
The Anti-Amazon Alliance - kaboro
https://stratechery.com/2020/the-anti-amazon-alliance/
======
thr0w__4w4y
Way way back, when Amazon got bigger than just books, my motivation for using
them was a) very good selection (in one order, I can order bagel chips, wiper
blades and a router?) and b) price. Implicit in this was authenticity and good
customer service -- for me, if the product isn't the real thing, or the
company is a nightmare to deal with, it's a non-starter.

Well now here we are. Fake reviews, counterfeit products, most things (IME)
are actually FBA or just outright 3rd party sellers (not automatically bad,
but more opportunities for problems), their prices aren't competitive
anymore...

So, they've still got a lot of selection, although it's really more like
shopping at a bazaar, since really their website is almost nothing more than
Ebay in some sense, and I will say their customer service has almost w/o
exception been stellar. But that's not enough anymore.

We'll see. Nothing lasts forever. Either Amazon will get the wakeup call and
tighten its ship, or it will become the next Ebay/Myspace/Craigslist (I'm
deliberately just throwing the kitchen sink here).

One last footnote -- just within the last week or so, 2 Amazon tech products
that I've praised -- the Ring Doorbell and the Eero router(s) -- had firmware
problems. Ring bricked itself (firmware update gone wrong) and had to be
RMA'ed (they did it w/o any problem, and this was almost 2 years after
purchase). The Eeros went into a cycle of resets and couldn't update their
firmware.

~~~
Loughla
>their website is almost nothing more than Ebay in some sense

I would argue that it's even worse. At least, IME, the ratings at E-bay for
both sellers and products mean something. With Amazon, neither mean a damned
thing anymore. It's just a crap shoot, unless you know exactly what you're
already looking for.

Amazon used to be nice, because you could actually do product research. The
worst thing, again in my opinion, they've done is ruin the ability to actually
compare products due to sketchy reviews.

~~~
pas
> unless you know exactly what you're already looking for.

I know what I'm looking for, but most of the products are impossible to
evaluate, because there is just not enough info/data. Low res bad stock
photos, terse description, no full technical specs, etc.

And many Amazon sellers don't sell anywhere else, they don't even have a real
website, so ... good luck deciding based on that.

And since Amazon become so big, they set the bar for quality. So now the same
shit is everywhere. (Plus there's the high-end overpriced but also not perfect
segment too.)

~~~
cactus2093
I feel like you just entirely explained the situation. There is still a "high-
end overpriced" segment for all kinds of industries. Sometimes luxury goods,
but sometimes just mid-tier goods sold by companies that still follow the
high-margin traditional retail model. With an MSRP price that leaves enough
room for inefficient, high-touch stores to take a hefty margin as a middleman.

But even someone who actively dislikes Amazon such as yourself would still
rather get the lowest price and access to the largest selection, even if it
means begrudgingly putting up with a worse experience.

~~~
imtringued
I don't know why Amazon has a "lowest price" reputation on HN. Everything on
Amazon is overpriced. The only reason why I still use it is that people give
me Amazon gift cards instead of cash. I use geizhals.de to find products and
Amazon is rarely shown as the cheapest seller. The price difference isn't
insignificant. Depending on the product you can expect to pay 15% more on
Amazon and that's what I tell people giving me those amazon cards.

~~~
collyw
In Spain and I just ordered a small sofa. I wanted to not use Amazon, but
going to the company directly did cost a reasonable amount more.

------
koboll
>as John Gruber put it on Daring Fireball, “Amazon isn’t hurting for revenue
(especially now), but they are hurting for trust.”

This is empirically false. Amazon is the _second most-trusted brand in
America_.

[https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-
brands/](https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-brands/)

It's wild how easily SV types will tweet things like "No one trusts Amazon!"
when the reality outside the Bay Area is so radically and demonstrably
opposite.

~~~
bb2018
Last year I made 349 orders on Amazon and cannot think of a single time I got
a counterfeit item or felt tricked by the reviews.

