Amazon sucks

[Timberridge]

I wonder when glade will be back. These threads somehow seem empty without his violent revolutionary rhetoric.

Did he get put on double secret probation by the mods or is he taking a well deserved vacation to reduce his stress levels?

[basinbeater]

I buy a few things here and there on Amazon, but generally do my best to support more local, or buy direct from companies that may have an Amazon presence. I buy a lot of electronic bits and pieces or rc car parts, and so stones Amazon is one of the few places I can find what I want. But most of the time I can find elsewhere and by from elsewhere.

There is a degree of facilitating smaller sellers to sell to a broad market (if you can make buyers aware that your shit even exists). But Amazon is known to copy good products sold on their site and contract the Chinese to make the same thing and take over the market for said product, so fuck them for that.

Amazon seems to have assumed the mantle from wal mart of most efficient mover of US money to china for cheap shit. And that is an ENORMOUS piece of the pie, and with his little cut of each transaction, bezos is rich as fuck.

Anxiously awaiting the final season of the expanse on Amazon prime. So there is that.

sent from Utah.

[Ted Striker]

Heh, I can walk to Do it Best, which is not exactly a mom and pop, but definitely ain't Home Depot.

Only in places like Portland, who still has a slightly beating soul, do you even have a choice. Most places in America have no choice. Mom and pop died years ago.

If/when Dan moves to B'ham he's going to shop at the mother of all mom & pop hardware stores.



If they don't have it, you don't need it!

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Only in places like Portland, who still has a slightly beating soul, do you even have a choice. Most places in America have no choice. Mom and pop died years ago.

Their all fucking evil. Walmart, Target, Costco, REI. All just wanna be Amazons. And I shop at them all. I do like the brick and mortar/online combo because it makes returns/exchanges easy.

The store I shop at the most in Wenatchee is Stan’s Merry Mart. Locally owned Ace Hardware. Not all mom and pop places are gone. I try and always buy local and only as a last resort go online. I can’t remember the last time I bought off Amazon.

Edit- Stan’s is probably like the above Hardware Sales, that’s the saying we use around here too.

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[MontuckyFried]

Cancelled AMZ Prime last February in protest of Bezos' corporate asshattery. Put the entire renewal fee into Dogecoin instead. Got up to like 2 grand at once point. Got crushed since, but still up like 4x, so I'm happy and it felt like a good, albeit silent middle finger to Amazon. I work really hard to only shop local now and have actually found some kick ass little mom and pops I wasn't even aware of before. Everybody wins.

[The Reverend Floater]

We use Amazon quite a bit. I'd say that 95% of what we buy can't he had locally without a 2 hour drive to Walmart who treats their employees just as bad as Amazon.

The argument that Bezos is an asshole because nobody should have a billion dollars is just silly. Does he need a billion dollars? Decidedly no. Should someone be categorized as an asshole soley for successfully leveraging capitalism? Not sure about that. To say you can only make $1B by being a terrible person is equally weird.

And whomever said that companies with their own fulfillment are automatically treating their employees worse than those using 3rd parties has no idea what they're talking about. That's just a bizarre statement.

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[Core Shot]

Okay, what about Whole Foods?

Bezos fucked that up too. Used to be a great store.

Still nice. But not what it was

[dan_pdx]

And whomever said that companies with their own fulfillment are automatically treating their employees worse than those using 3rd parties has no idea what they're talking about. That's just a bizarre statement.

ORLY? UPS and USPS are union shops. Find me a story about drivers for those carriers pissing in bottles and crapping in bags. For your reference in case you missed it: https://www.businessinsider.com/amaz...bottles-2021-3

[skaredshtles]

The store I shop at the most in Wenatchee is Stan’s Merry Mart. Locally owned Ace Hardware.

We have a couple local Ace Hardwares... if they don't have it, I'll sometimes go the Lowe's route before capitulating and hitting up Amazon.

[Dantheman]

The argument that Bezos is an asshole because nobody should have a billion dollars is just silly. Does he need a billion dollars? Decidedly no. Should someone be categorized as an asshole soley for successfully leveraging capitalism? Not sure about that. To say you can only make $1B by being a terrible person is equally weird.

At least his wealth is the result of building a business that, while flawed, provides an amazing service. Most billionaires just inherited it or made their money being hedge fund managers or other useless shit.

[Timberridge]

Used to be able to get cheap Nike's on AMZN. Not anymore. Have to go to Ebay or Chinese websites now.

[The Reverend Floater]

Oh? UPS and USPS are union shops. Find me a story about drivers for those carriers pissing in bottles and crapping in bags.

I can find you hundreds of stories about firms without retail distribution with child labor, unpaid labor, unfair wages, sexual harassment and/or abuse, physical violence, discrimination, etc.

Just because a company has delivery does not make it a worse place to work than one without. Think about natural resource extraction, industrial and chemical manufacturing, airlines, financial giants, entertainment, media...all of these industries have horrific records of employee abuse but they don't have delivery drivers.

Matter of fact, both FedEx and UPS make the top 20 in US companies that paid fines based on discrimination since 2000. But they're union shops so....?

Your argument is just circumstantial and quite bizarre.

[dan_pdx]

Your argument is just circumstantial and quite bizarre.

