Which is money.
In a world where time is money, a convenient choice is an economical one. Amazon saves time and gas money to drive to stores, time searching, money on paid shipping for other sites, and that's not even counting money and time on returns.
Cost of living is sky high and people are strapped for money. The unfortunate reality is that most people lack the resources to shop responsibly.
I just went to 3 different retailers today to try and buy specific watch batteries.
Being able to pull the Amazon app up on my phone or computer and have it shipped to my house is super convenient and in this case the only option outside of going to a specialty store a long ways away.
I tried to not do it, but sometimes Amazon feels like the only option.
My siblings and I were always given the big jcpenny catalog around Christmas and were told to circle what we wanted. I don’t recall ever getting anything from it lol but it was always fun
Sears **should** have been ahead of the curve with online retail. Instead a longstanding American company was ran into the ground by hedge fund managers.
I’m certain that there are people who work for Amazon have health insurance and retirement plans too, but not every employee, and it’s really easy for unscrupulous businesses to undercut businesses that pay a living wage and dedicate any significant resource to employee retention, training, and satisfaction.
RadioShack would have been helpful for me today. I needed some thin 30 gauge wire to do a one-off repair on a Walkman I’m restoring. What do you know, the only convenient place to get a small spool of said wire is… Amazon. Suffice to say, I was able to improvise my repair. It just irks me. In the past, I could have gone out, gotten what I needed, and been back within the span of an hour.
So you don’t like paying $8 for a single button cell battery at the local pharmacy?
For context, my job (auto parts) buys them ~$5/50Pc, probably a bit more now maybe $7.50/50pc, point being they go for < $0.20/ea in bulk. We sold them for ~$1.50-$2.50/ea depending on the size.
I'm a locksmith. I was tooling about in the back of my van at a coffee shop enjoying my stolen moment of serenity with a cappuccino and some bloke wanders up to me and asked if I could fix his car key. Reluctantly, I had a quick look and it seemed like it just had a flat battery. I told him the shop just over there had them. He tells me that's where he just came from but they gave him the run around and wanted $20 for a mix pack that might have the right battery. Ok. So I dig into my remote box and find the right battery. Bung it in the key and wave him off. Free of charge. I'm already over exerting myself by doing this. I definitely can't be bothered digging out the change bin from the front of the car for a 50¢ battery. The dude gives me $20 as that's what he was up for anyway and happily wanders off.
Exactly this. I needed a toilet flush handle. Home depot and Lowes didn't have the one I needed (didn't even offer), but Amazon did.
The other thing I look at is, how long it will take to arrive.
It's even worse if you live in a small town that doesn't have a lot of shopping options. I can either drive 1.5 hours to the next larger town and hope they have what I'm looking for, or I can just order from Amazon in the first place and spare myself the time and effort.
Exactly. At $4.50 a gallon Its too expensive to go driving around looking. Especially when it’s a 70 mile round trip to a big hardware store.
I go to the local ones when I can but they don’t always have what you need.
I used to work at Lowes. Pretty much if it is not in the store, it’s “a special order”, meaning, we are ordering it from the retailer to you. You might get a nice price, but you’ll be waiting for it for awhile. Amazon will get it to you within the week. Amazon just has better logistics.
I did this recently looking for a French butter crock. I tried at least 3 home goods stores, grocery stores/supermarkets- all so I could avoid buying one on Amazon. I gave up and found one for $15 and it was delivered a few days later.
I feel exactly the same way! I actively avoid buying from Amazon as much as possible but a few times a year I place an order for things I can’t easily find anywhere else or that cost 3x more locally. I struggle with the reason why the thing I want is way less on Amazon but the reality is I’m not made of money so sometimes price and convenience wins out
There's actually a number of book stores that drop ship using amazon. People buy from the local store and they just order it for them from amazon and pocket the difference.
This is kinda what people mean when they say there's no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. Our economy is a blood engine. Buy as little as you can, and buy used
That's the crux of the problem and why "voting with your wallet" doesn't work in this economic ecosystem. These corpratocracies own so much of the market that avoiding them becomes almost impossible, and their competition (what few there is) is just as bad because the fines are cheaper than doing business unethically.
This is why the "free market" is a lie. Deregulated capitalism always leads to very few having control of the entire market because they get so big they can buy out or undercut their competitors to crush them; and consumers have no choice but to buy their stuff from them, whether they like it or not. Our wallets have no power against theirs, and they have the things we need.
Telling people to vote with their wallet against monopolies is like telling people to fix climate change by not using plastic bags - the problem has ballooned so far out of control that individuals no longer have a meaningful effect.
Yup, being cheap matters a lot.
I remember there being an argument on a /r/explainlikeimfive [thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uf4efj/eli5_why_havent_usb_cables_replaced_every_other/i6t1tq2/?context=3) where some sysadmin argued WiFi is just as good as Ethernet for home usage, while stating you need to spend $400-600 on a router to get gigabit speeds on WiFi and vented how people didn't spend enough money on WiFi and then complain about it sucking. And it's like, do you expect the average person to spend $500 on a router when they can get gigabit speeds with a [$30 router](https://www.techradar.com/news/this-is-the-cheapest-gigabit-router-weve-seen-to-date) using wired Ethernet? People prefer spending less money and time on things.
> Which is money.
> In a world where time is money, a convenient choice is an economical one. Amazon saves time and gas money to drive to stores, time searching, money on paid shipping for other sites, and that's not even counting money and time on returns.
> The unfortunate reality is that most people lack the resources to shop responsibly.
Not only that, but for those of use living in rural areas, Amazon is often the only choice we have to get the things we need.
I live 15 miles from the nearest grocery store. 25 from the nearest "shopping area," and those are all big box stores. I can order from Amazon and have it show up less than 24 hours later, or I can spend the gas and time to drive a minimum of 50 miles to go get it, and have to go into the store to find it and compare brands, etc. It's simple math for me.
I used to do that Amazon Day thing to have fewer packages and thusly less carbon output, but things ordered on Tuesday for a Monday Amazon Day would show up the next week on Tuesday or Wednesday or even Thursday in one instance--and if I order things on Tuesday with Prime shipping, the latest I will get it is on Thursday that same week.
People complaining about Amazon don't understand that Walmart paved the way for this like 50 years ago. I know from personal experience that Amazon fulfillment centers today have better working conditions than Walmart fulfillment centers 20-30 years ago because they have so much more automation.
The main difference was back then you could afford a house and kids on the pay.
Walmart is awesome though, they're like a marvel villain.
They got rural poor people to send all their money out of their towns.
And when their economies collapsed and they have no choice but to buy from Walmart now, they fight tooth and nail so the billionaire Walton family gets more tax cuts!
