So do you just assume everyone lives within convenient travel distance of a wide variety of shops that would supply everything that they could possibly want, or are you claiming moral superiority because you shop at Walmart instead of online at Amazon?
Seriously, though… just because there are other vendors that sell online does mean that each and every thing someone may want/need is available from other vendors online. Amazon has spent decades forcing competitors either out of business or to work through Amazon. They also leverage volume and loss leaders to drastically undercut prices of competitors they can’t eliminate.
Even if you can find someone else that has what you’re looking for and are willing to pay more (and for the record, I absolutely pay extra to avoid Amazon whenever possible), there are a lot of small businesses that provide even shittier service (or are outright scams) than Amazon. You may or may not actually get what you ordered, and if something is wrong with it, good luck getting a replacement or refund short of a formal dispute with your bank. Many require credit cards for online transactions, and you have no idea how they’re handling that data. Plenty exist that store CC info on local servers with nonexistent security precautions.
“Just shop online elsewhere” is just as lazy and undeservedly self-righteous as assuming everyone can just walk to a physical store to buy whatever they want.
So did you just skip the first half of my comment, or did you not understand the words?
Newsflash: not everyone in America lives in a major urban area where a wide variety of shops are available, let alone small independent shops. I live 30 minutes from the nearest city, which is a small city. There’s a huge amount of products that are not available in either my immediate area or even in the closes city. I don’t mind paying extra to avoid major chains, and I typically look elsewhere before resorting to Amazon, but paying extra and spending 2+ hours in a car to avoid Amazon is not a viable alternative.
If you’re going to talk about the “natural state of things”, then I assume you simply go out into the nearest forest, cut down a tree, and build whatever you need using the assortment of stone tools you’ve hand crafted?
ya thats my problem too. at least an 1.5 hr drive one way to get to “shops” that are not ace hardware or safeway. i live in a town of about 2k up a steep mountain pass. i would love to ditch amazon but its really really hard to
Yeah, I’ve been making a real effort to look for alternatives to Amazon whenever possible. It’s hard, though, depending on what you want. Sure, there’s a ton of stuff on Amazon that I can get local if I’m willing to put up with some inconvenience. I don’t buy books off of Amazon anymore, for example, because I’d rather call the small independent book shop that’s about 35 minutes drive from my house, have them order the book for me, and then drive out and pick it up.
But the sheer volume of things Amazon sells means there’s going to be LOTS of things that they have that just aren’t available around me. A new fan for my specific model of laptop? A replacement knob for my specific washing machine (for less than a dollar)? Amazon it is.
No, your comment was clear: anyone who doesn’t make whatever level of effort it takes to never shop at Amazon infuriates you. Furthermore, you assume that there are always other choices besides Amazon and Walmart. What you obviously still aren’t getting is that those other choices besides Amazon and Walmart may not be practical for everyone.
Amazon is bad. No one is disagreeing. But if I need a left-handed monkey wrench and my choices are either buy from Amazon or drive 2 hours to the closest major city, go to a big box store that let’s be honest, isn’t really much better than Amazon in terms of economic impact, and then drive 2 hours back, you being infuriated by my choosing to not waste half a day to choose the slightly-lesser-of-two-evils is a lovely demonstration of privilege.
And why do you think you have no other choice than Amazon and Walmart in America?
That’s what you said, which is somewhat ambiguous phrasing. It could mean “why do you believe that there are no other choices, because there are?” or it could mean “yes, you have no other choices than those two, but how do you think that happened?”
Given that you started off by arguing that it was infuriating that anyone would ever shop at Amazon, and have been pretty consistent in your other comments that the solution is to just go to “an actual shop”, the first interpretation is much more appropriate to the context.
If you really meant “yes, you have no other choices than those two”, then sure, I’ll accept the back pedaling. It doesn’t change that you are infuriated that anyone would shop at Amazon, and accuse those that do of personally destroying the climate because we are lazy. The fact that you are aware that many people simply don’t have a better option, and yet you still judge them so harshly, only makes you look worse.
It is ambiguous, you’re right. And I already apologized for that.
It’s a vicious cycle. You buy on Amazon, actual stores close, so you buy more on Amazon, thus more actual stores close… And at the end, you have only Amazon and Walmart.
What’s infuriating is not necessarily the fact that people use Amazon. I said that in an other comment. Some people have no other choice. What’s infuriating is people judging normal (I said natural, but it was misinterpreted) to have no other choice that Walmart and Amazon. Or using Amazon where there’s still choice.
And yes, a lot of people can buy groceries in an actual shop. Most people buying them on Amazon can.
And yes, the tyranny of convenience is killing us. Because we are lazy.
Okay, that all I can agree with.
And I feel like there’s a huge difference between buying items on Amazon, and buying groceries on Amazon. I find it really hard to justify the later, but I can still imagine some circumstances where it would be justified (e.g. someone with a disability who can’t travel/carry groceries, and no other local store has viable delivery options).
It’s a shame. I used to love Amazon. Back when they just sold books they were one of the sites that really highlighted just what the Internet could be. More than a place for entertainment, but a place to obtain things that were otherwise unavailable. Their transition from ‘we sell books’ to ‘we sell everything and we’ll actively destroy anything that might compete with us if we can’ was terrible.
They managed to even screw up the cost of gas for me. I live in a small town that happened to be chosen by Amazon to be one of their major distribution centers. Our area is filled with their delivery trucks, and as a result the cost of gas is a full $0.20 USD more here than if I drive to the next town over.
Fuck Amazon. But I refuse to judge people who shop there as harshly. Judging them requires too many assumptions about their personal circumstances.
So do you just assume everyone lives within convenient travel distance of a wide variety of shops that would supply everything that they could possibly want, or are you claiming moral superiority because you shop at Walmart instead of online at Amazon?