Circumstantial to say that when I order from Amazon, there's a good chance the delivery driver who brings it to my porch is working in inhumane conditions, whereas if I buy it from someone else who ships USPS that my mailman is making a living wage and benefits from collective bargaining? We're going to have to agree to disagree, this is one where it's easy to choose a less bad option and I do.

Also, what do racial discrimination suits have to do with inhumane performance standards? Red herring much?

[m2711c]

What this thread needs more torches and pitchforks. Does Amazon sell those?

[sirbumpsalot]

At least his wealth is the result of building a business that, while flawed, provides an amazing service. Most billionaires just inherited it or made their money being hedge fund managers or other useless shit.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majo...ew-report.html

[PNWbrit]

and with his little cut of each transaction, bezos is rich as fuck..

It's far more to do with his ownership of 55.5 million shares or 11% of the company he founded than per customer click.

AWS is responsible for a large part of the stock's recent rise.

[sirbumpsalot]

Used to be able to get cheap Nike's on AMZN. Not anymore. Have to go to Ebay or Chinese websites now.

A lot of big brands have cracked down on the AMZN capitulation as they beefed up their own direct to consumer channels. Wholesalers have always had their own channel of agreed collusion with brand sites.

You might try the outlet store....I did see some NIKE pegasus previous generation for 35% off.

[Timberridge]

What this thread needs more torches and pitchforks. Does Amazon sell those?

We're right on the normal glide slope for any thread. Stop trying force it off its course.

[dan_pdx]

What this thread needs more torches and pitchforks. Does Amazon sell those?

Pfft, artisanal pitchforks and torches made with organic beeswax, purchased at a chichi farmer's market, or fahgeddaboutit.

[dunfree]

My biggest beef with Amazon is actually the warehouse / shipping end, which seems to be where the bulk of the workplace abuse happens. Any less efficient company, or one that isn't big enough to have their own delivery and relies on UPS/US Post/FedEx - which is more or less every other company - is going to be less bad for their workers. Not a good feeling to know the people who packed / delivered your order are killing themselves to meet Amazon performance metrics.

Every warehouse job sucks balls. All of them. At scale they are all killing themselves for your crappy consumer goods.

and lol at the billionaire defenders upthread, 150 year later this Samuel Clemens description of the commodore still rings true

https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2034788

[altasnob]

At least his wealth is the result of building a business that, while flawed, provides an amazing service. Most billionaires just inherited it or made their money being hedge fund managers or other useless shit.

From Bezos's Wikipedia page:

"He accepted an estimated $300,000 from his parents and invested in Amazon"

[XavierD]

Living around Seattle I know a lot of folks who work, and have worked at Amazon, both in HQ and in the distribution, to include their warehouses. The competitive types who want to crush whatever they are doing seem to like the company. Those who just want to punch their time for a paycheck bitch about the ‘ruthless culture.’

Amazon also bought my home for me so can’t complain to much.

Like someone else mentioned I shop a lot because going from store to store to find a trivial generic item is just a pain. For higher end things I shop at a retail location where I can compare and figure out if it will fit my needs - and a salesperson will help me get the right item. Amazon, and other large, low cost, low service retailers are forcing independent retailers to offer something more. If they can’t, they die off, blame evil Jeffe Bezos, and their employees make a >20% tip bringing me the $18 hamburger and $7 beers I can afford because I saved time and money shopping on Amazon.


Also, bitching about anyone having grossly than they need is fucking rich on a ski forum. Sure no one needs $100b. No one needs $1m. No one needs $10k, Arbitrarily drawn lines of what is ‘enough’ and what is excessive, are primarily drawn from envy and set dangerous precedents.

[NWFlow]

Did he get put on double secret probation by the mods or is he taking a well deserved vacation to reduce his stress levels?

I believe the first originally, but now I wonder if it's become the second.

Hope he's back at some point.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

At least his wealth is the result of building a business that, while flawed, provides an amazing service. Most billionaires just inherited it or made their money being hedge fund managers or other useless shit.

No one is self made, this is the biggest myth of “free market capitalism”. Someone has a good idea and it takes a lot of people to realize the goal. Sometimes the idea isn’t even original. Our worship of wealth is perverse.


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[old_newguy]

Living around Seattle I know a lot of folks who work, and have worked at Amazon, both in HQ and in the distribution, to include their warehouses. The competitive types who want to crush whatever they are doing seem to like the company. Those who just want to punch their time for a paycheck bitch about the ‘ruthless culture.’

Amazon also bought my home for me so can’t complain to much.

Like someone else mentioned I shop a lot because going from store to store to find a trivial generic item is just a pain. For higher end things I shop at a retail location where I can compare and figure out if it will fit my needs - and a salesperson will help me get the right item. Amazon, and other large, low cost, low service retailers are forcing independent retailers to offer something more. If they can’t, they die off, blame evil Jeffe Bezos, and their employees make a >20% tip bringing me the $18 hamburger and $7 beers I can afford because I saved time and money shopping on Amazon.


Also, bitching about anyone having grossly than they need is fucking rich on a ski forum. Sure no one needs $100b. No one needs $1m. No one needs $10k, Arbitrarily drawn lines of what is ‘enough’ and what is excessive, are primarily drawn from envy and set dangerous precedents.

I dunno, billionaires avoiding “income taxes” yet flying themselves to space seems like they have “enough” to draw a bright line for me at a couple billion getting you into the “ we are going to tax the shit out of you now” club.