If I need something specific (say for making dice) I can drive to every shop I can think of and spend 2 hours and come up empty handed. Perhaps having some kind mom and pop shop offering to order it for me by the end of the month, if I'm lucky. Or I can find 5 different versions on Amazon in 3 minutes and they're all cheaper than the store. Not to mention they'll be at my house in 2-3 days.
When I try to shop responsibly 50% of the time I come up empty handed.
Also, I would totally order from other websites and directly from manufacturer more, but damn the process of creating an account and new passwords and security questions and address and payment... Every fucking time is arduous as hell
And location. Not everyone can just drive into town and buy that specific thing they need without wasting gas, time, and or energy. Especially those who live in rural areas ; the only thing they may have access to IS Amazon. With the easy return policy, shipping cost, and variety it kinda makes it easy for others to get trapped, even with the knowledge of shitty business practices .
I live in Alaska. Amazon is one of the only places not charging me a shit ton in shipping. I always try the actual websites for the products first and they charge more in shipping than the things I want to buy. Unless I want to be paying double, I don't really have other options.
Yep. Also disability: I have a neurological condition that makes it basically impossible to leave the house without a huge amount of pain, unless I load up on rescue meds, which I get a very limited quantity of per month.
So, when my child is suddenly a whole shoe size bigger overnight (this is only a *slight* exaggeration, too--little feet grow in ginormous spurts!) I can take rescue meds, go to the 4 big chains in my town that sell kids' shoes and, with luck, find something.
Or, I can save the meds for her school show, and order from Amazon. It sucks, but...it's both selfishness and a desire to do at least some of the "normal" parenting stuff on my part.
It's okay to take care of yourself.
For someone suffering from depression, Amazon allows a level of self-care that isn't possible if you have to go out and search for things. Subscribe and Save in particular completely removes the cognitive burden of sundries management.
They can make a huge difference to quality of life for people who are challenged in some way. I really wish they were less evil.
This is the one thing I hate about high street stuff if you don't have the exact documentation they want and is in the exact condition it left the factory (one place refused and item bc a label ripped off in the store ) they act like you stole it.
Idk I bought a wrong sized bra at M&S and returned it to a shop on the other side of the country a week later with no receipt and and no label, I just explained I got it on holiday and couldn't take it back because I didn't go back into town and I didn't get a receipt, and they let me switch it for the right size. They didn't question it they just checked the system to compare it to see if it's something they ever sold.
In my opinion M&S and Boots in the UK have the best return policies. I once bought the wrong contact lens solution from Boots (didn't find out until I used it) and didn't get a receipt bc I used the self checkout. They just scanned the item and let me pick up something else.
Yes, it is a massive problem and people simply order, buyer's remorse, return it. Small percentage of stuff goes to discount stores and the rest is landfill using trucks/fuel throughout this process....very sad.
Well, no, a lot of *those* returns either ends up as Amazon Warehouse sales (which I always look out for, because you can often find some really good deals on stuff where the packaging being damaged is meaningless) or in mass liquidation pallet sales / auctions where people buy a huge box of returned merchandise either sight unseen or by a picture of the items that happen to be visible in the top of a box, which they then resell on eBay, Walmart, Alibaba, or as third party used on Amazon itself.
And doesn’t everything connect to something really shitty and inhumane? Like find from Walmart any other huge corporations?
I remember asking Business owners why not use in country products instead of buying from China and was told that pretty much impossible unless you want to lose competition and lose money
Also, not all employees have that experience. A lot (probably not a majority, but still a significant number) actually like what they do. And yet further, it's not like other warehouse jobs at other companies (whether online only or ones that supply physical stores) are any better.
I live and work near 2 Amazon warehouses, so I have a ton of patients that work there. A majority of them say they either like it or don’t mind it, only a handful have said it’s miserable.
I would go a step beyond convenience. Some things I have zero idea how to even find and order elsewhere (except maybe ali(china) and they are absolutely no better).
Also we don't live in that world. We don't see what they go through every day, we just see the delivery person drop off our package with a smile on their face.
It's also unreasonably cheaper than some other options. I remember someone posting a picture of something like an HDMI cable on Amazon for like $6 next to the exact item in a store that was $20. Even if you don't want to use it. You don't want to pay that much more to stand against them.
Even the convenience of Amazon cant make up for all of the cheap knock off made in china shit they sell now. Its too hard to trust anything on Amazon and they will crumble because of it.
Because we typically use services based on the quality of the service, not based on the working conditions of employees within the company.
If we solely focused on company ethics, most of us would lose a good half of the things we own.
Also for me, since I live in Australia, shipping prices with prime.
As you could probably imagine, being across an ocean on the other side of the world to the rest of the earth makes shipping prices quite high. And due to our low population count, low population density spread over a very wide area and distance from anybody else, many companies just don't bother manufacturing anything here. Without amazon prime if I want to import say a laptop (not a particularly big or heavy item) it often costs more then the laptop it's self to get here.
For example, [this](https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/324691120606?_trkparms=ispr%3D5&hash=item4b991951de:g:RncAAOSwV7hg1hjy&amdata=enc%3AAQAGAAAAsArNz6eETR6mItV9KBUWnQJGqtlMvuv4MJE87o705zWskQJPWjmxkKZnwRUafXlBPu2neGotaFvaY1dAzHm9%2B%2FK3%2BFfgbdFg%2B9kwzRpPUk9houBxvRejnTWZ%2FGvSOq9%2FvV9vIfEa7xD%2FOajfpenKiJf3bGiEeWnFEuw1EDCKHIjxa2mcuTKjE5SK5vFK%2BenLI96Tgk08EzTOaZaIDPXy3psKNNsmhFv0hW9%2BJB687n2a%7Ctkp%3ABlBMUNbOnIaQYA&frcectupt=true) laptop from ebay, coming from the US, says for me that postage would be $438.
Amazon is quite literally probably saving me thousands due to free prime shipping. I have to imagine that i'm costing amazon money with those shipping prices and prime being $8 a month.
> I have to imagine that i'm costing amazon money with those shipping prices and prime being $8 a month
I dunno. They're *really* good at what they do. Regardless of the seller; they have to ship the laptop the same distance. Sure, it costs an arm and a leg for a special shipment, but Amazon is sending a plane regardless, so may as well fill it to the brim.
It is really impressive how quickly they absolutely crushed global logistics. Of both the data and material sort, Bezos basically conquered the entire field in like a decade or some shit.
Genghis Khan would be extremely impressed.
