I haven’t used amazon for a while (and haven’t had prime in years) and a couple months ago, after reading some posts about amazon I decided to see what my life would have been like if I had used amazon exclusively for all my non-grocery shopping.
Rules: I only buy it if it’s Prime eligible, otherwise it’s skipped. If I bought something because it’s on sale, I take the lowest price amazon ever offered for that item (with prime). Otherwise, I take the price of the item on the same day.
Results: https://i.imgur.com/kDeM2pM.jpg I saved about $330 by not having a prime membership and buying stuff only from prime eligible stores. However I spent at most 27 more days waiting for items (in reality a lot of these shipping times overlapped).
So the takeaway is that amazon made things easier and faster but not cheaper. I know a lot of people still think amazon is the cheapest place to get things but that hasn’t been true for a while.
Amazon is like a Turkish spice bazaar. Bargains exist, but you don't necessarily go there to save money. Rip-off artists exist, and you have to be careful.
The reason you go is for the vast variety of stuff, and the ability to buy things you can't get anywhere else all in one place.
This is how Amazon conquered large-scale retail: by out department-storing the department stores. When the stores cut back ("laser focused!") inventory in response to Amazon's pressure, Amazon expanded further, bringing in even more people and sending the big stores into a death spiral.
I did all of my online Christmas shopping through Amazon Global, and Marks and Spencer. Both ship things to my country that I wouldn't be able to get any other way.
Much like your experience, eBay (and NewEgg) has filled the general consumer electronics hole created by allowing my Prime account to lapse in 2016. I started seriously noticing diminished value mid-2014 while tracking prices for a personal workstation build during the 6 months leading up to Black Friday that year. For shits and grins, I did the same analysis again in 2017 for a second build; Amazon didn't come through for a single component even when Prime benefits were assumed.
Increased annual fee, state sales tax, proliferation of marketplace garbage, workplace stories on HN, gamed product review system...a part of me wants to see Amazon win a few shots just to keep the competition in check, but dropping Prime after 10 years of patronage wasn't particularly difficult and I haven't regretted the decision since.
Savings because other stores didn't charge tax and Amazon did shouldn't count, because that'll change soon as the Supreme Court overturned Quill earlier this year
Money leaving my layman bank account today looks all the same regardless if it's colored product, shipping, or tax. When the Supreme Court's decision becomes the global ecommerce status quo, a reassessment of value will clearly be in order. Until then...
I understood and wasn't contesting the implication. I was merely objecting to the notion that a favorable purchasing decision made by a consumer today by today's rules "shouldn't count" because a legal decision that will normalize ecommerce but has yet to be acted upon at scale (as perceived by consumers) is imminent.
Cancelling my prime was one of the best thing I did for my future self. I really didn't need half of the crap I ordered from Amazon. It's mostly overpriced, poorly refurbished or low quality junk that I could get for half the price directly from aliexpress.
But more importantly, without 1 day delivery on tap it makes you think harder whether you really need to waste your money on yet more junk or if you can live without it. Unsurprisingly, you don't really need it most of the time.
And if you're not buying from Amazon, you're not complicit in the company abysmal treatment of its employees, or total disregard for intellectual property laws (fake items are everywhere on amazon)
Promoting Aliexpress as an alternative in the first paragraph is a bit inconsistent with the j’accuse on disregard for intellectual property laws on Amazon.
The Aliexpress deals are likely over, since they were being subsidized by the US postal service who have pulled out of the treaty that encouraged it.
In my opinion, it's not as underhanded on aliexpress as it is on amazon: when I buy the brand name on amazon I never know whether I'm getting the real deal, a hastily repackaged used item sold as new, or a knock off. Aliexpress is only knockoffs, and they are marked as such so I know what I'm getting: I'm paying the price of a knockoff, not retail for the genuine item. If I want the real deal, then I'm getting it from a physical store that doesn't have a tainted supply chain.
