
Reasons not to buy from Amazon - pykello
https://stallman.org/amazon.html
======
specialk
> "Amazon cut off service to Wikileaks, claiming that whistleblowing violates
> its terms of service. It had no need to go to court to prove this, because
> if you rent a server from Amazon, you have no rights."

I find it highly amusing that RMS doesn't seem to agree with Amazon's
restrictive ToS agreement but his GNU software license is one of the most
restrictive licenses out there. If I include a GNU licensed library I
accidentally lose all my rights too. Funny that.

> "A study found that people who read novels on the Amazon Swindle remember
> less of the events."

Replace 'Swindle' with 'Kindle' then with any ebook reader ever. I doubt there
is anything about the Kindle in particular, over other ereaders, that causes
people to remember less. This is attacking Amazon with everything and hoping
some of it sticks.

I'm trying not to defend Amazon but RMS's arguments are painfully bad at
times.

~~~
cgag
Restrictive in that it prevents you from fucking people over. This is like
saying laws against slavery restrict freedom (freedom to own slaves).

[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-
power.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.html)

~~~
forthefuture
That's a strawman. It could also be like saying laws against gay marriage
restrict freedom. You aren't making a point about reality, you're just
comparing two things that have one thing in common.

You lose your rights to your code if any of your code includes GPL code. Many
people who write code necessarily avoid the GPL because of this.

~~~
sp332
You don't lose the rights to your code. The original copyright owner still
owns the copyright on their code. That's why you have to follow the rules of
the license they gave you. You can still distribute your code under whatever
license you want.

~~~
Guvante
> You can still distribute your code under whatever license you want.

That actually isn't true.

> You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone
> who comes into possession of a copy.

You are required to distribute it under GPL v3. I don't know enough legalese
to determine if distributing the modifications alone as a parallel license is
allowed.

~~~
sp332
This is only true if "your" code is a derivative of someone else's code.
Putting code that's actually original into a project that also has GPL code in
it doesn't mean you have to GPL your code.

Distributing binaries with mixed sources is where it gets hairy.

------
theVirginian
Sabotaging Customers: I have no reason to believe that they would ever
sabotage me.

Restricting and Shafting Customers: I have never had a problem with my kindle
or any other media from Amazon. If I ever do I'm sure I can find an
alternative source in a matter of minutes.

Censorship: They are Amazon's servers and it is their right to enforce their
rules on them. If Wikileaks believes that they were unlawfully cut off then
they should take Amazon to court.

Exploiting workers mercilessly: good luck finding a retailer that has not done
this at some point. This is an unfortunate reality as far as I am concerned
and while I support fighting for better worker's conditions, I see no reason
that refusing to buy through Amazon helps the problem.

Shafting others in the publishing world: I'm not a publisher, their industry
is none of my concern. If Amazon is so bad for them then I'm sure there is
another way they can sell their books.

Dodging Taxes: The government should close tax loopholes. I don't blame Amazon
for being competitive. If it's legal it's fair as far as I'm concerned.

Other reasons: These all seem to be trivial to me though I don't feel like
typing out the reasons why.

I've never had a problem with Amazon particularly and this article seems
rather strange to me.

~~~
adventured
Further, Amazon's solution to workers is going to be robotics: the elimination
of as many manual labor jobs as possible. This is something Walmart will not
be able to pull off easily because their workers are out front, higher
profile; Amazon's workers can disappear through firings and few will notice.
At a minimum Amazon is going to leverage robotics to drastically stretch
(reduce) how many workers they have per dollar of sales.

In ten years Stallman will be telling us not to buy from Amazon because they
use robots instead of human labor.

~~~
jarin
Which is silly, because instead of putting people to work doing meaningless
jobs that can be done by robots, we should be focusing more on how we can take
advantage of that efficiency to make life more meaningful as a society.

------
basseq
Stallman raises some interesting points, but calling the Kindle a "Swindle"
doesn't make for a very rational argument.

