of education in 2022 than that.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#134

Post by subjectsigma » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 11:59 PM UTC

As someone who is very personally interested in the intersection between different political opinions, I really like how this article side-stepped individual issues to present the argument that Amazon is bad as a whole. “Ok, you don’t connect with BLM? Let’s talk about something else.” I find very, very often that conservatives & liberals are talking past each other and cannot even understand why the other side is making the argument they are. This is the first time in a while I’ve seen that side-step motion applied productively.

I agree with the authors conclusion about Amazon, but even if you don’t, you should think about how polarized the nation is and what political issues we can try to coalesce on.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#135

Post by GuB-42 » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 11:59 PM UTC

apt-apt-apt-apt wrote: post #6

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/…

How do you know what cannot be faked? Is shipped and sold by Amazon enough?

All products can be faked, but I thing that GP means "cannot be faked without being obvious". Obvious fakes are not as much of a problem since Amazon has a pretty good return policy.

In the "cannot be faked" category, you can have:

- products so cheap that making a fake wouldn't make sense. for example an unbranded glass jar won't be faked because anything that looks like a glass jar but isn't a glass jar will be more expensive than a glass jar.

- products too complex and/or too low margin to be worth faking. For example, you will probably never find a fake desktop printer, as even the most simple printers are hard to make and sold at a low margin, maybe even at a loss. However, consumables are (very) high margin and you will find fakes, lots of them.

- products that have effective anti-counterfeiting systems. For example, Nintendo Switch games.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#136

Post by HYPRFLX » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 12:04 AM UTC

For LPs specifically: it's much better than paying import fees now that preorders are instant with RSS alerts. Also AWS Science/Dev Program Training is nice. Supplement labels can be cross-referenced elsewhere. Just use Nootropics Depot, Science Bio, Cosmic Nootropics,iHerb, Syntharise, etcetera. All legal/not iillicit.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#137

Post by v8410 » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 12:04 AM UTC

jkuli wrote: post #91

It's not enough to be against Amazon. You need to be against everyone who - sells tech to the gov, - undercuts prices, - exploits employees, - lobbies for regulation. Not to mention the real reason we hate Jeff Bezos. Because you wouldn't like it if I mentioned it.

Why are partial solutions unacceptable?

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#138

Post by alwa » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 12:04 AM UTC

coredog64 wrote: post #20

Aloisius wrote: post #10

I understand hyperbole is a useful rhetorical device, but it's very hard for me to take anyone who uses it seriously or trust anything they say at all. And it really doesn't help develop trust when the citations used to support one's points directly contradicts them (like that bit about Amazon providing real-time surveillance from Ring doorbells to police without owners' knowledge - the one and only thing I decided t…

It’s right there in the second paragraph of the WaPo(!) story that Ring owners opt in and can decline to share data. Does Rekognition perform poorly? Maybe it does, but it’s a best effort service, not a police officer in a box. That AWS was shamed into not selling it to law enforcement doesn’t mean law enforcement won’t have access to facial recognition, only that the vendor they choose isn’t capable of being embarra…

My favorite part:

"Amazon only stopped for PR reasons at the start of the George Floyd protests, and even then they only issued a “one-year moratorium.” This has since been extended indefinitely, but frankly that doesn’t matter."

So he's... blaming them... for doing what he wishes they would do?

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#139

Post by amanaplanacanal » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 12:05 AM UTC

jkuli wrote: post #91

It's not enough to be against Amazon. You need to be against everyone who - sells tech to the gov, - undercuts prices, - exploits employees, - lobbies for regulation. Not to mention the real reason we hate Jeff Bezos. Because you wouldn't like it if I mentioned it.

I give up. What's the real reason you hate Bezos?

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#140

Post by alwa » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 12:09 AM UTC

subjectsigma wrote: post #134

As someone who is very personally interested in the intersection between different political opinions, I really like how this article side-stepped individual issues to present the argument that Amazon is bad as a whole. “Ok, you don’t connect with BLM? Let’s talk about something else.” I find very, very often that conservatives & liberals are talking past each other and cannot even understand why the other side is ma…

It felt pretty insulting to me. It had the smug, sarcastic, holier-than-thou kind of flavor to it—"there are only 3 ways to think about things, I already know more than you do about who you are and what you believe, you must be one of THAT tribe of one-dimensional dummies, here's YOUR flavor that I've so generously dumbed down for you."

Kind of like the "didactic" voice that the young men on YouTube use when they're cosplaying documentarians or newscasters.

It works better for authors who genuinely know what they're talking about--but in most cases, the closer you look at something, the more complexity you notice, and the less breezily confident you are about it. So often, it's like this—"reheated nachos," do the kids call it? A big sassy omnibus "take" of "takes," more than, like, facts and analysis? All building up to a meaningless language-of-empowerment call to action?