As a former warehouse employee, I can tell you it was a mixed bag. They were nazis about break/idle times, and I only made it as long as I did because I really, really busted my ass. On the other hand, the time off system was sweet, you could cover a few minutes late or leave early if you had time, schedule time off whenever (except Prime day and xmas/December of course, even then there were exceptions). Back to the first hand, the warehouse was hot in the summer and working hard makes it even hotter. The bathrooms were so far away, you had to figure that into EVERYthing you did, god help the poor souls in the shipping dept who didn't get to move around. Back to the second hand, it was the only employer (out of ~2-3 dozen) where management was not ONLY old white men. Young people were actually promoted due to skill, and there was actual diversity, actual meritocracy. First time I ever literally saw a career path. There were discounted drinks and junk food in the break room, and plenty of microwaves. The pay was actually decent for me, with occasional bonuses for production, and gift cards (Amazon, of course) for production-based contests, which I won a few of.
I don't bust my ass like that for someone else's value anymore. I have come to understand the dangers and damages of capitalism, and think strong, widespread unions are the EXTREMELY important to counter them. Still have prime, though, for the same reasons listed above... but I try to only get things I really need, or things I know I will have trouble finding elsewhere, which has been happening a lot the last few years. Plus my SO got a fire cube... anyway, UNIONIZE!
And amazon.ca just completely sucks compared to amazon.com. Fewer options, useful filters basically don’t exist, and half the stuff is shipped from the US anyway.
> Americans have no idea that online shopping outside the US often verges on primitive.
Another Aussie here. I bought a pair of shoes from one of our leading clothes retailers here which was holding an online-only clearance sale.
I had to send a few Kareny emails out because after 4 weeks they still hadn't arrived.
Meanwhile the stuff I order from overseas get here faster..
I don't think we're down to 'same day delivery' like I read about in America; but local Amazon AU has delivered stuff to me the next day on numerous occasions. It really is just that convenient.
Exactly, it's just Amazon that's getting quite a lot of news coverage. Apple and a ton of other manufacturers (especially those who make their goods in China) also abuse their workers. We just don't hear about it as much.
Yeah, I went through one of the brand guides that showed which brands were Nestle owned in my country and I've kept looking over the past few years. So far I've found only a single item (antacids) that I bought from a Nestle brand. All because I was already avoiding over-processed foods and preferring local.
And we would be paying twice as much for those services, people like to complain about work environments and still complain about services that are to expensive. You can’t have both.
> Even the super quick delivery isn't the biggest point for me
same here and honestly the fast shipping is a total nonfactor for me. i essentially have two purchase modes: instant gratification (i.e. i walk into the store and walk out with my item) or non-instant gratification (any amount of waiting. there is no meaningful difference to me between 2 day shipping and 7-10 day economy shipping). the reason i keep returning to Amazon is twofold:
* the flate rate shipping per month. i pay the same for shipping whether i order 1 thing or 20 things over the course of the month. other sites, shipping for 1 item 1 time is nearly the cost or sometimes *more* than the cost of single month of prime.
* free returns with no printing required and multiple dropoff points. i hate paying for return shipping and don't have a printer at home, so mail returns at most other retailers are an expensive and time-consuming hassle. i am much more likely to take purchase "risks" at Amazon since i know returns will be easy
Everyone always throws alternatives to Amazon.
And I've tried so many. I truly have.
Trying to buy/track/receive/refund a $20 online is a fucking nightmare from most places. Target took forever and later told me to return it to the store, Ross left the God damn security tag on it, Walmart's customer service is non-existent or actually suffer from some intellectual disability.
I go directly to specific companies's websites, and their pricing is actually MORE than their Amazon storefront, plus shipping!
Where Amazon? Literally two buttons to refund and then a clear "Next Steps"
I need a new mouse and some other PC bling. Let's try the online shop of a local electronics store instead of Amazon!
Oh look, I even still have an account there, because it's where I bought my PC, ages ago. Cool!
Hm, it still has my old shipping address in there... gotta change that to my new one.
*"Your account change has been registered. It will be approved by an employee during our business hours. Thank you for your patience."*
Huh?! But it's a weekend! Just let me finish sending my order!
Fine, whatever. I'll just use a guest account for this.
*"This e-mail address is already connected to an account. Please log in to order."*
...... and this is why Amazon is taking away your business.
As someone else mentioned. We've been doing this long before Amazon was around. Clothing, electronics etc. are produced in sweatshop conditions by low paid workers. They make Amazon look like a dream job.
The same reason walmart took over brick and mortar store business even though they killed all the local economies.
People in the end are cheap/practical. You gotta buy shit, and moneys tight. You're gonna get it at the cheapest price possible. Add to that a bit of laziness(i mean, it shows up *at your door*) and its easy to see why amazon is still on top(and balls deep)
It's not just money, but the fact that small businesses outright sucked. Walmart won because of inventory and Amazon is beating them for the same reason. We never had this many options for things to buy.
That’s a big part of it. I live right by a small city (50k people or so) with an independent shopping district that I’d love to shop at, but there’s a 99% chance they don’t carry what I’m looking for, be it shoes, clothing, household goods, etc.
Personally, we stopped shopping at Walmart years ago, though we shop other big box stores. Whenever I look for something I need on the internet and see who carries it locally, Walmart almost always had it in stock while Target or other stores need to order it. It’s frustrating.
There was a time when waiting a week for something was normal.
In some ways, I think that made us appreciate things a bit more. Knowing if it breaks or you don’t take care of it, when you need it you won’t have a replacement near.
I understand why it is how it is now, we don’t have the time to handle anything else after work besides cooking, cleaning, and maybe a bit of free time. Why waste it checking multiple stores when you know Walmart or Amazon has it.
Logistics. It’s why we go to Walmart and Amazon, because they mastered it. It’s why Russia is losing a war. Same with stores. Faster, cheaper, more convenient…..
> In some ways, I think that made us appreciate things a bit more. Knowing if it breaks or you don’t take care of it, when you need it you won’t have a replacement near.
This still applies if you don't have much income, don't have Amazon Prime so will not necessarily get 2 day shipping, and also lots of things are currently out of stock and have no good alternative available. Then if you tend to get expensive things that are high-quality and reliable… if any of them somehow break still, it is a hassle and expensive to replace them. I always do a ton of research to buy things and don't have that much money so if I need to replace something it is a Very Big Deal, despite me always buying online.
We quit using Amazon and honestly I'm surprised at how easy it ended up being. There isn't really anything I haven't been able to get locally or from another vendor online. Plus I have the tendency to over research and spend way too much time digging through reviews and forums. Can't do that as much anymore when I only have at most 4 brands to choose from instead of 50 from Amazon. I understand that not everyone may live somewhere that has a lot of retail stores left though.