To add to the above, most big box stores carry the same brands for a price very close to Amazon (you'd be surprised how often that's the case of you checked before buying on Amazon)
At a big box, I don't have to wait for the delivery company to fail me, I'm not lining amazon's pockets, and if it's cheaper on Amazon most stores will price match anyway.
That was good advice when public libraries were less used. But these days (at least in the American cities I frequent), they are massively popular.
Which means if you reserve a new release, be prepared to wait. Even with 17 copies of a particular newish book, the wait for it from my local library system is in excess of eight months.
Wait eight months, or drop $11.95 at Amazon? Easy choice.
>> Which means if you reserve a new release, be prepared to wait.
Except we wait 2 or 3 years for the damn thing to be written; a little delayed gratification until your hold comes up is such a minor, first-world problem.
Popular public libraries are most definitely better than the alternative. They can justify better funding and bigger budgets, improve physical facilities and move into new service areas.
Yep. 95% of the world doesn't live in the imaginary retail utopia the Amazon-haters do. For the vast majority of people, Amazon opens up new retail possibilities.
Yes, Amazon has ethical/moral/UX/etc... issues. Be critical of its actual sins, not imagined ones.
You're assuming that every location has equal retail possibilities.
I'm not talking about places where bookstores, electronics stores, etc... closed because of Amazon. I'm talking about the vast majority of places that never had bookstores, electronics stores, etc... in the first place.
This is a very American sort of story. The long hours, the lousy paychecks, the lack of universal healthcare, the reliance on fast food. It's possible to not live like that, but America doesn't want to.
The concept of "individual freedom" is the single most powerful driver of public opinion in the USA.
If you're a politician and you want to keep those private insurance lobbying checks coming, all you have to do is tell your constituents that public healthcare would take away freedoms.
Repeat for public transit, reducing the defense budget ("they're fighting for our freedom" is an extremely common refrain), offering even basic human care for migrants, etc, ad nauseum, etc.
> Amazon Prime helps alleviate the pressures of a sped-up economy. I don’t use it just because I’m lazy and love to stream “Transparent.” I use it (and other timesaving apps like Seamless and Uber) because I’m overworked and one-click ordering spares me time.
That's modern slavery for you: you give away your most precious, limited resource - your time. In return you get the illusion of wealth, in the form of money, only you have to spend it all just to stay afloat until the next payday.
Pretty much off topic, but the opening paragraph of this article highlights what I think is a little-known benefit of Prime membership. The author notes that "sharing an Amazon Prime account with loved ones is surprisingly intimate" but it doesn't have to be if you use Amazon Household:
"Sharing benefits through Amazon Household requires both adults to link their accounts in an Amazon Household and agree to share payment methods. Each adult keeps their personal account while sharing those benefits at no additional cost."[1]
It's limited to two adults (plus teens), so not a solution for all cases.
These anecdotes really just mean Amazon is in the same position as Walmart and Amtrak - serving the underclass, not as a deliberate specialty - but because it's the lowest common denominator and they've fallen through the cracks everywhere else.
Just because OP themselves cannot fathom checking other (more appropriate) vendors first or doing independent product research, does not mean that it's impossible. If I had family members addicted to Amazon in this way, I'd be worried about them being blatantly ripped off from Amazon's dark patterns, or being harmed from co-mingled counterfeit goods. Somehow Amazon has built a business around people just accepting these pitfalls, and I still can't understand how. That sunk cost of "Prime" must be a hell of a drug.
Wasn't long ago that most of Australia was super hyped to see amazon come here and then it did open and it was the same price as everything else that we already had here. I wonder if a higher minimum wage here meant they weren't able to cut the prices lower than everyone else.
I don't want to take the spot away from the topic of the article, but what horrified me the most is the appalling conditions of end-of-life care of the health system in the US. If there is one reason I'm glad I was born in a EU country is that I can escape that madness when the time comes.
I gave up my prime membership at the last renewal about four months ago and haven't been to the site much since.