~~~
philtar
What he calls it really makes no difference to the actual argument. Only your
perception of it.

~~~
baddox
Given that this is very clearly intended as a persuasive article, perceptions
are important.

------
tacos
I've only seen rants of this tone, format and length from bona-fide crazy
people. There's a line here and I hope stays on the side where I can continue
to respect him.

If he wants me to use GPL3 I'll take it under advisement. If he wants to tell
me where to buy toothpaste I won't.

I'm a fan of outsiders, the 60s, the whole deal. I love the whole idea of
Stallman. I want more Stallmans! I also disagree with nearly everything he
says while agreeing almost completely with the results he seeks to achieve.

But posts like this pain me regardless of the source.

~~~
jarin
People like Stallman (and whoever would be his polar opposite) need to exist
in order to establish the boundaries and give us a framework to finding a
balance between egalitarianism and greed.

------
butwhy
That whole thing about the tor keyboard intercept by nsa was never proven
afaik. The common conclusion is that they wouldn't be so stupid as to let the
customer tracking show the keyboard passing through them so they can bug it.

And as for Amazon reducing the price of books from publishers, this
quantitatively has shown they will sell more and make more money despite the
lower price tag.

~~~
hurin
> That whole thing about the tor keyboard intercept by nsa was never proven
> afaik.

Yeah RMS is already considerably crazy for most readers, adding clearly false
claims as references doesn't help.

------
Zikes
I'm finding there are a growing number of very good reasons to never buy
anything from anybody. Some companies I boycott myself, for some of those
reasons, but I can't fault anybody on their choices of whether or not to
participate in any boycotts.

Edit: That said, I think posts like these are necessary so that consumers can
make the sort of informed decisions they need to make regarding whom they
purchase from.

~~~
bsimpson
> never buy anything from anybody

reminds me of this College Humor video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqevO_zrxsA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqevO_zrxsA)

------
yasth
Amazon in all honesty likely had zero choice but to comply with the NSA. Also
it might not even be the one complying, but rather the shipping carrier.

Actually a lot of what Stallman is complaining about boils down to Amazon is a
company that complies with US based court orders, and sells things on
publisher terms.

I really don't see much that doesn't apply to say Google:

* Distributes books with restrictive licenses (Google Play Books)

* Sells online music with restrictive terms (Google Play Music)

* Can remotely delete content (Yes, [http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Android-Google-Applications-Andr...](http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Android-Google-Applications-Android-Apps,news-7216.html) )

* Can force auto updates (Yes you can disable updates to chrome, but not the google update client [https://support.google.com/installer/answer/146164#Policies](https://support.google.com/installer/answer/146164#Policies) )

* Google's cloud is even more restrictive than Amazon's on content, and their TOS gives you no recourse.

Apple likewise does much the same thing (except they don't have a public cloud
offering).

~~~
reaktivo
I'm pretty sure he's equally againts Apple and Google, as Amazon.

------
bdcravens
So when will RMS have all of his titles pulled from Amazon?

[http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-
alias%3Dst...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-
alias%3Dstripbooks&field-
keywords=richard+stallman&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Arichard+stallman)

------
strictnein
> "Amazon was a member of ALEC...."

> "Amazon quit ALEC after public pressure in May 2012, but I am sure it still
> supports the same nasty policies and is waiting for a new tool to achieve
> them."

Seriously? Come on.

~~~
harrumph
I think RMS is correct here.

Corporate membership in an organization whose purpose is to impose market and
private mechanisms on whole populations by writing these into state and local
law (this is precisely what ALEC does) should be interpreted as an irrevocable
announcement that the management of the corporation does in fact endorse
imposing its interests on whole populations using state and local law.

Amazon left ALEC but did not also replace its leadership at the same time, so
its leaving can't be construed as a change of perspective on the imposition of
legislation as a business strategy. At most you can say that Amazon's execs
decided that the costs of openly associating with those aims were high enough
to end open association.

~~~
strictnein
Large corporations are members of many groups. The idea that the entire
leadership of Amazon should be replaced because Amazon was a member of ALEC is
nonsensical. Jeff Bezos should step down because Amazon was a member of ALEC?
Really? What about Steve Jobs and Apple? They were a member too.

ALEC isn't some super nefarious group, but I do understand it was the target
of three minutes of internet hate, so people seem to ascribe some super evil
to its intents.

