i have reverted to this lifestyle, and i love it. creating the 5-6 accounts for local platforms was a slight hassle, but now i can enjoy the benefits of a "small" company which still cares about what the customer thinks.

I started boycotting Amazon back in 1999 when they pulled the 1-click patent bullshit. I loved them before that.

I barely manage, but I suvive.

Sometimes shop around on amazon. Find something I like or need: look for the website of the producer or distributor, order directly from them. Usually same price, sometimes cheaper. Fuck the middleman.

Shop local when you can

Not sustainable for me, I price it from time to time and local stores are usually, at best, double what Amazon or even Walmart has it for and that's if the local store even has what I'm looking for to begin with

So my choices are Amazon or Walmart (or similar big name stores) and going to Walmart....yea fuck that it's a last resort for everything but groceries...

There's so much counterfeit crap there, and a million low-effort rebrandings of the same stuff you can get on AliExpress for cheaper.

I keep seeing this over and over, but I order a lot off Amazon and I've never had a problem with it. Don't know if I'm just incredibly lucky or what, but the only times I get counterfeit / cheap Chinese crap is when I order it on purpose.

Ofc, those things I can just get off AliExpress too and sometimes I do when I don't mind waiting which is the biggest issue with AliExpress, the waiting

I, and probably millions of others, are shopping where the best price/value is and nothing else because we can't afford not to. I wouldn't mind shopping locally owned and paying the premium...if I could afford it. Stop pushing for expensive alternatives people can't afford and push for regulations instead.

It's getting to the point where even searching for specific products is almost pointless. I did a search for a specific phone model recently and the phone showed up as the fifth result after four prompted results and several ads. When it becomes a chore to even track down a very specific thing you want, why would I keep going back?

Amazon hardly seems viable anymore. There's so much counterfeit crap there, and a million low-effort rebrandings of the same stuff you can get on AliExpress for cheaper.

What do you mean? You don't want to buy PRAZO USB-C CABLE FOR DATA TRANSFER AND CHARGING, 3M LENGHTH, COMPATIBLE WITH LAPTOP, DESKTOP, IPHONE, ANDROID?

plus i have gotten several obviously used items when it wasn't even available as used and cost full price.

Every trip to Amazon overwhelms me with choice, then I realize it's all from Ali, then I close the tab.

I really only buy things from it now if I know what I'm looking for already

Plus their search algorithm, which used to be amazing, now pushes so much crap because the companies pay them to be at the top that the results are horrible now.

Shop local when you can,

So local strangers working to support some local guy's Maui beach house need our support instead of local strangers working to support some faraway guy's Maui Beach House?

It's all local business when their main cost is the employment of locals. Don't be a snob.

Free shipping, but at that point you should question why you are buying so much from amazon in the first place

On the contrary, during the great formula shortage of 2021/2022, Amazon Prime and the recurring delivery option was the only way I was able to get formula for my twins. Speed was important l, but so was Amazon's huge supply chain.

Since then, we live in a remote place and getting some stuff just isn't possible at the one store near us. Amazon is really one of the best ways to get things we need. Now, of course, I hate them, but I also hate Walmart and don't really have choices beyond those or a gas station convenience store.

Then imagine living without Amazon altogether… impossible

If you decline a few times they'll eventually offer you an entire month of Prime for free. I've thus never paid for Prime, ever.

No gain or loss there. Amazon's logistics are so grabasstic now that delivery lead times are about the same with or without Prime. So I don't particularly care.

I only buy commodity bullshit on Amazon anymore, and sometimes not even then. If they have it for a good price I might get a pack of crimp connectors or a roll of 3D printer filament or nuts and bolts or something. Otherwise it's just wall-to-wall Chinese word salad non-brand knockoff shit on there anymore. You may as well just shop on AliExpress since at least they're honest about hawking tat from Shenzen and it's cheaper to boot.

There have been zero times Amazon video has had something I wanna watch

Same here. It's a future that I don't want. Ads everywhere and you cannot escape.