I would really like to wonder of the people encountering frequent fake
products on Amazon, what categories are you shopping in? Is it fashion items
or something similar? My main Amazon purchases are household items/toiletries
and then hobby electronic parts. I haven't had any issues with these - and
beyond the review issue the Amazon pricing/delivery time/return policy is by
far the best of any site I've dealt with.

~~~
sanderjd
My distrust of Amazon started when I had a baby. It felt like about 80% of the
stuff I ordered at first was junk. Maybe not fake, I don't know, maybe I was
just being too trusting with what I was ordering, but either way it was total
junk. So I started reading reviews a lot more carefully. This didn't help, I
still just got junk. So then I started only ordering things from brand names I
recognized. A couple times I messed up and didn't order from the actual
manufacturer, and got fake or refurbished items. Then I realized if I'm just
buying brands I recognize, I can just as easily pick them up at Target for the
same price. My Amazon purchasing has dropped way down since this experience.

Edit to add: just last week I ordered a potty training seat from Amazon. Great
reviews. Supposedly installs into every kind of toilet. It shows up and,
predictably, does not work properly with any of our toilets. I wish I would
have gotten it from Target or the local consignment store where I could look
at it and ask about how it works, and I probably would have if not for the
lock-down. So Amazon is getting my business right now, but it's very
begrudgingly.

~~~
jay_kyburz
Just get a little step, it's all my boys needed.

~~~
sanderjd
You mean for the potty? She is too little, she falls through the seat. (It's
pretty early for potty training, but she is interested in it.) We do also have
a step.

~~~
wkearney99
Kohler makes a great kids seat. Probably not small enough for initial potty
training, but it worked quite well for our household toilet until our child
was about 6. Now it's on a toilet near the rec room, for guest kiddies.

Upside is it soft-closes, so as to not BANG shut.

------
tinyhouse
Good article. There are a few unknowns still.

1\. Is Google really all in on product search? Their product search is pretty
bad at the moment and it's a very challenging search space, esp when you work
with tens of thousands of retailers. Going directly to retailer/niche-platform
sites usually works better for me. For example, for music related I go to
reverb.com, for outdoor to rei.com, etc. I then to Google and Amazon for
reviews if needed.

2\. Distribution and fast shipping is something Amazon has invested in for
decades. I still need to wait longer than a week to receive items from
retailers such as REI and others. Not an easy problem to solve.

3\. Competing with Prime. Amazon ships everything including groceries. That's
a big plus of Prime. Not only you get fast shipment, but you get everything
you may need so you rarely need to use a different service. And with a credit
card from Amazon you get 5% cash back on purchases. Everything is included.

Disclaimer. I own Amazon stock.

~~~
freeopinion
Using Amazon for reviews seems ironic to me. Product reviews highlight
Amazon's single biggest weakness: trust. You can't trust any Amazon review.
Many of Amazon's other failings also center around trust.

~~~
tinyhouse
I don't disagree. But for some products it's sometimes hard to find reviews
outside of Amazon. I also learned how to spot products that have fake reviews.

------
MattGaiser
Most non-Amazon businesses are mediocre.

Most grocery stores still don't have online ordering. Years, and years, and
years, after Amazon entered the field, the other grocers have just decided to
lie down and die.

Still waiting for Chapters (a bookstore in Canada) to start sending me reading
good reading recommendations.

Still waiting on VISA to make generalized gift cards which are not miserable
to use.

I'm trying to think of any industry Amazon took out when even tried to fight
back. Most just whined their way into oblivion.

