Do you guys really rely on Amazon so much that one week without feels like a protest? Seriously?
I’ve genuinely never used amazon to shop, not even once, but only because it’s always been the more expensive option compared to smaller shops. Right now seeing 5070ti tuf goes for 1400 on amazon, 1300 at my local store.
It’s so bad and cyclical while just being unavoidable in some areas. On the map, you’ll notice how heavily populated northern europe is compared to a lot of sparse areas which have less options. I’m in a relatively normal size town and there is one big box choice and maybe one defunct “local” store that’s barely getting by.
I had to beg a guy in a corner shopping center “repair shop” for a small syringe of thermal paste when I ran out (I’m not fucking kidding, there’s just no electronics store anywhere nearby, losing Radioshack was fucking hard). Dude at the shop was the only reason I didn’t have to go online and wait a week (he wasn’t selling it, just had spare for his own use). My trades and hobbies make this a common occurrence throughout the week. Most places now are forced to sell on Amazon to remain competitive (Amazon dominates with shipping cost reduction alone for large items), finding a local or even nationally based company through search algorithms becomes harder and harder as they can’t pay to keep up with SEO bullshit. You can try to keep it all legit but with competitive monopolies everywhere you just eventually find out your favorite company no longer really exists.
There are some suppliers I could shop with but each one is an hour drive in different directions and 80% of the time they’re ordering the same shit through the same companies I would be using if I went online. It works sometimes, but takes so much effort it becomes it’s own full-time job that no one has the ability to keep up with.
I live in a small town in Alaska, more than 300 miles from the nearest decently sized city. It’s been more than two years since I’ve given Amazon a single dime. You’ll manage if you care enough to try.
Guys I’m going to take a picture of myself holding up a sign saying that Amazon are racist oligarchs and I’m going to post it online
Here’s the thing. If I could shop somewhere else I would. Do you know what sets Amazon apart from other places? It’s their delivery, pure and simple. I ordered 3 TV’s from Best Buy. It took them a week to ship them. I had to pay for shipping on top of the $600 I spent. On the day I was supposed to receive them I was home all day. I got a notification they were an hour out. So I went outside and waited for them to arrive. They never arrived, but i got an email telling me they had stopped by but I wasn’t home.
So I had to go down to their depot to pick them up. I am stuck using public transit so Imagine trying to get 3 40 inch TV’s home on a bus. I ended up having to get a cab half way home with money I couldn’t afford to spend just to get it all home.
So for me, That is the main reason I buy from Amazon. Although lately I’ve been shopping with Uber from Walmart.
And Fuck Purolator.
I haven’t bought a single TV in my whole life and I haven’t missed anything important. Whenever I am somewhere where there’s a TV and I’ve got nothing better to do or I’m just curious I zap through the channels whithout finding anything remotely interesting or entertaining 99% of the time. I really wonder what people want with these ad-infested, annoying trashcans. Aren’t you dumb enough, yet? Try heavy drinking. Preferrably methanol or break fluid…
I will admit it’s been super convenient if I need shampoo or toner or drinks or dozens of other things to just take 60 seconds to order it from Amazon and it’s here in a couple days. Well it used to be. Now things often take many days to ship. I canceled Prime about 6 months ago.
You just listed things that you can pick up at any number of local stores. That stupid convenience of ordering crap instead of just adding it to the shopping list is why people think going a week without using Amazon will “disrupt the system.” This is exactly the problem.
It’s kinda sad, I’ve been back and forth with online ordering actually being a “logistical god-send” for our chaotic consumerism. I mean think about it, one full delivery truck that can bring in a full neighborhoods worth of goods for the week/day versus every single car being driven to only transport a portion or less of a trunk (sometimes driving out for even one item).
In a perfect “non-monopoly/Amazon couldn’t exist world” where everyone could plan ahead and have everything shipped, you could save on store/display costs (including environmental) and just have a smaller distribution center from semi-trucks to box trucks for local deliveries. Could even go from box truck to local end point distribution (biking,etc) so city spaces could go car-less. Keep the local farmers/co-op markets for socializing/freshest produce-shipping and bob’s your uncle.