Granted, I was in Portugal at the time which doesn't get great shipping apparently? Not that I was going to order anything, I had trouble enough getting my luggage back as it was!
That being said, I'd been pretty turned off by the articles about their workforce at their warehouses, and also this recent development with their headquarters initiative.
In my opinion NYC should have come up with a package to present to Amazon and then turned around and used it to benefit small businesses. Why we're throwing money at one of the world's largest corporations by revenue is quite beyond me, especially for a city like NYC which could use that money for their subways and already is incredibly vibrant economically.
I enjoy going to the stores, chatting with people, touching products, and trying things on. It's mild exercise, it's social, it's something to do, so for me it's pleasant, and I'll pay a premium if I have to because of that.
The one thing I do like about Amazon is that I've heard it's more energy efficient for products to be sold that way as opposed to in individual brick and mortar stores which need heat and electricity.
Finally, I really enjoy putzing around on AWS and feel less conflicted about using that (especially since my personal use is all on the free tier) since their engineers and tech teams are well compensated (although I've heard and have no idea if this is true, worked hard).
All that being said, if I was in any of the articles situations or lived in a less dense locale shopping wise, I'm sure I'd use it or similar services. It is certainly true that there is a ton better variety online for a lot of items.
I just quit my Prime Membership - wow, I had to click so many confirmation buttons, it was funny. At least 3-5 times click ok, really ok, are you sure it wasn't a mistake? It just too expensive with little value anymore.
I also started shopping books at Barnes & Noble primarily, although it is less convenient, I feel better to keep supporting alternatives.
Bad news: you aren't done. You've hardly started. You're going to have to keep clicking no to reinstating Prime, if you use Amazon at all. You'll be confirming this again and again before Amazon will let you do anything on the site, for days or weeks, or more. Dark pattern after dark pattern. Market power creates endless abuse.
I haven't had full Amazon for long (Australia) so I won't be giving it up just yet. It's a godsend when you're mobility impaired and can't get to all the brick and mortar stores. At the moment they're not running a full Marketplace and they're definitely not pricing as aggressively as they could in Australia.
Uh, okay, done. Amazon is a pretty crappy place to shop unless you buy into the lock-in and let them control you. Prices are high and shipping take a long time. eBay is much better.
Sorry to hear that. In general I find eBay's rating system for buyers/sellers much more reliable than Amazon's. But of course I don't always shop at eBay. Going to the sites of individual companies that sell the product I want saves a lot of money too. And there's generally better support.
I can do this because unlike Amazon eBay doesn't pressure me with incentives and sunk costs to only shop there.
There is no meaningful rating system for buyers anymore given that you can't leave any buyer negative or even neutral feedback... even if they never pay.
I live very well without Amazon, what am I missing? Granted, I live in a dense European capital where there's a grocery store open every day till mid-night located 200 meters away from my building's entrance and I do prefer to buy my books directly from a book-store, but even when I used to live a little farther away from a grocery store I was still not purchasing anything from Amazon or Amazon-like websites.
It's Eastern Europe, actually, and yeah, we kind of love it and I must admit I miss stores being open post 6PM whenever I visit European cities located more to the West.
I wouldn't work in a company that utilizes AWS in any kind of way.
How would you know? Any company of any size is going to use AWS directly or indirectly. The HR people won't know that some contracted vendor uses it for their API.
Rules: I only buy it if it’s Prime eligible, otherwise it’s skipped. If I bought something because it’s on sale, I take the lowest price amazon ever offered for that item (with prime). Otherwise, I take the price of the item on the same day.
Results: https://i.imgur.com/kDeM2pM.jpg I saved about $330 by not having a prime membership and buying stuff only from prime eligible stores. However I spent at most 27 more days waiting for items (in reality a lot of these shipping times overlapped).
So the takeaway is that amazon made things easier and faster but not cheaper. I know a lot of people still think amazon is the cheapest place to get things but that hasn’t been true for a while.