Same. Gonna have to find some way of pirating the shows I 'purchased' on prime so that I can still go back to them.

Same. The shipping was still 2 days or more to my location. No point.

Seriously. I have stopped doing as much business with Amazon as I can. Terrible company. Bad for the planet.

Back then, Amazon was the shit. My GF at the time and I cancelled our Costco membership because shipping was good and selection was better.

Now, Amazon is shit. And now back to buying in-store whenever possible. And got a Costco membership again.

I have a running cart in my Amazon and about once every two weeks I'll hit the purchase button.

Just not worth it anymore.

Yeah it has definitely gotten worse outside urban centers, but there it's actually gotten better with same day shipping options on orders over $35. I can impulse buy shit at work and it's there when I get home.

I literally had an Amazon CSR tell me "Prime" shipping was an estimate

Or if you're not tech savvy, buy physical, wild concept I know

Now's a good time to be looking for cd's and bluray that people are purging

if you want to try an Amazon alternative of books, try ThrifBooks, they have new books as well as used ones

https://www.thriftbooks.com

There's a great website called geizhals.de which gives you a price comparison for a lot of different online stores for each product and there are almost always multiple stores that sell it cheaper than Amazon.

The junky shopping experience is especially clear once you leave and come back.

I mean, the junky shopping experience isn't unique to Amazon. You could find it in Walmart and TJ Maxx and any number of other low-income retailers a decade ago.

But that's largely a result of the pivot to Planned Obsolescence as a universal standard for consumer products. Things are junk because if they don't degrade in quality you won't be inclined to buy new ones. Your shoddy kitchen appliances break after a couple of years. Your electronics die just in time for a new release. Your IKEA furniture can't be disassembled without destroying the particle board its made from, so you need something new every time you change residences. Everything from your AC unit to your car radio to your dishwasher is designed to fail inside ten years, because that's how business gets you back in line to shop.

The prices aren’t even that good anymore.

Greedflation, baby. Everyone's got to justify their existence with steadily increasing profits.

The prices aren't even that good anymore.

That's because they have been forcing suppliers/sellers to raise their prices.

How nice for you. you must live near a metropolis and have much time on your hands and not living with something impacting your ability to leave the house. You must have multiple sources for products are already in your area because in many parts of the world amazon is supplying many things that are not sold even at local brick and mortars. And many people who live in disabilities/injuries/disease to not be able to go very far without passing out while they receive home treatment.

I hate Amazon for a variety of reasons, but I can't you seriously after you said scamazon slime.

they were not meeting their 2 day shipping promise

Oh. That's like visiting Canada for a bit, where 'prime' usually feels like a week.

Eh. I live in the middle of nowhere. It's fucking awesome cat litter comes delivered cheaper than the store 40 miles away.

Good luck using the internet without using AWS.

My retired mother was trying to look for a new Nintendo Switch dock for my niece. She asked me if she was looking at the right one on Amazon and showed me one with a picture of a real looking Nintendo Switch dock except the logo was blurred out.

I scrolled through the Amazon results and was having trouble figuring which was the real one. instead I went to the official Nintendo store and sent her the link to the switch dock from there.

Amazon is really a horrible user experience for buying anything that isn't cheap junk.

The quality of good is the big thing for me, and you can't discriminate through the reviews. They are all astroturfed.

Basically, if I can buy from anywhere else, then I will, but finding goods out there is harder now that web search is shit.

Amazon takes 50% on average now

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/amazon-gets-a-50-average-cut-of-sales-from-sellers-report/445043

They're only cutting fees in categories competing with Shein

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-reduced-seller-fees-to-compete-with-shein-2023-12

They also halted doing returns when the product is faulty. I guess there was some sort of scam going on over Christmas where a bunch of shitheads claimed items didn’t arrive so they could get money back but it’s no reason for Amazon to take it out on legit customers when it’s a simple return entry. It’s like they suddenly forgot they were online and can simply remove a line of code to avoid the scam entirely.