The problem with non-Amazon companies is that they don't do anything
excellently.

~~~
schnevets
My thoughts on declining industries have changed a lot since listening to the
Spectacular Failures podcast episode about Toys R Us and learning more about
the vampiric practice of Private Equity, where firms like Bain acquire
struggling businesses and win regardless of the output. Here's a similar story
from The Atlantic:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/toys-r-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/toys-
r-us-bankruptcy-private-equity/561758/)

I'm tired of people lamenting the loss of true retail and blaming disruption
for any negative changes in the world. The fact is, entire industries outside
of Bezos' world flourished from these failures and continue to thrive as long
as Chapters doesn't use big data, Visa doesn't make an intuitive gift card
option, and the family-owned grocery store doesn't have software to share
inventory online.

Most of the zombie companies had excelled at some point in the past - even a
joke company like Sears was once the pinnacle of innovation. At this point I'm
just convinced companies that decided to "lie down and die" are cases of
competing goals among the decision-makers. Some are too non-confrontational,
some are egomaniacal, some stifle innovation, some are too audacious, and lots
of executives, board members, and consultants flourish regardless of the
result.

The result is an unhealthy economy that is constantly getting conned by those
who know how to play the game. But maybe that has always been the case...

~~~
jimktrains2
Sears just confuses the heck out of me. They had everything they needed to
basically be what Amazon is now, before Amazon even existed. Heck they were
basically Amazon before the web existed.

~~~
Nasrudith
I suspect internal political dysfunction is likely to blame for that. Many
would rather have their bonus, unchallenged fiefdom, or to not have to learn
things rather than success so that is what they wind up with and afterwards
rather than admit fault by changing their ways they double down.

An online store would "take away" business from their retail fronts and would
face plentiful sabotage. It isn't like they had a frontier out west to ship to
as the "new domain" that respected their nice little boundaries.

~~~
dcposch
This is one of the most important roles of a strong leader: to swashbuckle
through this kind of misalignment.

Organizations age poorly by default. People become motivated to climb the org
chart--or, even easier, to stay in place while sprouting new branches under
themselves. People become risk averse and unimaginative.

The only way to avoid that fate is with strong leadership. Starship will
replace the Falcon 9, and I'm sure there are people on the Falcon team who are
not thrilled about that, but the show goes on anyway. Everyone is on a shared
mission. It's clear that SpaceX culturally doesn't tolerate people more
concerned with internal politics than they are with going to space. Culture
comes from the top--the founders, the CEO, and flows from there.

------
say_it_as_it_is
The thing about anti-Amazon rhetoric is that it's easily debunked because so
many people transact business through them. There's no need to take any
"expert" or activist opinion on the matter. The proof is in your own life
experience. If it's sunny outside but someone on the internet is telling you
that it's raining, you probably should discount the opinion of that person, or
ignore entirely. I have no doubt that people have been ripped off from Amazon
but their customer service handles the situation very well. I don't like that
Amazon is taking over the global economy and won't stop growing unless it is
forced to. However, they're conducting business well.

(I'm not affiliated with Amazon other than that I've been a customer since the
90s)

~~~
MattGaiser
Those activists should focus their attention on all the businesses losing to
Amazon who can’t be bothered to change their ways.

------
wpietri
I know Google's doing this for their own reasons, but I'll take the help. I've
been an Amazon customer since 1997, but their recent anti-worker actions [1]
were the straw [2] that broke the camel's back. I canceled my Prime account,
and have decided to start my product search elsewhere. Google's product search
has been long neglected, so it's great they're giving it some love.

[1] E.g. from many: [https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-fires-two-
empl...](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-fires-two-employees-
critical-warehouse-working-conditions-n1183331)

[2] Previous straws including the steady decline of their website, increasing
fraudulent goods, and so, so many bad customer service experiences.

~~~
btmiller
You might not want to hear it, but those that were fired recently were using
their company email address to organize union discussions. You just can’t do
that, no matter how justified one is to pursue unionizing.

~~~
Bahamut
That doesn't appear to be true: [https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-
protect/the-law/em...](https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-
law/employees/your-rights-during-union-organizing)

> Also, restrictions on your efforts to communicate with co-workers cannot be
> discriminatory. For example, your employer cannot prohibit you from talking
> about the union during working time if it permits you to talk about other
> non-work-related matters during working time.

~~~
csharptwdec19
At that point the devil is in the details.

I worked at a place where all emails had to be work related.

