1056
Dear Amazon
(lemmy.ml)
Stop using amazon
I feel like a lot of people who say this don't realize how difficult this actually is for many people who live in different circumstances to them.
If you, like many, live in some urban sprawl ass area, Amazon has become the "weird part/replacement/too unique for physical stores but costs 5 times the amount shipping it in from somewhere else" central.
It's also often more convenient than some other options while being ethically just about on par.
Its like, I can buy this thing from the walmart family, the loblaws family or jeff bezos.
They all have their evil, and it rotates from time to time who is taking the cake.
Like it's certainly a consideration, like I'll sometimes pick a slower option just to not buy from amazon, but then its like.... its from Bestbuy. How much better is Bestbuy to Amazon? or Newegg?
I mean, tbh the whole inauguration has certainly knocked Amazon down a few pegs for sure, so I guess this is sort of a pre that bias.
My point is, there is a shit ton of things any one person can be doing, and different things are more or less important to different people, so do what you can, and don't expect perfection of yourself, because there will be things you do (if you're a person that tries) that the person barking at you for not being perfect in some other aspect will be doing and won't even be aware of what else you do.
It also doesn't have to be all or nothing. Even if there is some specific issue that keeps you bound to Amazon, seeking out alternatives the rest of the time is still an improvement.
I know someone who has extreme difficulty taking pills and who frequently needs pain relievers to function. The only thing they have ever found that works for them is the Walmart brand Tylenol (aka tiny lol). They don't buy anything else from Walmart on principle, but thos pills are a necessity.
That said, in my experience at least, while Amazon's shopping experience has gotten significantly worse over time, smaller local and regional businesses have been making things much better over the last few years. It's easier to find what I need on the website of my local hardware store than Amazon, with prices that are as good or better on most things, and without the glut of trash items clogging my search. I can even get 2 hour delivery if I need it. I can't get a fucking pizza delivered to me but I can have a socket wrench and a change of underwear here at a moment's notice.
I can't say that there is a better option available to everyone for anything they need. But I would bet that there are good alternatives available the vast majority of the time.
Perfection is the enemy of progress. Make a different choice where you can. It's all good.
Also their profit margins on their consumer store are razor thin. So it’s not like ordering a toilet seat is making bezos rich. It’s AWS where they make their money. And some estimates have that as like 70 percent of the Internet. You can’t really boycott that.
Use eBay.
I needed 7/16" ink ribbon for my antique Burroughs adding machine. Bought it on eBay. Order was fulfilled by Ribbons Unlimited, a small business that just sells ink ribbons for typewriters. Took a week to get it, but I wasn't in that much of a hurry.
I was buying some rolling papers. They were $10 on Amazon. I decided to check eBay, they had the same exact pack but it was $15. Decided to go with the eBay purchase to avoid Amazon. 2 days later I get an Amazon delivery. It's my rolling papers, shipped straight from Amazon with a $5 dollar markup going straight to the eBay seller. So not only did bezos still get his cut but i paid an extra $5 for the privilege.
That happens from time to time. Hell, I've even had that happen two weeks ago with Newegg for a rare cable I needed.
Still though, on the whole, you can get in touch with some real brick and mortar style sellers, and often times it's cheaper. I saved like $20 on a pack of water filters for my fridge recently.
eBay abuses sellers, too.
Using Amazon , I'd love to stop using Amazon but unfortunately amazon has killed all competing stores in my area so if I want a product that's more specialized than s*** you would find at an old timey General Store I'm out of luck
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I understand and agree to some extent. Still good to say it tho, doesn't really sound like barking.
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Of course. Just give me an alternative that
- gives me a definitive delivery date without excessive extra cost
- handles returns and warranty claims at least half as smoothly
- takes responsibility for missing deliveries
What are people ordering so much of from amazon? I apparently haven't ordered from them since late 2024, and those were a handful of small orders.
Shoes. 3d printer filament. A laptop. Occasionally some shelf storage food. A thermal camera. Soldering iron and solder. Cast iron skillet. Pretty much everything that i would like to buy that isnt carried by my local grocery store and is also the only non gas station within 45 minutes of me. Thats assuming the weather is nice and i can actually drive my car the 45 minutes through the half that is pretty decent for roads, and the other half that will blow my tires and bottom out my car if i so much and blink or have a little bit of fog. Rain basically means i update my will before i go for a drive. The other 45 minutes back in fun too.