Instead we have the worlds most horrific amalgamation where you have underpaid people in fucking V8 trucks delivering a few bags of groceries someone has “door dashed” from the local grocery store or just a burger from a local joint so they don’t have to cook because they only have an hour of free time a day.
Yes but when I live 40 miles from a city and hate wandering around multiple stores looking for things they may or may not have. But I know I need to change.
I’m canceling Prime here in Brazil mostly because it’s getting more and more expensive, the selection of products with free shipping is getting smaller and I don’t even watch anything anymore on Prime Video. I realized the only reason I still have it is inertia from the good times when it costed me $2 a month—years ago.
It shows that Amazon was probably operating at a loss before to bankrupt the local competition, but now that they raised prices and offer less, it’s actually becoming a worse deal.
Americans really dont know how to protest…
My hope would be that some people realize they don’t need it after all and cancel their subscriptions and such.
Amazon breaking new records after the “protest”
“Vote with your wallets” is a common expression among Americans after all.
I wonder if Amazon is pushing these “protests” to drown out the real ones.
hey, come on, this is a good start. It should be replaced with a complete boycott, but both americans with impulse control will propably boycott amazon. For the rest, it’s a great start and you can bet it will not be the last.
Suddenly the horrible under any administration piss in a bottle’ company is bad?
A whole 7 days??? Gosh gee willakers!!! You think people can uphold a boycott a whole 7 days???
Look. Boycotts are effective, but you gotta be stubborn. It’s gotta be “boycott from now on” with no end date.
Otherwise, it’ll just look like normal fluctuations in their business.
“Oh, this week was slightly down…ah, but then it stopped. We’re good!”
But if you boycott forever, then their numbers continuously go down. And if you get other people boycotting, those numbers go down faster.
THAT’S how you make an impact.
How do you get people who can’t see themselves boycotting indefinitely? You get them used to it by getting them on board to boycott for a fixed length of time. Ideally, as they warm up to the idea, you get them to boycott for longer.
True, but 7 days isn’t enough time for that. I’ve gone weeks between purchasing the kinds of things Amazon delivers, so it’d just be normal. 2+ months is probably better. Especially if those months are Nov & Dec.
Some people can’t even handle a 1-day boycott. I think you’re overestimating the average person’s tolerance for discomfort.
I don’t even understand what people buy so often. I can easily go a month without buying a new physical item that’s not like, food
I really don’t get it either, how much shit do people need!?
Yeah but it lets people feel like they’ve boycotted. Which isn’t coddling/faux activism so much as it is starter-activism. We don’t want activism to seem hard… even though we know that effective activism pretty much requires meaningful changes to behaviour which often brings discomfort. People are really out of practice and our goal is getting people into the habit
Too late. If not buying unnecessary shit they don’t need from a particular retailer that could be replaced by any other during a previously delimited week seems revolutionary to them… I’m sorry but… They are a huge part of the problem.
I have spent the 38 years I have accumulated without needing to buy a single thing from that particular company. WTF?
I have ordered from them line 5 or 6 times, subscribed for a year because I wanted to watch a series by terry Pratchett, and never again interacted with it in the past 8 years or so. You are not boycotting food or water or oxygen.
Good job
In 1995 we boycotted Shell for environmental reasons and it worked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Spar
Towing of the platform to its final position began on 11 June. By this time, the call for a boycott of Shell products was being heeded across much of continental northern Europe, damaging Shell’s profitability as well as brand image. […]
On 20 June, Shell had decided that their position was no longer tenable, and withdrew their plan to sink the Brent Spar […]
So it needed more than a week of concerted boycott action to bring big business into trouble, but not unlimited boycott.
That boycott had a demand attached, to prevent the sinking of the Brent Spar buoy. Effectively “unlimited” boycott until Shell gave into the demand.