~~~
strictnein
I really don't understand how it's ridiculous reading of what you wrote:

> "Amazon left ALEC but did not also replace its leadership at the same time"

Amazon's leadership includes Jeff Bezos. Apple's leadership included Steve
Jobs and Tim Cook.

In fact, what you said first mirrors what you just said:

> "I said, effectively, that the same people who joined Amazon to ALEC are the
> same people who still run Amazon."

The leadership of Apple is still mainly in place as well. Should they all be
gotten rid of? Or is there just a specific list of people who should be
dumped?

> "You also ridiculously scoff at the idea that ALEC membership presents any
> problems or costs, even though Amazon itself left the group."

No, I didn't in any way say that. I just said they weren't "super nefarious".
Amazon left ALEC precisely because they determined it was presenting a
problem.

> "Then you completely ignored ALEC's purpose as I accurately described it."

In what way? By saying their weren't "super nefarious"? I guess you think they
are "super nefarious", but I just think they're sub-optimal.

~~~
harrumph
>I really don't understand how it's ridiculous reading of what you wrote:

Let me help: I indicated that a corporate culture exists that openly accepted
and endorsed what ALEC does, which necessarily indicates that said culture is
capable of accepting and endorsing the imposition of private and market
structures on entire populations by writing and passing state laws to do so.
That is exactly what ALEC does.

Amazon's reversal of a decision to join ALEC without a concomitant reversal or
update of that same corporate culture should not be read as a repudiation of
that organization's aims and goals.

I think you're scoffing in the wrong direction: Amazon conducts itself
repeatedly as antagonistic to regulation and taxation in every way and just
about as intensely as a corporation can. The idea that they really don't want
their business aims written into state law just because they backed away from
ALEC fails every test of plausibility. They're the same boardroom. They act in
their own interest exclusively. It's far more plausible that they saw that
being an ALEC member (and taking the public relations costs associated with
that) wasn't necessary to benefit from what ALEC does on behalf of business
interests generally.

------
tptacek
Regarding the keyboard and "NSA" \--- recall, NSA's entire involvement in this
story is a shipment tracker that showed a package traversing Alexandria, VA
--- here's the previous thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7126754](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7126754)

~~~
anonbanker
Way to downplay, tom.

You should probably mention that it was (Tor dev) Jacob Appelbaum's laptop,
and that even he thinks it stopped there to be "fitted".

------
codewithcheese
"A study found that people who read novels on the Amazon Swindle remember less
of the events."

You only need to make a good point once. Adding additional lesser points just
weakens it. A fair few dubious and ridiculous claims here, same sort of claims
can be made about any multi-national. No smoking gun here.

~~~
scrumper
This does ring true; I'm sure I remember a study of retention of read material
comparing paper books with e-readers which supports that point. I think it was
something to do with not having an easy way to intuit position in a book with
e-readers.

~~~
bougiefever
I think it sounds ridiculous. I read both hard-copy and electronic books on a
variety of devices. The only device this would hold true for (sample size of
one here) is on the computer. The angle of my eyes is wrong, and I need to
hold it in my hands. Once I get immersed in the plot, I don't care what is
serving it up.

~~~
scrumper
I meant 'ring true' as in 'I vaguely remember some research which supports the
point.'

------
strictnein
Amazon is charging sales tax in more and more states as they expand their
services. They're currently collecting sales taxes in 24 states [0].

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=4...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=468512)

------
vixen99
Small point: tax avoidance is legal and sensible. Would anyone or any company
seek to maximize its tax bill bar bizarre circumstances? Rather, the reverse.
If there's a devastating avoidance loophole it's the job of government to
redraft the regulations or let the courts decide.

~~~
harrumph
This is a fair assignment of responsibility only in a world where corporate
representation does not extend to that regulatory sphere. But it absolutely
does. There is a free market for political results and favorable tax code
edits are the deliverables in this cash market.

------
zyxley
Putting in "Swindle" instead of "Kindle" is painfully childish.