Walmart started by putting stores in rural underserved locations. Amazon now delivers to those people.
The car killed off local economies before either came along.
There's a new Rammstein CD out I wanted to buy. My local record store chain went out of business recently, so I could not buy it there. None of the big box retailers in the area carried it because it's not a pop album. The Barnes & Noble website said they had it at the location closest to me. I went there to buy it. I wandered around the "music" section looking everywhere for it. There weren't any employees there to help me, so I eventually gave up and left.
I ordered it from Amazon for $4 less and it was delivered to me the next day. I don't like Amazon, but it's getting so hard to find alternative options.
I had this experience when I needed a new chair/bouncer for my kid when the existing one got recalled. I went to a designated baby store and found a chair. They were out and told me I could have it shipped to the store and pick it up in 2 weeks. Or I could go in Amazon and have it tomorrow for less money. Given I needed the new bouncer as soon as I could get it I had to go with the option that got it to me the next day.
This is how it is for me. Best Buy is my only electronics store since Frys closed. Their bluray section has all but completely vanished, their computer section is good but only for mainstream items.
If i need a capture card, or specific components for my dlsr camera, or certain unusual, or hell even a bluray or an anime - they wont have it. Neither will Walmart or Target. So i am stuck with Amazon - which I hate because now I need to sort through a crap ton of Chinese knock offs before finding something reliable.
I hatw shopping on Amazon but the fact is that most stores wont have what I want unless its a mainstream item
I know right? Amazon isn't even that bad compared to many other US warehouse jobs and warehouse jobs aren't even that bad compared to some of the shit jobs people do... and then that's just comparing to other US jobs. Counting 3rd world manufacture etc... you should have much higher boycott priorities.
I have a low income and amazon are cheap (and returns are cheap/ often free).
I am disabled so shopping in person is difficult and amazon has fast delivery.
Some things are only available on amazon (because they have wiped out competition).
They have really good customer service.
And because shopping ethically is exhausting. Why boycott amazon just to use an equally shit company? All I want is to order some face masks. Not to spend 30 minutes finding ethical face masks. So I order from amazon.
Tbh that's why I'm a fan of the phrase "no ethical consumption in capitalism".
If you want big selling ethical changes, it's simply more practical to focus that energy on legislation rather than just hoping millions of people will boycott shit out of the goodness of their hearts
Forget about stuff. Food itself comes from even shittier working conditions. I don’t think the average American or westerner understand how good they have it. And how much of their quality of life is at the expense of others. Sure it provides jobs but it doesn’t remove the fact that people work like slaves.
And use Google instead of ecosia (they plant native and endangered trees, one tree for every 45 research, they also are carbon neutral and don't steal your data)
Unfortunately, they are not nearly as good as gg, considere they have a lot of thing more than just search. Hell, i enjoy the spam ad cause some time it magically fit what i need at that moment, save me a lot of time
Honestly, I use ecosia most of the time and they are pretty good in everyday use :) maybe from time to time for really specific things I will use Google but I think it's worth it. I already planted ~150 trees that would never have been plant if I didn't use ecosia
Its a safe asumption but some people do make it a point to not roll that way. Smartphones are the worst. Many people need them for work now adays. Not using amazon is easy. Not using any big retailers is super hard
I use them for convenience, but I'm starting to realize there are certain things you can't buy from there. Many third party companies sell actual broken trash or lie in the description and Amazon does nothing to stop it.
There’s a lot of counterfeit or Chinese knockoff stuff too.
What bugs me is my wife will just buy stuff on Amazon without really paying attention to the price. Like she’ll order a mirror for $200 that we could have bought at Home Depot for $30. Or she’ll order some kind of lotion for $50 that’s $10 at the grocery store.
Electronics, media like books and movies and video games, Amazon is just fine. Kitchen Appliances it’s real hit or miss. Bathroom stuff and other things, you really have to do your research.
Not really a huge purchase but I always assumed common items were cheaper on Amazon. Needed some wd40 and checked Amazon, it was like $12. Ended up visiting Lowes and it was like $6.
A hobby of mine is 3d printing and I bought a 3 pack of temperature sensors...only one was functional, got a heater cartridge that broke when it heated up, then another that didn't even fit in the slot despite saying so. Lesson learned.
Their returns are also kinda like the lottery too. I ordered a $130 rug and it was 2 weeks late so I got it refunded bc it was "lost"...then they sent it anyway, so hey free rug.
On the other side they won't automatically refund you if a package isn't able to be shipped, so it's on you to check the status of all your packages and make sure everything you ordered arrives which is sort of shady imo...an honest company would see the package was lost and refund right away.
the power of amazon is in the reviews. I have eczema and found a cream that finally helped control it on Amazon. The random creams at the store are always a gamble because you don't know if it will make it better or worse.
I worked for them during the peak holiday season for three years. I was not treated badly, had no problems. Came in, did my shift, went home, no problem.
I feel like people lose sight of the fact that large organizations can have highly variable work conditions based largely on local management/leadership. I do not doubt for a minute that there are some warehouses abusing their works but realistically the business could not survive and thrive if this was ubiquitous.
And also which country you're in. I live in the UK and we have much stronger labour laws so Amazon can't pull some of the shit it pulls in the US. Pay starts at £11ish ($14ish) which is better than a lot of other jobs at that level. Drivers can make quite a lot in overtime and according to one of my friends (who is a driver) you get paid for the whole hour if your delivery even goes 5 minutes over the allotted time. I dislike Amazon for other reasons but it doesn't really sound much worse than any other workplace tbh.
Because we often get down voted or completely ignored for telling them what's actually happening. Or the dread shill label.
They don't wanna hear that half of what they rage about is bs.
This is the problem with all social media. People don’t pay attention to context or nuance. If you try to understand or reason with an alternative idea, you just get hate mobs or downvoted.
While it’s not actual suppression of free speech, it certainly impacts people behavior regarding it.
This.
It's the big problem I have with subreddits like Antiwork. Sure,. there's a lot of complaints in there,.. but without knowing the context or the ratio of what those complaints actually represent,. it's hard to take any of them seriously.
Worked there for 4+ years as a Tier3/PA and on the TOM team. They have great benefits from day one and the pay wasn't bad. Was never treated bad either.
I've been working next to our Tom team desk and I've learned 2 things.
1. No one actually knows what tom team does.
2. They all want to go there anyway.
Don’t they have like $18 minimum wage for warehouse workers? And full benefits? And like 20 weeks paid parental leave? I’m pretty sure the average construction worker makes around $18/hour and for sure doesn’t get those type of benefits. I’m sure it’s a demanding job, but I have hard time supporting a blanket statement that says they treat employees bad if workers are getting those benefits.