This and the last no shop Friday thing seem mostly pointless. I mean fuck Amazon for sure but shouldn’t there be some goal? “Boycott Amazon until X, Y, and Z” not “No buy from Amazon for a week but then we’ll be back so no worries!”
The implicit demand is to stop supporting fascists.
for a week
Implicit demands are for mob bosses and boat owners. If you’re threatening a corporation you need to be clear and direct.
Less
We are boycotting Amazon products until they stop be bad
More
We are boycotting Amazon products until they make another season of The Expanse
Or whatever. Clear, concrete, demands.
We are boycotting Amazon products until they make another season of The Expanse
With the time skip, that’s going to be a long boycott.
Boycott action, and a smidge of arson.
Okay, so start boycotting Amazon now and don’t stop.
This is how strikes are organized generally. You do limited time events too minimize the hurt on both sides, and bring them both to the table.
Honestly its just too easy to entirely cut them out of your life, coming from a heavy user previously. Alexas are gone. Prime canceled. Chase card closed. It was tough for one day, but now I feel great knowing I am not contributing to my own disenfranchisement. Also, saving lots of money after killing my consumption addiction.
I highly recommend it!
…killing my consumption addiction…
This is the key right here. Do more with less. Keep that phone a year or two longer. Don’t spend money into the pockets of the billionaires lining up for Trump’s new fascist country. A 7 day boycott can show you you CAN go longer than a day without buying from Amazon. And if you can stay away for a week from them, maybe you can do without the unnecessary stuff they’re throwing down your throat.
You guys buy from Amazon?
A boycott or strike with an end date is seldom effective.
See for instance Reddit
Not necessarily. The employees of airlines have been quite impactful with partial, random strikes in a method called CHOAS. Not everyone will strike at the same time and their strikes only last a few hours- enough to cause problems for the flight they’ve been scheduled on. This hurts the company without harming too many customers and has been effective in the past as a strike strategy.
Think of a partial strike as a warning that more could follow if demands aren’t meet.
Difference here: Amazon being owned by a man worth fucking $200 BILLION, any temporary disruption will hardly register on the grande scale of his wealth.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Yes, this isn’t the best way to harm Amazon, but small, targeted boycotts can drive change. And I bet, if you try living without Amazon for a week, you’ll find replacements and it’ll be easier to move away from them long-term
And I bet, if you try living without Amazon for a week, you’ll find replacements and it’ll be easier to move away from them long-term
Exactly.
A warning? Wtf
Reddit is fucking dead, nowadays. You can’t seriously call that “living”. Ok, braindead at least
The problem of boycotting Amazon for over a year now is that I can’t participate in collective actions like this one.
Really you are ahead of the curve which is great!
What have you been using to order RAM/disks/whatever?
B&H is a solid source for computer parts.
I know some don’t like them but Canada Computers has been good for me.
Or how about you just stop buying from that cancerous blight on our society altogether?
Haven’t bought almost anything from Amazon in decades. No subscriptions or fire sticks either. I think Jeff Bezos got like 13 $ from me. Ever. Period.
There have always been better or just as good deals elsewhere (i.e. eBay). And I think that people do not realize that more than 50% of offered stuff can be obtained CHEAPER when bought directly from the seller/producer.
Just write an eMail and… off you go.
Dude, same. It’s been about ten years since my wife and I stopped buying from amazon. Never have I had a problem finding the things I need on eBay or Craigslist or straight from the seller.
Just order some new headphones directly from Lenovo that were the exact price as on amazon and even had free two day shipping and don’t require me to have an account. Great, no issues.
For other things, people for the love of god please buy used and local as much as you can. I live in a smaller town and can find soooooo much shit locally. Not everything but I’d say most everyday things!