People often say to vote with your wallet, but really if you want meaningful change it has to be backed by legislation so you must vote with your vote.
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Every time I see those ridiculous "have another one!" ads, I'm happily reminded that, well, if that's the best they can do with all the technology and the money they have, there is still hope.
More likely they have hard numbers saying that for most of their products this approach work, and why bother having a button letting people tell the algorithm they have something already? All that would do is expose them to fewer ads. And you never know, maybe one will eventually give in and buy another toilet seat just in case!
Remember when they had a button you could push and it would just order individual items for you? Presumably with no further authentication?
Well, I just learned that while they are discontinued, you can apparently buy an instructional audiobook on them. Possibly I'm being obtuse, but from that listing it seems like it also includes a set of the buttons as well.
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I bought a wedding ring on Etsy and I get like four emails a week for wedding rings…
The chart suggests that some time late into the day before yesterday, they had about -0.3 husbands.
It would be really nice if you could mark suggestions as no longer needed or purchased.
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Look, most toilets come with seats. Amazon knows that your fat ass broke one, the cheap shit one you just bought isn't gonna be as good a the OEM one.
You'll be back
That’s why I just put em in a subscription, now I don’t have to worry about it.
Alternately: the mechanism to soft-close the lid fails after a few years.
If I lived by myself, it wouldn't be an issue since I have no trouble gently lowering the lid. But alas, I do not live alone and am thus stuck resorting to mechanical fixes rather than behavioral ones.
You know you wanna subscribe-n-save
Have you tried using it harder?
"With a little effort it's a consumable article", Amazon probably.
All products are consumable products if the quality is bad enough.
Have you tried using it harder?
Answering that requires some calibration. What's the middle ground between explosives and a healthy diet? Because I suspect that "I eat nothing but taco bell" qualifies as "harder".
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Why not hang some on the wall as decorative items? Like those stuffed animal heads some people have on their walls?
I should have known this thread would become toxic on Lemmy. Now I have another keyword I have to filter.
I love the concept of Lemmy and fediverse, but God I'm getting exhausted with the constantly sanctimonious people.
It's my number one reason here for abandoning a thread by far.
I recently bought a washing machine, and not even 2 days later the same website sens me an ad email with 5 other washing machine models that may interest me...
Are you sure? Your loved ones don’t need one, holidays are soon.
"Let's make AI do everything even though it has an IQ of like 40" - every giant company rn
nah, targeted advertisements were like that for a long time. check the date, its 2018
Similar story happened to me literally yesterday. Wanted a new vacuum, saw that a construction store chain that has a store nearby has some on offer, research them for a while on my phone, go buy it, use it.
Then later, I get ads for that exact model and some others from that exact store on my phone while browsing for something completely unrelated.
Yeah, not system can know that I already bought something offline, but still...
I can understand Amazon or other online stores for some things but toilet seats?
Come on people. At a physical store you can actually touch a toilet seat and know what it feels like. I guarantee no one needs a particular brand of toilet seat. Also, toilets seats are relatively dense. It’s environmentally unfriendly to have them shipped home.
This applies to many products.
No, having a dedicated delivery vehicle that drops off hundreds of packages in one trip is waaaaaaay more environmentally friendly than you driving your personal vehicle to and from the store for just one item.
Waiting for a toilet seat to be delivered is really more efficient than getting one in the mean time while you’re already away from home in your car? Or out to dinner near the home store?
Only IF you drive and it’s the only thing you go shopping for and the only reason to drive.
If you really can’t plan your shopping trips efficiently then, maybe.
Walk. Bike. Stop on the way home from work.
I know it is hard to imagine other people with lives different than yours, but do try. It might help you understand why they might make choices different from yours.
With all due kindness: You need to check your privilege, friend.
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Hum? This is about ads showing the thing you already bought, not about toilet seat delivery.
All that money, all those algorithms and machine learning... and this is the best they can do?
Or YouTube recommending me videos in Arabic, thinking that maybe I happened to learn the language.
Are these the same tech giants that supposedly want to solve all of humanity's problems with AGI in under 2 years from now?
Amazon is demonstrably proficient at driving sales through targeted advertising. They practically invented it. One anecdotal counter-example doesnt outweigh that.
My girlfriend likes to look at weird shit on my amazon account and now I have to be careful browsing in public or at/for work. Most recently she searched for stripper shoes.
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this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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