That was in the Cable TV Industry. Which, in it's own way makes sense; that
industry has a 'Owner'->'Prime Contractor'->'Subcontractor' tiered setup for
work that has always had the unspoken purpose of preventing field workers and
installers from unionizing.

Wanted to send out an email about a fundraiser or special weekend craft thing?
Had to have HR give the OK.

-IF- Amazon had and enforced such a policy it could be considered non-discriminatory. But I'm somehow doubting such a policy is fully enforced even if it is on the books.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Unionization _is_ work related.

------
BoysenberryPi
People in tech vastly overestimate the amount of people who dislike Amazon.
Your Average Joe could not be happier with Amazon and does not give a second
thought to their business practices or worker treatment.

~~~
astrea
Breaking news: people are generally selfish.

~~~
jimmaswell
You're assuming most people can afford to martyr themselves to pay extra on
every purchase out of a moral stance.

Even if someone can afford that, I think it's been demonstrated futile to try
to affect market behavior on the basis of employee treatment that's so
normalized to everyone. Boycotts have worked on other specific issues on
certain brands but it seems like people just don't care enough about Amazon's
worker treatment or Nestle's horrible activities in Africa. So if those are
never going to change without legislation then I can't really hold it against
anyone for not paying out the nose to avoid Wal Mart and Amazon.

~~~
searchableguy
so everyone pays more in the long run.

------
softwaredoug
As a consultant, I see companies struggling to compete with Amazon (or Amazon-
like companies). Most companies struggle for a couple of reasons

\- They are ego driven, with legacy execs & others relentlessly protecting
their status - whereas Amazon is relentlessly data-driven

\- They have poor incentive structures and are feature factories. They value
velocity over outcomes. Amazon, by being more data driven, is focused on being
extremely outcome oriented

\- Because of the first 2, Amazon can give people and groups a tremendous
amount of autonomy, whereas other orgs heavily micromanage or have structures
that create more politics than value

\- There's little place to hide at Amazon (which means you might work your ass
off!)

To compete with Amazon, you have to learn from them, and be prepared to adopt
their practices as the new industry norm. Not just dismiss them as some
relentless and heartless evil empire.

~~~
zbobet2012
I agree with your points, but I've also found another one that is far more
common:

They sell products at a loss to gain income in other places. For example, if
you are a content producer you are competing with a company that sells "ad-
free" video (Prime Video) attached to a low-cost service (Prime) so that they
can sell more goods online.

Amazon is killing content producers by running a negative margin content
business to do sell-through on e-commerce.

Amazon is killing video encoding business by selling a negative margin video
encoder to sell through AWS compute.

This is extremely common in every "field" Amazon is in. They run at negative
margins in one huge sector of business because it drives massive income in
another.

That is a strategy only available to... monopolies. You can't afford to
compete with them, because they are not _even trying_ to make a profit in your
sector.

~~~
Loughla
>That is a strategy only available to... monopolies.

Wait. And this is 100% not meant to be snide, it's a real question.

Isn't that the actual strategy for tech startups? Work with investor capital
long enough to get established and own the market by selling at negative
margins, then increase the price once you own the market?

~~~
davidwitt415
It is the ideal for any business, but it definitely is not for the consumer or
the economy, and this is why governments enact anti-trust legislation. The
government is supposed to enforce against monopolies, but unfortunately in the
US government this has been undermined. Matt Stoller has a great book and
e-newsletter about monopolies past and present vs. government.

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
It is interesting. There is definitely a concerted effort to take Amazon down.
I can't really say I am against that outcome. The reason I find it interesting
is that is not appear to be some grass root movement of customers ( despite
good reasons, in my opinion, to switch ). And if that is the case, the
question becomes what is behind that steady stream of anti-Amazon stories.
Competitors? Bezos crossed someone too big to cross? My guess is as good as
yours.

------
subhobroto
Amazon is successful because they allow people to order cheap consumer goods
real fast, sometimes same day and have a great return policy to boot.

The typical consumer does not care about "Made in U.S.A" vs "Made in China" vs
"Made in Taiwan". They do care whether it's $9 vs $27.