One thing Amazon is better at (at least here in Germany) is free shipping. But seeing how that is a least partially responsible for creating a cutthroat delivery market, where companies contract out delivery work to barely self-employed drivers for barely any money, paying for shipping doesn’t seem like a bad idea (even though I know the drivers won’t really see any of that money in the end)
I find this to be rather healthy sacrifice attitude. You pay a few cents more, but the world gets that one micron more normal than it was a second ago. Works for me.
I mostly shop on eBay now. Way better anyway.
I really liked ebay like 20 years ago. Now at least here, it’s just for people dropshipping stuff or sell stuff super overpriced. Like more expensive than new. It’s such a weird place.
LOL Totally not a scumbag Omidyar company
I avoid them as much as possible purely because their in-house logistics company recently started doing their deliveries here instead of DHL, and they are absolutely terrible. Delivery times range from 7 AM to 9 PM and they just leave the package in front of your door without even ringing the doorbell
as much as possible
Americans are great at mental gymnastics and making excuses to get out of things when it becomes slightly inconvenient or requires effort.
That’s why you lose and keep losing.There’s always a cost to convenience, but many are not paying attention.
many are not paying attention
Deliberately sticking your head in the sand for some profit or convenience is not the same.
That’s an excuse.
sounds easy considering I haven’t bought anything from Amazon in years
Right? One week of not buying things from Amazon is fucking nothing. They’ve proven over and over that they’re evil and should be boycotted. Do people seriously buy something every week from Amazon? That’s like addiction shit.
Just stop buying from Amazon. I reached that tipping point like twelve horrific things ago. If you’re still using it, you’re just kind of a bad person with zero self control.
Listen, I can’t just not use Amazon. Where else am I going to get my SYPHILICHODE nail trimmers and LEAKCROTCH underwear?
You can’t just find horrible garbage to buy ANYWHERE, you gotta buy it on Amazon.
I can live without it for a week, but man, these underwear don’t last too long so I gotta keep buying more!
(/s in case this was not sufficiently clear, but this is the ultimate problem with all these pointless little internet symbolic gestures: nobody will notice, remember, or care about them since they’re only going to be a very minor stoppage in buying things, which everyone ends up buying ANYWAYS after the week is over.)
“…Do people seriously buy something every week from Amazon?”
Yes. I have one family member with an amazon affiliated credit card and when it’s combined with prime… Anyways, multiple family members use that account to make orders from. This includes ordering cases of softdrinks ever 2-3 weeks.
You and me both my friend. ✊
Me too. I’m from europe and it wasn’t a big deal for me to avoid Amazon.
I’ve already been “boycotting amazon” for a while because everything on there is complete dogshit or overpriced and I just don’t feel a need to buy anything from them.
Also their website doesn’t fucking work on my phone.
Yep. Half their products feel cheaper in quality than Temu. I cancelled Amazon years ago when I realized they let ANYONE sell on there. Pair that with the corporate monopoly they and others hold, I passed on supporting it.
Couldn’t boycott it for the moral reasons? Like, are you saying you’d still support the height of shitty companies destroying their industries if they just had good UI and better deals?
I’d eat a baby if it tasted good.
I deleted all my amazon accounts a few weeks ago, and have no plans to go back. When I order things now, I’ll just order through the vendor instead of Amazon, I can live with it taking longer or costing a bit more.
Can’t remember the last time I bought something from there.
I can’t deny the convenience Amazon provide people in terms of their logistics and the range of products available in one place.
In saying that, it’s really not that difficult to forgo, and there are plenty of alternatives. Don’t buy books: get a library card. Buy your electronics from Canada Computers or other similar stores. Healthy Planet and Well.ca are great for cosmetics and self care. Trade prime for a Plex server. There are plenty of options.
I fully deleted my amazon account at the start of this Trump mess and asked them to delete all of my personal data. Life goes on.
That’s not a boycott. That’s waiting until payday to shop.
There needs to be a succinct way to say “Never shop Amazon again if possible. If you absolutely have no other option, don’t do it March 7-14.”
I cancelled mine recently and will actively try to avoid using it. They also need competition.