------
secstate
I find the tax evasion argument the most damning. But it's not just Amazon,
it's any sizable American corporation in 2015. You'd be irresponsible to your
shareholders for not setting up a tax haven corp in Ireland or some other
mostly legal country and funnel your profits through there.

it's nothing corporations haven't been doing since the idea of legally
protected business groups posing as faux individuals was invented. But it
still doesn't make it not a really bad idea for any half-hearted attempt at a
representative democracy.

It doesn't take a genius to realize the impact that tax dollars returned to
your community be it town, state or country, have at a least a chance of
having a positive impact on your life. Of course, the devil's advocate would
say that getting consumer goods for less has a direct positive impact on my
life. That's probably pretty debatable though.

------
gopher2
This is not exactly nuanced. It reads like he disliked Amazon for some reason
and then went out and googled around for a while to come up with more reasons
to support that belief. Personally, I like Amazon... so of course I'm just
looking for reasons to dismiss his arguments without considering their merit.
Ha!

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
It's kind of hard to imagine Stallman googling for anything.

~~~
amyjess
OK, so he used a script to wget duckduckgo for a while and then email the
results to himself.

~~~
eva1984
！！Sounds hilarious to me though

------
pbreit
Man, that guy is a curmudgeon. But I love that he exists even though I don't
really worry about any of that stuff (who has the time or energy?).

------
alexashka
The villain of the times is a company that delivers books to me better than
any company ever has?

Pretty sure there's bigger fish to fry, which makes me wonder what personal
agenda the author is pursuing here.

------
mpeg
> "Amazon's on-line music "sales" have some of the same problems as the
> ebooks: users are required to identify themselves and sign a contract that
> denies them the freedoms they would have with a CD."

I find this amusing, music CDs don't give you a whole lot of freedom,
considering the CD itself will eventually stop working (whether due to time or
scratches) and they employ copy protection methods.

Lesser evil?

------
coherentpony
It's awfully convenient, though.

~~~
Fice
Yes. And it's a shame that in the modern world convenience appears to be more
important than ethics.

------
bdcravens
RMS is supporting buying the book directly from the publisher. But what if
they are running IIS on the server, or Flash on their front-end? Doesn't this
mean that he is recommending the use of proprietary software?

~~~
teddyh
Suppose that RMS supported something like buying organic food directly from
farmers. Would you then pose the question “ _What if a farmer is a mass
murderer or a terrorist? Would that mean that RMS is supporting terrorism?_ ”

~~~
dragonwriter
I think what you miss is that RMS has argued against other things on the exact
kind of indirect support for non-free software argument as was directed at his
recommendation to buy directly from publishers; it rests on RMS's use of that
criticism rather than the assumption that the criticism is valid.

~~~
teddyh
The argument as you descibe it sounds silly, and to believe that RMS used it I
would have to see a citation. Even so, if he used it, he would be wrong. I
argued against the argument as presented, I can’t be expected to know whether
it was subtle sarcasm or not.

------
bougiefever
Some of these arguments are just kind of weird, but I did read the study by
the undercover worker about working conditions at their distribution plants.
They claimed that they are given an impossible workload, are routinely
verbally abused, they get fired for almost any infraction, and they are paid
poorly for the privilege.

I'm not sure B&N is so much better. I haven't heard anything either way. I
usually look up books and review on Amazon, then buy them elsewhere.

I do like that they are trying to make all e-books cost less than $10.

------
eonw
most of what he is saying... could apply to any corporation. If the government
wants to inspect mail and possibly install malware, for instance, that could
happen with any vendor, amazon or manufacturer, as they wont have a choice
presented to them. the purpose of the corporation is to make money at the
expense of the customer, vendors and anyone else... why pick of amazon alone?

------
crimsonalucard
Don't drive cars because they pollute the world.

People will always drive cars because convenience has a higher priority then
polluting the world.

People will always buy from amazon because of convenience.

There's no point in justifying it. Most people just don't care...

------
ereckers
I'm looking forward to how his, "Reasons not to use Uber, Sidecar, and Lyft"
will be received around here.

------
bougiefever
Some of those publishers deserve to be bullied by Amazon.

