On: Tech’s ruling class casts a big shadow

[coldtea]

>Amazon - I have a Prime membership, but I'm only a sporadic online shopper. That said, the Amazon shopping experience has provided me with a lot of value. No real alternatives here.

As you say you are "sporadic online shopper" in what sense are there no "real alternatives" there? You can get all the things you can find on Amazon on tons of different e-shops...

[Shivetya → coldtea]

isn't that key though? you have to go to many other shops which and play the game of best price combined with shipping. you can also go to ebay for many things as well and people overlook that a lot.

the key seller for prime for me was, I am already paid up so I can just be lazy and impulse buy without too much concern.

[coldtea → Shivetya]

>isn't that key though? you have to go to many other shops which and play the game of best price combined with shipping.

So? Instead of visiting ONE website, you might need to visit 5 or so.

We visit 100s of sites everyday for pleasure, and in any case, when you buy you also usually check all kinds of reviews and competing products to come up to one.

Plus, there are well known established websites in all categories Amazon competes -- e.g. Best Buy for electronics, Applestore for Apple stuff, Barnes and Noble (I'd guess, not American) for books, etc, so it's not like one is directly into some huge large web market of rip-off sites if they stray off of Amazon.

You also don't have to "play the game of best price" -- just go for any website/price that looks legit even if it's not the absolute best (unless you're penny pinching). After all just shopping at Amazon doesn't guarantee the best price either.

All of those given that you are, as you said, a casual buyer. If you were heavy into Amazon and buying stuff every week or so, that advise might change, but seeing that you're a casual Amazon customer, switching to a third party web shops is at best a marginal first world problem.