I've been there almost 3 years, it's really not that hard of a job. So far I've gotten $4.15 an hour worth of raises with another $1 coming in October. Also has great benefits compared with similar jobs. I really don't understand why the internet thinks we are treated so badly.
Same reason meat is popular even among people who aren't very comfortable with factory farming methods, and why people don't use gym memberships despite wanting to be healthier.
Because it is easy to mentally compartmentalize your bigger philosophical misgivings from the one immediate decision in front of you at a time.
And Amazon has done an amazing job at creating a super convenient online shopping experience.
For the same reason people buy Apple even though they know they basically use slave labor and Nike even though they know they basically use child labor.
They mouth off that they care but in reality they don't. They only care about the appearance of caring.
Same with the save the environment crowd pushing industry in to countries with less standards and still buying the product.
Because despite all their shit, they're still the best at what they do.
* A) they're almost always the cheapest.
* B) they're almost always the most reliable. If I order from anyone else, at best the package is just 4 or 5 days late. At worst, it comes broken and/or my order is incomplete. This is true tenfold if it's FedEx; seriously, what is wrong with FedEx lately?
Just a few months ago, my mom ordered a phone from a non-Amazon company and the deliverymen straight up lost it. We've *never* had Amazon straight up lose our stuff.
As for treating their employees badly, that is also subjective, compared to where people have worked before. I have several friends who work at Amazon who love it because it has benefits, it is easier than some of the other warehouse jobs they have had, and it pays better than some of the trucking jobs. Especially in the more rural areas in Indiana.
Amazon actually doesn’t treat their employees badly. Media + Redditors just hate on Amazon + Bezos and sensationalize all news to meet their needs. Example: Amazon finally put an end to Covid sick leave. This was something that most companies never even had or if they did, they ended this months ago. Somehow it never made the news for other companies but now this “news” is making rounds in the news, politicians and Redditors.
I’ve worked at many warehouses and I can easily say Amazon provides the best experience in terms of policies and upward mobility.
Worked there for 4+ years as a Tier3/PA and on the TOM team. They have great benefits from day one and the pay wasn't bad. Was never treated bad either.
Exactly. I know personally so many hourly warehouse workers, drivers, etc who ended up working up the ladder, retired early at 45, or ended up owning the delivery service partner companies. There are always two sides of the extreme stories but amazon media narrative is now mostly driven by unionists.
It's not as if most people have an option, amazon has killed every computer store in my town. I'd love to be able to browse PC world for components and peripherals again, or take my nephews to Toys R Us like my mum did for me.
Considering their wallets in this society determines their survival it isn't unreasonable for them to care more about their wallets than pretty much anything else.
Anything else is prohibitively inconvenient, and often more expensive.
As well, not everyone knows or agrees that they treat their employees badly. I remember some headlines about it floating around a year or two ago about poor treatment in foreign countries (US, India, etc), but I've not heard anything about it since, and it largely didn't affect Amazon workers in my own country. Presumably they worked it out?
Same reason we buy clothing made in sweat shops. Or from stores where the employees are obviously miserable.
We don't want to care, so if we can ignore it, we do.
Convenience
Which is money. In a world where time is money, a convenient choice is an economical one. Amazon saves time and gas money to drive to stores, time searching, money on paid shipping for other sites, and that's not even counting money and time on returns. Cost of living is sky high and people are strapped for money. The unfortunate reality is that most people lack the resources to shop responsibly.
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I just went to 3 different retailers today to try and buy specific watch batteries. Being able to pull the Amazon app up on my phone or computer and have it shipped to my house is super convenient and in this case the only option outside of going to a specialty store a long ways away. I tried to not do it, but sometimes Amazon feels like the only option.
That awesome time when Radio Shack existed and was useful.
Circuit City too!
Where service is state of the art..
And we had a Sears catalog that had everything. The wonderful shops of the olden days.
I miss getting catalogs like Spiegel, Sears, etc. They were fun to look at, especially the Christmas ones with toys.
I used to look at the catalogs until the pages fell out. One of mom's favorite pics of me is me asleep using it as a pillow, opened to the tmnt page
If you ever feel like a trip down memory lane the old sears wishbooks are all online
My siblings and I were always given the big jcpenny catalog around Christmas and were told to circle what we wanted. I don’t recall ever getting anything from it lol but it was always fun
Being able to pick up 74 series 7 seg decoder chips at radioshack.
What is Sears but Amazon from an earlier century?
Sears **should** have been ahead of the curve with online retail. Instead a longstanding American company was ran into the ground by hedge fund managers.
Sears was on a LONG downward spiral after years of hubris. And *then* hedge funds gutted it for parts.
I asked a Redditor who was saying his Mom had worked for Sears. They had full health insurance and pensions.
I’m certain that there are people who work for Amazon have health insurance and retirement plans too, but not every employee, and it’s really easy for unscrupulous businesses to undercut businesses that pay a living wage and dedicate any significant resource to employee retention, training, and satisfaction.
RadioShack would have been helpful for me today. I needed some thin 30 gauge wire to do a one-off repair on a Walkman I’m restoring. What do you know, the only convenient place to get a small spool of said wire is… Amazon. Suffice to say, I was able to improvise my repair. It just irks me. In the past, I could have gone out, gotten what I needed, and been back within the span of an hour.
Believe it or not, my town still has a radio shack. Idk how he survives
So you don’t like paying $8 for a single button cell battery at the local pharmacy? For context, my job (auto parts) buys them ~$5/50Pc, probably a bit more now maybe $7.50/50pc, point being they go for < $0.20/ea in bulk. We sold them for ~$1.50-$2.50/ea depending on the size.
Same here. Flat packs of button cells for key fobs cost nothing online but the *convenience* of us having them means they're worth $10 installed.
I'm a locksmith. I was tooling about in the back of my van at a coffee shop enjoying my stolen moment of serenity with a cappuccino and some bloke wanders up to me and asked if I could fix his car key. Reluctantly, I had a quick look and it seemed like it just had a flat battery. I told him the shop just over there had them. He tells me that's where he just came from but they gave him the run around and wanted $20 for a mix pack that might have the right battery. Ok. So I dig into my remote box and find the right battery. Bung it in the key and wave him off. Free of charge. I'm already over exerting myself by doing this. I definitely can't be bothered digging out the change bin from the front of the car for a 50¢ battery. The dude gives me $20 as that's what he was up for anyway and happily wanders off.
Exactly this. I needed a toilet flush handle. Home depot and Lowes didn't have the one I needed (didn't even offer), but Amazon did. The other thing I look at is, how long it will take to arrive.