Breaking news: Local man finds he had two arms instead of one.

You can get better Chinese crap on Temu for 1/10 the price of what Amazon charges.

this wealth is controlled by a group so small, that they could fit on a single 747 airplane—with 260 seats left over

Honestly ridiculous state of things we have got to, that the majority of wealth in the world is owned by a group of people so small they can't even fill a relatively small 2-aisle airplane

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

stuff

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

'surprisingly easy' is laughable because I have never lived with Amazon prime

I think what a lot of people are missing in this thread is that not everyone has access to convenient physical stores and many people do have good reasons to want faster shipping.

For example, young families who don't live near a Walmart. When you realize you need a few things for the kid, it can be pretty tough to pack them up and drive however far to the store that may or may not have what you need. If they do have it, you aren't going to get reviews or many options.

My recent prime purchases have included bottle brushes, a crib mattress protector, a replacement remote for our sound bar (dog ate it), and a cheap car camera to check the baby since he started daycare last week and I'm completely paranoid about my ADHD brain leaving him in a hot car and killing him.

Did any of these need to be prime purchases? I guess not but you can see how I would want them sooner rather than later.

Walmart near me didn't have any good car cameras in my price range.

The sound bar remote was online only and was required for us to watch TV since our TV speaker doesn't work.

The bottle brushes were just convenient.

The mattress protector could have waited but would have been a gamble on ruining our very expensive crib mattress. This could have been a a Walmart purchase for sure though.

I'm not saying these were life or death purchases. They weren't and people got by just fine before Amazon. But does the convenience and reliability outweigh the monthly prime cost? For us, yes. And I admit we have become pretty dependent on it.

From what I've seen, the difference is that they either ship it same day, or wait a few days to ship it. It still arrives in the same amount of time from when it ships until I receive it, they just take their time (maybe artificially) in getting it out the door.

Exactly this. Once you place the order Amazon still has to get it from the wearhouse and ship it too you. If someone is already picking orders in that part of the wearhouse it makes sense to just grab it now rather than wait a few more days. Same with shipping. If the order is together they aren't set up to just hold it, they ship it.

You missed the opportunity to say

"A prime waste of money"

Is saving $6 on shipping really worth waiting 6 months to buy the thing?

There's weird stuff I can't find anywhere else or they're on sites that I don't trust my payment info with. Otherwise, planning ahead takes care of shipping times.

yeah same for me, about five years.

it's not just that i can still get what i need. it's also that i just 'need' way less shit.

i think i realized i had a problem when my brother in law made fun of me for having an 8-port USB charger on my bedside table (with a single cable for my phone plugged into it).

Yup, it's so easy now to buy direct. Same price, same shipping, no counterfeits. One of the things that was really annoying me about Amazon was how often my "new" item was so obviously already opened and returned, often with parts missing. I cancelled and haven't looked back.

Amazon is bad at packaging books lately. I'd say 1/3 orders are damaged. My last one was both misprinted and the envelope was unsealed, so the book arrived bent, wet, and blurry.

When the revolution comes, you won't even be able to get to your car to drive to jeff before his housekeeper beats him to death with a dyson.

But is it surprisingly wet?

I come out ahead in a sense without Prime because if I pay for overnight, it's late 80% of the time. I get the shipping refunded and the item arrives before the Free Shipping deadline.

The cardboard I don't mind, it's the packing pillows that I mind (better than the old fashion packing peanuts or bubble wrap, from a recycling perspective). I bring them to Publix for recycling because my local waste company doesn't recycle most plastics. I suspect Publix isn't either, but it's better to try than to just throw them away.

What's common between the three? "They are all headless"

I ordered 76 items from Amazon in 2023. It’s mostly hobby stuff or things for my cats.

If Amazon genuinely fits your use case, more power to you. I think the problem is the average person being duped into thinking they need Amazon Prime as the default position.