
Ask HN: Could You Quit Amazon? - 99chrisbard
No Amazon shopping, no AWS or any of the multitude of Amazon-owned companies. Can you do it?
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mikecoles
For infrastructure, I may be using it indirectly. GCE hosts a VPN server.
Everything else is on Linode, Digital Ocean, and Vultr. I could very well be
accidentally using Amazon, but I've steered clear as best I could.

For shopping, absolutely and already have. Local stores were/are still plenty
sufficient with the dry goods. The butcher shop down the road is managing to
keep well stocked. Local produce markets are doing a great job. Ebay kicked
Amazon's rear for things that weren't available locally. Because of the free
time gained the lack of commute, wanting a small audio studio and green screen
setup for conference calls was a fun project. The gear was here in 2 days from
regional suppliers found on eBay and reverb. Since that was setup, 10 pounds
of bulk Lego was purchased from ATLBrick and specific Lego from BrickOwl to
try Lego stop-motion. To blow off stress local gun stores have stock Amazon is
too scared to handle. The local work wear store has been great to work with.
The town lumber yard is always a pleasure. Dealing with Amazon and their crazy
delays isn't worth it. Best of all, I don't have to deal with sellers of
knock-offs and counterfeit items when I shop locally.

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justrudd
Do you include companies within N degrees of Amazon? Netflix for example? If
so, no. I could quit, but I wouldn’t.

Shopping? For the most part I have because of the pandemic. A lot of the stuff
I ordered was pushed further and further out for shipping. So I found
alternatives or started buying in brick and mortar stores.

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99chrisbard
Amazon has part-ownership of Netflix? Didn't know that...

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justrudd
Sorry. They don't have ownership. But Netflix runs the majority of their
service on AWS. That's why I was asking about also breaking away from services
that are N degrees away. I mean...I can stop using AWS directly, but if my
Netflix money is still going to them indirectly, what have I really done to
blunt AWS?

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quantified
Yes. I haven’t used it for anything in over a year. I seem to be unusual, but
I grew up without it, and I haven’t found anything I need that it is the sole
provider for.

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maxilevi
No. I don't use any of amazon services except for BookDepository, it's the
only reliable international online bookstore that ships to my country.

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rantwasp
directly yes. Indirectly (dropping all products or services that leverages AWS
in the back) no.

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the_hoser
No, probably not. A lot of the web services I use are based on AWS.

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cameron_b
With Whole Foods under that umbrella and our regional competitor closed (
earth fare, vulture capitalists pushing for growth beyond the capacity of the
market, also they ran out of runway just before Covid and would have been
making a killing )

No