Bruh I live in a place like the one you mentioned but even then I can’t find everything I want so online it is.
You are aware that there are other online vendors than amazon, right?
Really? I had no idea! /s
Seriously, though… just because there are other vendors that sell online does mean that each and every thing someone may want/need is available from other vendors online. Amazon has spent decades forcing competitors either out of business or to work through Amazon. They also leverage volume and loss leaders to drastically undercut prices of competitors they can’t eliminate.
Even if you can find someone else that has what you’re looking for and are willing to pay more (and for the record, I absolutely pay extra to avoid Amazon whenever possible), there are a lot of small businesses that provide even shittier service (or are outright scams) than Amazon. You may or may not actually get what you ordered, and if something is wrong with it, good luck getting a replacement or refund short of a formal dispute with your bank. Many require credit cards for online transactions, and you have no idea how they’re handling that data. Plenty exist that store CC info on local servers with nonexistent security precautions.
“Just shop online elsewhere” is just as lazy and undeservedly self-righteous as assuming everyone can just walk to a physical store to buy whatever they want.
And why do you think you have no other choice than Amazon and Walmart in America? It’s not a natural state of things.
So did you just skip the first half of my comment, or did you not understand the words?
Newsflash: not everyone in America lives in a major urban area where a wide variety of shops are available, let alone small independent shops. I live 30 minutes from the nearest city, which is a small city. There’s a huge amount of products that are not available in either my immediate area or even in the closes city. I don’t mind paying extra to avoid major chains, and I typically look elsewhere before resorting to Amazon, but paying extra and spending 2+ hours in a car to avoid Amazon is not a viable alternative.
If you’re going to talk about the “natural state of things”, then I assume you simply go out into the nearest forest, cut down a tree, and build whatever you need using the assortment of stone tools you’ve hand crafted?
ya thats my problem too. at least an 1.5 hr drive one way to get to “shops” that are not ace hardware or safeway. i live in a town of about 2k up a steep mountain pass. i would love to ditch amazon but its really really hard to
Yeah, I’ve been making a real effort to look for alternatives to Amazon whenever possible. It’s hard, though, depending on what you want. Sure, there’s a ton of stuff on Amazon that I can get local if I’m willing to put up with some inconvenience. I don’t buy books off of Amazon anymore, for example, because I’d rather call the small independent book shop that’s about 35 minutes drive from my house, have them order the book for me, and then drive out and pick it up.
But the sheer volume of things Amazon sells means there’s going to be LOTS of things that they have that just aren’t available around me. A new fan for my specific model of laptop? A replacement knob for my specific washing machine (for less than a dollar)? Amazon it is.
You obviously didn’t understand my comment. I may not have been clear, sorry if that was the case.
No, your comment was clear: anyone who doesn’t make whatever level of effort it takes to never shop at Amazon infuriates you. Furthermore, you assume that there are always other choices besides Amazon and Walmart. What you obviously still aren’t getting is that those other choices besides Amazon and Walmart may not be practical for everyone.
Amazon is bad. No one is disagreeing. But if I need a left-handed monkey wrench and my choices are either buy from Amazon or drive 2 hours to the closest major city, go to a big box store that let’s be honest, isn’t really much better than Amazon in terms of economic impact, and then drive 2 hours back, you being infuriated by my choosing to not waste half a day to choose the slightly-lesser-of-two-evils is a lovely demonstration of privilege.
I said explicitly the contrary…
That’s what you said, which is somewhat ambiguous phrasing. It could mean “why do you believe that there are no other choices, because there are?” or it could mean “yes, you have no other choices than those two, but how do you think that happened?”
Given that you started off by arguing that it was infuriating that anyone would ever shop at Amazon, and have been pretty consistent in your other comments that the solution is to just go to “an actual shop”, the first interpretation is much more appropriate to the context.
If you really meant “yes, you have no other choices than those two”, then sure, I’ll accept the back pedaling. It doesn’t change that you are infuriated that anyone would shop at Amazon, and accuse those that do of personally destroying the climate because we are lazy. The fact that you are aware that many people simply don’t have a better option, and yet you still judge them so harshly, only makes you look worse.
It is ambiguous, you’re right. And I already apologized for that.
It’s a vicious cycle. You buy on Amazon, actual stores close, so you buy more on Amazon, thus more actual stores close… And at the end, you have only Amazon and Walmart.
What’s infuriating is not necessarily the fact that people use Amazon. I said that in an other comment. Some people have no other choice. What’s infuriating is people judging normal (I said natural, but it was misinterpreted) to have no other choice that Walmart and Amazon. Or using Amazon where there’s still choice.
And yes, a lot of people can buy groceries in an actual shop. Most people buying them on Amazon can.
And yes, the tyranny of convenience is killing us. Because we are lazy.
Okay, that all I can agree with. And I feel like there’s a huge difference between buying items on Amazon, and buying groceries on Amazon. I find it really hard to justify the later, but I can still imagine some circumstances where it would be justified (e.g. someone with a disability who can’t travel/carry groceries, and no other local store has viable delivery options).
It’s a shame. I used to love Amazon. Back when they just sold books they were one of the sites that really highlighted just what the Internet could be. More than a place for entertainment, but a place to obtain things that were otherwise unavailable. Their transition from ‘we sell books’ to ‘we sell everything and we’ll actively destroy anything that might compete with us if we can’ was terrible.
They managed to even screw up the cost of gas for me. I live in a small town that happened to be chosen by Amazon to be one of their major distribution centers. Our area is filled with their delivery trucks, and as a result the cost of gas is a full $0.20 USD more here than if I drive to the next town over.
Fuck Amazon. But I refuse to judge people who shop there as harshly. Judging them requires too many assumptions about their personal circumstances.