The typical consumer does not care whether the workers were paid fair wages
and given enough bathroom breaks so as not to urinate in a bottle to meet
strict deadlines. They do care whether it's $9 vs $27.

The typical consumer does not care whether the IP of a company was stolen and
cheap copies were made that were defective and buggy compared to the original
product. They do care whether it's $9 vs $27.

If the $9 product does not work, they can buy 2 more to even break even or
just return it and get something cheap instead.

Thus, Amazon has figured out how to appeal to the typical consumer.

Exploiting workers, suppliers, distributors, the country it's founded in are
some of they way they deliver that promise.

Jeff Bezos is not the monster here - he's just responding to market forces.

Until the fundamental consumer model changes, competing with Amazon is not
very logical or effective. It might make people feel good, but not effective.

Can the competition provide the same product at $9 while doing all the warm
and fuzzy things?

That's the real question.

~~~
seph-reed
> Jeff Bezos is not the monster here - he's just responding to market forces.

Market forces are not moral. You don't get a free pass on your actions because
you made a bunch of money.

~~~
dsabanin
The way different societies organize themselves is they tend to incentivize
behavior that is beneficial to their continuation. Society who incentivizes
non-beneficial behavior will eventually collapse and be replaced by a more
fitting one.

If society is to give out free passes for suboptimal behavior to anyone, it's
going to be to those who provide it the most value. Kind of like Amazon does
to a lot of people right now.

~~~
harajuku
No, you've just swallowed the marketspeak to the point where you think that
societies are actively favoring rational net benefits over short-term,
destructive cashouts. Calling unethical behavior on a massive scale
"suboptimal" and smoothing over the fallout doesn't make you sound smart and
analytical, it means you're not thinking hard enough.

Societies organize themselves and collapse all the time--what exactly makes
Amazon beneficial to the continuation of our own? It would be beneficial to
think critically about what goes on inside.

------
ozkan
Most companies are not _customer obsessed_ , that's why they fail. Let me give
you an example;

I've bought a sofa set from Coleman, and supposedly I _needed_ to measure the
door, if the sofa can fix or not. Because of the shape of the hallway and
entrance, the sleeper did not fix from door. And carrier guys did not want to
push further. Luckily, my patio's door was large enough to fit. I've called
Coleman and explained the situation, they demanded _extra money_ from me, to
deliver through patio's door, or they were gonna send it back, which I have to
pay for shipment and 15% re-stocking fee.

I come from another country, this would never be an issue. No matter what,
carrier would deliver inside my home (either through front or back, or patio's
door, or window), and never ask for extra.

If I would have bought from Amazon, I'm sure that I could send back, or speak
for another delivery option. This is why Amazon is winning, they are customer
obsessed, they are there to help, even if they lose money.

~~~
AlexandrB
Amazon lost me as a customer completely. They're not _at all_ customer
focused. Their shipping care/quality is horrendous (stuff is damaged all the
time). Any non-trivial issues (anything that can't be resolved by refunding
money, re-sending the item) have no path to resolution. Amazon.com itself is
like a flea market: tons of untrustworthy/counterfeit merchandise, fake
reviews everywhere.

Apple is customer obsessed. Amazon is efficiency obsessed.

~~~
MattGaiser
>Any non-trivial issues

What product issue is not solved by a refund or replacement?

~~~
searchableguy
Refund and replacement aren't always easy depending on where you live or which
amazon firm it is (different countries, different contractor company). But
that's not even the point, wasted time and headache is not something many want
to deal with.

------
alkonaut
These days when Sweden is often touted as “the experiment”, you can actually
go there to see what e-commerce looks like in 2020 without Amazon. It might
sound crazy but there is... no Amazon.

If I go to amazon.se I end up at amazon.de There is no same day delivery of
household products (like toilet paper). If I want a book I need to go to an
online bookstore.