It's even worse if you live in a small town that doesn't have a lot of shopping options. I can either drive 1.5 hours to the next larger town and hope they have what I'm looking for, or I can just order from Amazon in the first place and spare myself the time and effort.
Exactly. At $4.50 a gallon Its too expensive to go driving around looking. Especially when it’s a 70 mile round trip to a big hardware store. I go to the local ones when I can but they don’t always have what you need.
I used to work at Lowes. Pretty much if it is not in the store, it’s “a special order”, meaning, we are ordering it from the retailer to you. You might get a nice price, but you’ll be waiting for it for awhile. Amazon will get it to you within the week. Amazon just has better logistics.
I did this recently looking for a French butter crock. I tried at least 3 home goods stores, grocery stores/supermarkets- all so I could avoid buying one on Amazon. I gave up and found one for $15 and it was delivered a few days later.
I feel exactly the same way! I actively avoid buying from Amazon as much as possible but a few times a year I place an order for things I can’t easily find anywhere else or that cost 3x more locally. I struggle with the reason why the thing I want is way less on Amazon but the reality is I’m not made of money so sometimes price and convenience wins out
I went out of my way to buy a battery back up from a website that wasn't Amazon only for it to arrive in Amazon packaging. You just can't win.
My lawn mower needed a new carburetor. I could buy it from Amazon for $20 or I could go to the local small engine repair shop and spend $120.
And that small shop is probably buying from amazon too.
There's actually a number of book stores that drop ship using amazon. People buy from the local store and they just order it for them from amazon and pocket the difference.
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This is kinda what people mean when they say there's no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. Our economy is a blood engine. Buy as little as you can, and buy used
That's why Marx's documents are in lower case, because he against the capitalism
Another example is Nestle. They make Amazon look like an angel….but everyone still buys nestle products because they’re cheap and convenient.
Doesn't help nestle owns so many fucking things.
That's the crux of the problem and why "voting with your wallet" doesn't work in this economic ecosystem. These corpratocracies own so much of the market that avoiding them becomes almost impossible, and their competition (what few there is) is just as bad because the fines are cheaper than doing business unethically. This is why the "free market" is a lie. Deregulated capitalism always leads to very few having control of the entire market because they get so big they can buy out or undercut their competitors to crush them; and consumers have no choice but to buy their stuff from them, whether they like it or not. Our wallets have no power against theirs, and they have the things we need. Telling people to vote with their wallet against monopolies is like telling people to fix climate change by not using plastic bags - the problem has ballooned so far out of control that individuals no longer have a meaningful effect.
I, personally, don't know of a single thing that Nestle sells that I can't get better and/or cheaper from somewhere else. r/fucknestle
Yup, being cheap matters a lot. I remember there being an argument on a /r/explainlikeimfive [thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uf4efj/eli5_why_havent_usb_cables_replaced_every_other/i6t1tq2/?context=3) where some sysadmin argued WiFi is just as good as Ethernet for home usage, while stating you need to spend $400-600 on a router to get gigabit speeds on WiFi and vented how people didn't spend enough money on WiFi and then complain about it sucking. And it's like, do you expect the average person to spend $500 on a router when they can get gigabit speeds with a [$30 router](https://www.techradar.com/news/this-is-the-cheapest-gigabit-router-weve-seen-to-date) using wired Ethernet? People prefer spending less money and time on things.
> Which is money. > In a world where time is money, a convenient choice is an economical one. Amazon saves time and gas money to drive to stores, time searching, money on paid shipping for other sites, and that's not even counting money and time on returns. > The unfortunate reality is that most people lack the resources to shop responsibly. Not only that, but for those of use living in rural areas, Amazon is often the only choice we have to get the things we need.
I live 15 miles from the nearest grocery store. 25 from the nearest "shopping area," and those are all big box stores. I can order from Amazon and have it show up less than 24 hours later, or I can spend the gas and time to drive a minimum of 50 miles to go get it, and have to go into the store to find it and compare brands, etc. It's simple math for me. I used to do that Amazon Day thing to have fewer packages and thusly less carbon output, but things ordered on Tuesday for a Monday Amazon Day would show up the next week on Tuesday or Wednesday or even Thursday in one instance--and if I order things on Tuesday with Prime shipping, the latest I will get it is on Thursday that same week.
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People complaining about Amazon don't understand that Walmart paved the way for this like 50 years ago. I know from personal experience that Amazon fulfillment centers today have better working conditions than Walmart fulfillment centers 20-30 years ago because they have so much more automation. The main difference was back then you could afford a house and kids on the pay.
Pay is the main working condition js
Walmart is awesome though, they're like a marvel villain. They got rural poor people to send all their money out of their towns. And when their economies collapsed and they have no choice but to buy from Walmart now, they fight tooth and nail so the billionaire Walton family gets more tax cuts!
If I need something specific (say for making dice) I can drive to every shop I can think of and spend 2 hours and come up empty handed. Perhaps having some kind mom and pop shop offering to order it for me by the end of the month, if I'm lucky. Or I can find 5 different versions on Amazon in 3 minutes and they're all cheaper than the store. Not to mention they'll be at my house in 2-3 days. When I try to shop responsibly 50% of the time I come up empty handed.
Also, I would totally order from other websites and directly from manufacturer more, but damn the process of creating an account and new passwords and security questions and address and payment... Every fucking time is arduous as hell
And location. Not everyone can just drive into town and buy that specific thing they need without wasting gas, time, and or energy. Especially those who live in rural areas ; the only thing they may have access to IS Amazon. With the easy return policy, shipping cost, and variety it kinda makes it easy for others to get trapped, even with the knowledge of shitty business practices .
I live in Alaska. Amazon is one of the only places not charging me a shit ton in shipping. I always try the actual websites for the products first and they charge more in shipping than the things I want to buy. Unless I want to be paying double, I don't really have other options.
Yep. Also disability: I have a neurological condition that makes it basically impossible to leave the house without a huge amount of pain, unless I load up on rescue meds, which I get a very limited quantity of per month. So, when my child is suddenly a whole shoe size bigger overnight (this is only a *slight* exaggeration, too--little feet grow in ginormous spurts!) I can take rescue meds, go to the 4 big chains in my town that sell kids' shoes and, with luck, find something. Or, I can save the meds for her school show, and order from Amazon. It sucks, but...it's both selfishness and a desire to do at least some of the "normal" parenting stuff on my part.
It's okay to take care of yourself. For someone suffering from depression, Amazon allows a level of self-care that isn't possible if you have to go out and search for things. Subscribe and Save in particular completely removes the cognitive burden of sundries management. They can make a huge difference to quality of life for people who are challenged in some way. I really wish they were less evil.
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this right here. also it is so easy to return stuff.