It’s never easy to go cold turkey. It’s much easier to create lasting change after first trying things in smaller doses.
You don’t have to go cold turkey. Just shop at websites that don’t say “Amazon” in the URL
Boycotts like this do nothing because the people most willing to “participate” are people who already don’t purchase from Amazon. Even if you were able to get a critical mass of people to participate for even 3 months. So what? Amazon will post 1 bad quarter and then things go back to business as usual. Nothing happens. They don’t even really lose any money. At least none out of pocket, of which they have plenty for things such as this.
Amazon is a subscription model. You want to hurt them, then hurt their subscriptions. Don’t boycott them, cancel Prime.
I used to buy a ton of Amazon stuff. Mostly art supplies, pet supplies, clothes, novelties I didn’t need.
One day, I was browsing Reddit and I was like-- “what is this boycott thing all about?” and then I started by not ordering for one whole day!
Then one whole week!
Then one whole month!
Anyway, I ended up cancelling my Prime subscription, deleting my Amazon account completely, and cancelling my Prime Store credit card.
Then at work, for Valentine’s Day, we each received a $200 dollar Amazon gift card as an employee appreciation gift.
I spoke up and said that I would prefer to receive cash or nothing at all because my values did not align with Amazon-- which caused many of my coworkers to decline theirs as well.
It was so perplexing to leadership, that they decided that going forward they are just going to give us a $200 cash bonus on our paychecks
So anyways, that’s the impact one of these “pointless” boycott posts had on me.
So anyways, that’s the impact one of these “pointless” boycott posts had on me.
I didn’t say they were pointless. I say they don’t do anything. What does do something is this;
I ended up cancelling my Prime subscription
That’s it. You “buying a ton” on amazon is small peanuts in the grand scheme. Even if you buy a lot amazon is only making a percentage of whatever you spend. Something like 30%. So even if you spend $10k in a year, they make $3,000 net and have to deduct for the cost of getting those items to you. When all the financials are worked out, it’s next to nothing.
The price of their subscription service is their e-penis. They get to say “500 million people pay for Amazon Prime!” @ $139/yr is $69.5 billion. You can buy nothing and they can still survive… But if you stop paying for Prime they lose their e-penis, which affects their stock price, which loses them bargaining rights with their suppliers and ultimately can affect the price of Prime itself.
It’s the surest way to kill them.
Woosh.
A simple no-buy for one day boycott led to the way to Prime cancellation.
More than one, actually. I talked to my sister about it and she ended up cancelling hers as well. A couple of our friends did as well.
Yeah i stopped using amazon years ago. So I can’t really join. Plus amazon makes so much money from orime sub aand truly absence amounts from aws.
It’s very hard to avoid buying stuff on Amazon even if we hate them. This provides a bit of extra motivation.
Ooooooh 7 whole days??? That’ll teach 'em. What is this, Whale Wars?
It sends a message - this is a warning shot. If things don’t change, another extended boycott can be organised. These people think quarterly, 7 days isn’t insignificant on that time horizon.
What are you doing?
Warning shot? Laughable. Warning shots are for before election. Now is the time for the ACTUAL shots
I agree with you. People can walk and chew bubblegum if ya get me.
The first day is the hardest. You NEED that thing that Amazon has made easy for you to get with just a click from your couch. You drag yourself off the couch grumbling and get on the bus/on the bike/in your car (if you have to) and go out and buy something just as good (if not better), from the local store. You repeat this a few times. By day 7, you realise…you can buy the stuff locally, not supporting a knee-bending billionaire, and the world hasn’t ended. Even if you still buy things you just can’t find from Amazon after the 7 day boycott, you find many things you can buy locally without funding Nazis. Your total sales goes down, and you’re more inclined to shut down Amazon Prime. Eventually, you are only using Amazon as a last resort.
And that’s how you go from a 7 day boycott to changing your life. ;)
haven’t bought anything from Amazon in years.