Why this is I’m not sure. But it’s interesting.

~~~
lucb1e
Same in the Netherlands, it was recently announced that Amazon will open a
Dutch store (not sure when) but it was quite a shock for me when moving to
Germany that people here have no clue how to order things other than by going
to Amazon. Too much effort to use google and try different web shops if all
the web shops can come to a monopolizing marketplace instead I guess? Too bad
that the marketplace also competes with its own sellers and has deeper pockets
than any of them because they all pay the Amazon tax on every purchase anyway.

I'm trying to avoid it but between my poor German and few web shops catering
to the tiny non-Amazon-going audience, it's hard.

~~~
dalai
In Germany there are a lot of price comparison sites, geizhals and idealo
being just two examples. If I am looking for electronics the filtering
capabilities of geizhals are way better than Amazon and it is often the case
that I can get a better price in one of the many other web shops.

~~~
alkonaut
Same in Sweden. What’s missing is the rock bottom pricing, simple listing and
cheap delivery for more everyday items such as cables, toilet paper, ... The
price comparison sites tend to be good for books, electronics etc but not food
etc.

I don’t need Amazon for books or computers but I envy those who can get a
cable for $5 with shipping in a few hours when in a pickle. In that situation
I have to go to the physical store.

------
emilecantin
Lately (since the start of the COVID crisis), I find Amazon has become much
worse. 2-week deliveries instead of 2-3 days, prices that are way too high, a
lot of items out of stock, etc. For instance, I was looking at a cordless
drill, and it was twice the price of Home Depot.

Maybe Amazon will just fall on its own at some point.

~~~
TheTrotters
That says little about Amazon. There’s a pandemic.

------
marban
Meanwhile: [https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/shopify-launches-shop-a-
ne...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/shopify-launches-shop-a-new-mobile-
shopping-app/?ref=hvper.com)

~~~
lostmsu
TechCrunch started highjacking the back button :/

~~~
ignoramous
I almost always reach for the _reader mode_ button. Then there are mirrors
like these that clean up the clutter:
[https://outline.com/TxScD5](https://outline.com/TxScD5)

------
turtlebits
It's common to dogpile on whoever's in the lead. I wish companies would just
learn from Amazon and emulate the good parts.

All the news articles about worker safety are about Amazon, but in my local
grocery store chains, I see a total lack of masks and social distancing by
workers.

------
dfee
When he went and talked about AIDA - and presented the Swiffer video (which
was great) - I was anticipating the classic scene from Glengarry Glenn Ross
(aka Death of a Fucking Salesman).

This is entry level domain material for anyone involved in sales:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4PE2hSqVnk](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4PE2hSqVnk)

------
freeAgent
The most obvious problems I face with Amazon are due almost entirely to how
it's built and how it runs its third-party seller platform. There are
duplicate product listings, fake products, fake reviews, and mixed inventory
now to the extent that even buying something where "Amazon" is listed as the
seller does not prevent you from getting inventory sourced by one of the
third-party sellers of the same product. Because of this, I've found myself
more and more going to alternatives where I can actually know and trust the
retailer and supply chain. I long for the pre-platform Amazon days.

The news that Amazon has also abused sellers on their platform should shock
nobody. As soon as they got into selling house brands, the writing was on the
wall. Ironically, I can actually trust Amazon's house brands to at least be
legitimate, non-fake products even if they do tend to be cheaply made.

------
localhost
If you’re trying to buy anything on Amazon _right now_ , you’ll likely be
frustrated by shipping times. It’s super inconsistent. For example, I got a
keyboard delivered to me next day, but if I wanted to have cloth delivered it
would take a month. So I’ve started sourcing things that I want to buy
directly from the manufacturers.