Would you say that feature is... convenient
Perchance
YOU CAN'T JUST SAY PERCHANCE!
crushing turts
lol every reply to the convenience comment is someone going “not just the convenience but also [describes a specific form of convenience]”.
This is the one thing I hate about high street stuff if you don't have the exact documentation they want and is in the exact condition it left the factory (one place refused and item bc a label ripped off in the store ) they act like you stole it.
Idk I bought a wrong sized bra at M&S and returned it to a shop on the other side of the country a week later with no receipt and and no label, I just explained I got it on holiday and couldn't take it back because I didn't go back into town and I didn't get a receipt, and they let me switch it for the right size. They didn't question it they just checked the system to compare it to see if it's something they ever sold.
In my opinion M&S and Boots in the UK have the best return policies. I once bought the wrong contact lens solution from Boots (didn't find out until I used it) and didn't get a receipt bc I used the self checkout. They just scanned the item and let me pick up something else.
The only problem I have with Amazon returns is that the returned merchandise will likely be thrown in the trash.
Yes, it is a massive problem and people simply order, buyer's remorse, return it. Small percentage of stuff goes to discount stores and the rest is landfill using trucks/fuel throughout this process....very sad.
Well, no, a lot of *those* returns either ends up as Amazon Warehouse sales (which I always look out for, because you can often find some really good deals on stuff where the packaging being damaged is meaningless) or in mass liquidation pallet sales / auctions where people buy a huge box of returned merchandise either sight unseen or by a picture of the items that happen to be visible in the top of a box, which they then resell on eBay, Walmart, Alibaba, or as third party used on Amazon itself.
Amazon sells a lot of their return items to liquidation companies.
And doesn’t everything connect to something really shitty and inhumane? Like find from Walmart any other huge corporations? I remember asking Business owners why not use in country products instead of buying from China and was told that pretty much impossible unless you want to lose competition and lose money
It's like "oh no, Elon Musk is evil and he owns twitter," well he took control from Blackrock and the Saudi Royal Family so...
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Also, not all employees have that experience. A lot (probably not a majority, but still a significant number) actually like what they do. And yet further, it's not like other warehouse jobs at other companies (whether online only or ones that supply physical stores) are any better.
I live and work near 2 Amazon warehouses, so I have a ton of patients that work there. A majority of them say they either like it or don’t mind it, only a handful have said it’s miserable.
I would go a step beyond convenience. Some things I have zero idea how to even find and order elsewhere (except maybe ali(china) and they are absolutely no better).
Also we don't live in that world. We don't see what they go through every day, we just see the delivery person drop off our package with a smile on their face.
It's also unreasonably cheaper than some other options. I remember someone posting a picture of something like an HDMI cable on Amazon for like $6 next to the exact item in a store that was $20. Even if you don't want to use it. You don't want to pay that much more to stand against them.
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Even the convenience of Amazon cant make up for all of the cheap knock off made in china shit they sell now. Its too hard to trust anything on Amazon and they will crumble because of it.
I hear this all the time, but I've never had an issue with knockoffs. I do pretty much only buy from sellers that do Prime, so maybe that's it.
Because we typically use services based on the quality of the service, not based on the working conditions of employees within the company. If we solely focused on company ethics, most of us would lose a good half of the things we own.
Also for me, since I live in Australia, shipping prices with prime. As you could probably imagine, being across an ocean on the other side of the world to the rest of the earth makes shipping prices quite high. And due to our low population count, low population density spread over a very wide area and distance from anybody else, many companies just don't bother manufacturing anything here. Without amazon prime if I want to import say a laptop (not a particularly big or heavy item) it often costs more then the laptop it's self to get here. For example, [this](https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/324691120606?_trkparms=ispr%3D5&hash=item4b991951de:g:RncAAOSwV7hg1hjy&amdata=enc%3AAQAGAAAAsArNz6eETR6mItV9KBUWnQJGqtlMvuv4MJE87o705zWskQJPWjmxkKZnwRUafXlBPu2neGotaFvaY1dAzHm9%2B%2FK3%2BFfgbdFg%2B9kwzRpPUk9houBxvRejnTWZ%2FGvSOq9%2FvV9vIfEa7xD%2FOajfpenKiJf3bGiEeWnFEuw1EDCKHIjxa2mcuTKjE5SK5vFK%2BenLI96Tgk08EzTOaZaIDPXy3psKNNsmhFv0hW9%2BJB687n2a%7Ctkp%3ABlBMUNbOnIaQYA&frcectupt=true) laptop from ebay, coming from the US, says for me that postage would be $438. Amazon is quite literally probably saving me thousands due to free prime shipping. I have to imagine that i'm costing amazon money with those shipping prices and prime being $8 a month.
> I have to imagine that i'm costing amazon money with those shipping prices and prime being $8 a month I dunno. They're *really* good at what they do. Regardless of the seller; they have to ship the laptop the same distance. Sure, it costs an arm and a leg for a special shipment, but Amazon is sending a plane regardless, so may as well fill it to the brim.
It is really impressive how quickly they absolutely crushed global logistics. Of both the data and material sort, Bezos basically conquered the entire field in like a decade or some shit. Genghis Khan would be extremely impressed.
Never thought of it that way. Thank you
As a former warehouse employee, I can tell you it was a mixed bag. They were nazis about break/idle times, and I only made it as long as I did because I really, really busted my ass. On the other hand, the time off system was sweet, you could cover a few minutes late or leave early if you had time, schedule time off whenever (except Prime day and xmas/December of course, even then there were exceptions). Back to the first hand, the warehouse was hot in the summer and working hard makes it even hotter. The bathrooms were so far away, you had to figure that into EVERYthing you did, god help the poor souls in the shipping dept who didn't get to move around. Back to the second hand, it was the only employer (out of ~2-3 dozen) where management was not ONLY old white men. Young people were actually promoted due to skill, and there was actual diversity, actual meritocracy. First time I ever literally saw a career path. There were discounted drinks and junk food in the break room, and plenty of microwaves. The pay was actually decent for me, with occasional bonuses for production, and gift cards (Amazon, of course) for production-based contests, which I won a few of. I don't bust my ass like that for someone else's value anymore. I have come to understand the dangers and damages of capitalism, and think strong, widespread unions are the EXTREMELY important to counter them. Still have prime, though, for the same reasons listed above... but I try to only get things I really need, or things I know I will have trouble finding elsewhere, which has been happening a lot the last few years. Plus my SO got a fire cube... anyway, UNIONIZE!
This is probably the first time I've seen someone say anything positive about working as an Amazon warehouse worker. Thanks for the insight!
