politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Got a substitute?
No?
...
Great argument. How about buy your shit from actual stores, whether online or brick and mortar. Believe it or not, we actually managed to get by for millennia without amazon
A lot of those stores actually closed down because of Amazon.
Many that offer specialized equipment are located in locations that are far or difficult to access and/or have opening hours that are the same as my work hours.
I do my best to buy local and from physical shops, but sometimes nobody had what you're looking for and Amazon can get it to your door in 24 hours.
I hate the company but fuck is it practical. They need a serious competitor but nobody wants to even try with the amount of money Bezos got.
Use Amazon, only when you have no other option.
Not "no other option with 1 day shipping"
Not "no other option that delivers to my door"
Not "no other option that doesn't cost $10 more"
That's what I try to do at best at possible.
also the amazon truck drives by my house every day anyway. it’s far more efficient for them to drop off another package on their route than me making a special trip to a physical store.
But I mean we all get why this is wrong. It's becoming a major monopoly. And that's not good.
This is why trust busting is supposed to exist.
"becoming" yeah
I bought some 3D printing filament direct from the manufacturer. It got shipped to me by… Amazon. From an Amazon warehouse. I guess that’s how they do fulfillment. 🤷♂️
Huh. In my large city I have difficulty finding things in brick and mortar stores. Want a silicone tray for your air fryer? Walmart's website says they have them, but when you call the stores, they confirm they absolutely do not. Hobby lobby has it for 5x the price. No local stores come up as stocking them period, None other listed locally. I have this issue quite commonly. Maternity clothes sections just don't exist locally with any variety or consistency with sizes. Baby necessities, toys, and clothing is truly hit or miss in stores. You drive to the one store you think will have what you need and they closed two weeks ago.
I don't live in the boonies. If you live in the US, you've heard of my city. I am constantly running into the issue that things are only available online, and then Amazon is always the quickest shipping, and almost always the least expensive.
Fuck bezos and screw Amazon, but unless you're able to wait a week or three for everything you need, you don't have any good substitutes. I'd love to run out and buy it same day, but it's just not reliable to go to the store anymore.
I wish I could. Most of the stuff I buy from Amazon I can’t find anywhere else. They’ve become the Walmart of online stores and driven everything else out of business. He’ll even Walmart doesn’t have what I want 99% of the time. It sucks. I hate contributing to Wish version Lex Luther …
Such as?
AWS is the big one. And they are indeed somewhat unique in the scale and flexibility that they offer. You could leave them, but then you have to build those services and data centers yourself.
They literally aren't unique at all. Those services are offered by plenty of competitors.
At better prices, with better service and APIs.
It's like people enjoy the abuse? 🤷♂️
gcp, azure, hetzner, digitalocean, linode..
I'm delighted to hear that you can afford the prices of goods from modern brick and mortar stores. What about us 99% though?
Idk wtf stores you're going to, but prices are very similar between online and B&M, and where it's not, I haven't been to a store in years that won't price match.
To answer your question, the 99% of you just need to think about it for a second before parroting some dumbass take.
You are not a serious person
MORE FUNDING FOR USPS! FUCK CORPOS!
Just not using Amazon? Somehow I’ve managed to survive without needing to buy anything off Amazon in over a decade. How badly do you need to buy random shit online that you can just shrug at the human rights violation that is Amazon?
Exactly! I also haven't bought more than ten items from Walmart in the last fifteen years.
It can cost a little more, and requires patience, but I can think of very few times I've actually needed (versus wanted) some item before I could get it not via Amazon or Walmart. Even with the added expense for some individual items I'd wager I've spent less overall since it makes impulse purchases easier to avoid.
It's probably not amounting to much in the way of resisting these mega corps, but it isn't as difficult as some folks imagine.
bhphotovideo has been very good to me
Second this... If they have it available, they've been great to me.
Additional to backfill more "basics", target is at least less crap than Bezos.
Agreed. Target isn't perfect (no corpo is) but I buy from them still
Sure,
Just live with things taking like 2-5 days instead of 1-2
I'm not aware of being downvoted into oblivion, but I have a massive block list, so that might be why.
I wonder why you would need that?
Yep, for just about everything you get on Amazon there are alternatives. You just go to the supplier that sells the thing you need instead. Amazon hasn't had real 2 day shipping in a long time. If you really need that "everything store" experience, Ebay, Target and Walmart all have decent online marketplaces but might as well use the smaller stores. What's keeping you on Amazon? It sure as hell isn't its search, and tons of sites offer free, fast shipping. I have to assume it's habit.
Maybe this is true in the US, but in the UK the difference in shipping is Amazon same-day or at the very latest 1-day for free, or easily £5.99+ for something between a week and never because they use the most cost-cutting human slavery looking ass parcel carriers. That's before the fact most things just are flat-out not available outside of Amazon, and if they are, cost 5x.
I happily pay more for local, and I basically bought clothes only on Etsy for quite some time despite being scammed a number of times, but that's crashed too now and is impossible to use, and even before there's no persuasive economical argument to make.
Most suppliers only sell directly on Amazon, or also on AliExpress if it's chinese made stuff, but that in itself is a very different beast because shipping from there is in the month+ range.
I am confused by people’s shopping habits. How often are you buying online and what is it?
Groceries and pharmacy are all local. Clothes are a local boutique (I don’t buy clothes more than one or twice a year and I like to try things on and buy quality items). Shoes are from a local redwing store that I’ve been wearing for over 8 years. Computer parts I do tend to buy online, but I’d never risk buying from Amazon. I typically buy from b&h, cdw, or directly from the manufacturer.
What? There is no need for a substitute. The concept is insanity. Just stop being a consoomer ffs
Downvoters: "I hate you but you're right."
There’s a dozen responses stating why the person is wrong.
…I stopped using Amazon at all about a year and a half ago. It’s not that fucking hard. Do you know how many places want to sell you shit?
Literally all of them.
Plenty of alternatives, if you're willing to look. Books? Try the library. Ebooks? Kobo. Audiobooks? Libro.fm Other products? Shop local (if you still can) otherwise, use Google to find another site that sells shit.
Don't most brick and mortar stores also have websites that deliver? Just think of what store might sell what you're lookng for and buy it from them or at least compare prices.
Ebay
I've used ebay before. Full of scammers. No thanks.
so is amazon
Seriously, feels like a crapshoot if I’m actually getting a quality product or garbage that falls apart. Doesn’t help that you can’t trust the reviews, fake reviews aside it feels like every other item tries to bribe you with a gift card for a 5-star review.
Open box shit sold as new, same/next/2 day deliveries getting delayed more often than not, counterfeits, genuinely dangerously unsafe products, a supply chain full of exhausted and burned out workers... Yeah it's all so fucked. I can only hope their retail business collapses as it's increasingly indistinguishable from aliexpress or ebay
For prime video, just pirate whatever is their "must watch" show or movie. For online shopping, just stop being a spoiled bitch who can't live with 2 day shipping. Google still works,
something you want to buy -amazon.com