I really like the Shopify model, as they (currently) don’t compete with their
customers unlike Amazon. I was rather surprised that I didn’t see more Shopify
stores at some of the sites that I bought things from recently. My one recent
example (a ski movement analysis sensor called Carv) was _incredible_ \- one
click checkout using Apple Pay without having to enter anything to order. I’m
hopeful that we can get a credible competitor to Amazon for independent
manufacturers in the near future.

~~~
rootusrootus
> frustrated by shipping times

Personally, this is the issue with the largest effect on my willingness to try
other e-commerce sites. When 1-2 day shipping becomes normal, it's hard to
want to shop somewhere else like eBay when shipping times are usually in the
1-2+ week time frame. So when Amazon started telling me it would be 3-4 weeks
before I got what I ordered (because apparently their definition of essential
doesn't overlap completely with my own), I started looking other places.

~~~
localhost
This is why I'm looking forward to Shopify Fulfillment Network [1] helping to
level the distribution playing field.

[1] [https://www.shopify.com/fulfillment](https://www.shopify.com/fulfillment)

~~~
rootusrootus
That's great to hear. I hope they have big funding, because they will need it.

------
LatteLazy
At least at the moment, amazon is the only online shop operating here in the
UK (also, Union coffee). 20 years ago, they were the only place with a
website. Now they're the only place who can keep that website working and keep
the infrastructure behind it working.

------
gerland
Is modularisation really an answer or is this another case of "A Hundred
Authors Against Einstein"? The reason why many people are still driven to
Amazon is that dealing with separate entities is just annoying as hell. Small
business is definitely less reliable than Amazon and even if client service
has been declining, it's still has a predictable baseline. Product search also
seems to be working much better in Amazon than in web search engines. If I
have to choose between one average retailer and 100 better-and-worse
retailers, then I will still use Amazon.

Also - the long tail exists almost exclusively on Amazon.

------
kup0
I have a lot of issues with Amazon in terms of worker treatment, etc - but
admittedly, out of all the online shopping I've done, I still go back to
Amazon because I get items delivered quickly, the prices in most categories
(as a Prime member with free shipping) are still competitive with only the
occasional exception, and every return I've done so far has been super easy.

Despite its problems, it's still for sure the best shopping experience online
overall for me, as much as I hate that to be true

------
einpoklum
If the competition involves other Trillion-or-so USD companies, than this is
another step in the process of concentration of capital in society - as is the
ascendance of Amazon. The amount of power Amazon already has in society is
obscenely huge - even if it's not expressed in the form of giant portraits of
Jeff Bezos hanging from the sides of buildings.

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gentleman11
Would be nice to see more competition, but not because of prices or selection
but because we want small nice-guys/girls to have a significant presence. If
google and other huge companies are the competition, it doesn’t really improve
that

Shopify is cool for that: enables a ton of tiny online businesses to thrive

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caogecym
Google has been the starting shopping point for me, not Amazon. Probably
because:

1\. Easy to access - I just need to type the item I want in browser address
bar 2\. I feel Google is relatively quicker at returning result - couple
hundred millisecond that I can feel 3\. I usually do find what I need in
Google result

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torgian
At this point I'd argue it's better to shop at alibaba or aliexpress. Sure it
might come from China, and sure it might be fake or broken, or a scam, but at
least you _know_ you might get screwed.

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0xDEADBEF
I use a website called "Fakespot" to help identify all the spam. It isn't
perfect though, but it helps to get a good idea on who is filling their
products with fake reviews.

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2OEH8eoCRo0
Oh boy, currently interviewing with Amazon. All of these negative articles
have me spooked.

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tree3
I'm a fan of Amazon.

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pravda
Who is paying a PR firm to pitch a story about the BASIC computer language?

(as mentioned on linked page)

[https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1254875738425012224/p...](https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1254875738425012224/photo/1)

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samirillian
First, WordPress stuck with React after Facebook made the smallest licensing
concession, then WordPress coordinated with Google developers on the
WordPress.org source code to integrate with AMP, and now WooCommerce is
partnering with Google, which of course they would feel compelled to do via a
kind of prisoner's dilemma with their competitor, Shopify.

People tend to deride WordPress source code on a technical level, but they
forget about it and the ecosystem's importance as _free_, GPL tools that power
over 1/4 of the web. Google is swinging its full weight into undermining this
ecosystem so that it can turn WordPress.org source code into more ad real
estate.