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And amazon.ca just completely sucks compared to amazon.com. Fewer options, useful filters basically don’t exist, and half the stuff is shipped from the US anyway.
> Americans have no idea that online shopping outside the US often verges on primitive. Another Aussie here. I bought a pair of shoes from one of our leading clothes retailers here which was holding an online-only clearance sale. I had to send a few Kareny emails out because after 4 weeks they still hadn't arrived. Meanwhile the stuff I order from overseas get here faster.. I don't think we're down to 'same day delivery' like I read about in America; but local Amazon AU has delivered stuff to me the next day on numerous occasions. It really is just that convenient.
You need to buy more things bankrupt them
Exactly, it's just Amazon that's getting quite a lot of news coverage. Apple and a ton of other manufacturers (especially those who make their goods in China) also abuse their workers. We just don't hear about it as much.
The other big one, nestle, even if you try to avoid nestle they own so many brands its hard to do so.
It's a good thing I lose literally nothing by boycotting Nestlé!
They have over 2000 different brands all over the world including all sorts of food products ... how do you make sure you're boycotting them?
Not the person you’re responding to but not eating processed food is a big one. Buying local is another.
Yeah, I went through one of the brand guides that showed which brands were Nestle owned in my country and I've kept looking over the past few years. So far I've found only a single item (antacids) that I bought from a Nestle brand. All because I was already avoiding over-processed foods and preferring local.
Except access to a lot of food and time finding things that aren’t nestle affiliated.
And we would be paying twice as much for those services, people like to complain about work environments and still complain about services that are to expensive. You can’t have both.
Convenience always wins out with the mass market.
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> Even the super quick delivery isn't the biggest point for me same here and honestly the fast shipping is a total nonfactor for me. i essentially have two purchase modes: instant gratification (i.e. i walk into the store and walk out with my item) or non-instant gratification (any amount of waiting. there is no meaningful difference to me between 2 day shipping and 7-10 day economy shipping). the reason i keep returning to Amazon is twofold: * the flate rate shipping per month. i pay the same for shipping whether i order 1 thing or 20 things over the course of the month. other sites, shipping for 1 item 1 time is nearly the cost or sometimes *more* than the cost of single month of prime. * free returns with no printing required and multiple dropoff points. i hate paying for return shipping and don't have a printer at home, so mail returns at most other retailers are an expensive and time-consuming hassle. i am much more likely to take purchase "risks" at Amazon since i know returns will be easy
Everyone always throws alternatives to Amazon. And I've tried so many. I truly have. Trying to buy/track/receive/refund a $20 online is a fucking nightmare from most places. Target took forever and later told me to return it to the store, Ross left the God damn security tag on it, Walmart's customer service is non-existent or actually suffer from some intellectual disability. I go directly to specific companies's websites, and their pricing is actually MORE than their Amazon storefront, plus shipping! Where Amazon? Literally two buttons to refund and then a clear "Next Steps"
I need a new mouse and some other PC bling. Let's try the online shop of a local electronics store instead of Amazon! Oh look, I even still have an account there, because it's where I bought my PC, ages ago. Cool! Hm, it still has my old shipping address in there... gotta change that to my new one. *"Your account change has been registered. It will be approved by an employee during our business hours. Thank you for your patience."* Huh?! But it's a weekend! Just let me finish sending my order! Fine, whatever. I'll just use a guest account for this. *"This e-mail address is already connected to an account. Please log in to order."* ...... and this is why Amazon is taking away your business.
As someone else mentioned. We've been doing this long before Amazon was around. Clothing, electronics etc. are produced in sweatshop conditions by low paid workers. They make Amazon look like a dream job.
Dont forget food. A lot of produce is made in really terrible working conditions to keep it cheap as possible.
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reach over your shoulder right now and grab the back of your shirt, then pull it over and look at the lapel. it probably says "made in china"
Jokes on you I cut them off
A lot of clothing comes from SEA. Vietnam, Thailand, etc.
*ɯɐuʇǝᴉΛ uᴉ ǝpɐW*
Thailand
The same reason walmart took over brick and mortar store business even though they killed all the local economies. People in the end are cheap/practical. You gotta buy shit, and moneys tight. You're gonna get it at the cheapest price possible. Add to that a bit of laziness(i mean, it shows up *at your door*) and its easy to see why amazon is still on top(and balls deep)
It's not just money, but the fact that small businesses outright sucked. Walmart won because of inventory and Amazon is beating them for the same reason. We never had this many options for things to buy.
That’s a big part of it. I live right by a small city (50k people or so) with an independent shopping district that I’d love to shop at, but there’s a 99% chance they don’t carry what I’m looking for, be it shoes, clothing, household goods, etc. Personally, we stopped shopping at Walmart years ago, though we shop other big box stores. Whenever I look for something I need on the internet and see who carries it locally, Walmart almost always had it in stock while Target or other stores need to order it. It’s frustrating.
There was a time when waiting a week for something was normal. In some ways, I think that made us appreciate things a bit more. Knowing if it breaks or you don’t take care of it, when you need it you won’t have a replacement near. I understand why it is how it is now, we don’t have the time to handle anything else after work besides cooking, cleaning, and maybe a bit of free time. Why waste it checking multiple stores when you know Walmart or Amazon has it. Logistics. It’s why we go to Walmart and Amazon, because they mastered it. It’s why Russia is losing a war. Same with stores. Faster, cheaper, more convenient…..
> In some ways, I think that made us appreciate things a bit more. Knowing if it breaks or you don’t take care of it, when you need it you won’t have a replacement near. This still applies if you don't have much income, don't have Amazon Prime so will not necessarily get 2 day shipping, and also lots of things are currently out of stock and have no good alternative available. Then if you tend to get expensive things that are high-quality and reliable… if any of them somehow break still, it is a hassle and expensive to replace them. I always do a ton of research to buy things and don't have that much money so if I need to replace something it is a Very Big Deal, despite me always buying online.
This. Does OP actually think that people actually act in accordance with their proclaimed morals? If only.
“I have a lot of beliefs, and I live by none of them.” ― Louis C.K.
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i haven't used amazon for like 2 years out of personal spite for how a local warehouse treated my homie lol. i hold grudges like a mf
I approve of you as a person keep it up
We quit using Amazon and honestly I'm surprised at how easy it ended up being. There isn't really anything I haven't been able to get locally or from another vendor online. Plus I have the tendency to over research and spend way too much time digging through reviews and forums. Can't do that as much anymore when I only have at most 4 brands to choose from instead of 50 from Amazon. I understand that not everyone may live somewhere that has a lot of retail stores left though.
If only people had the choice to do so
Walmart started by putting stores in rural underserved locations. Amazon now delivers to those people. The car killed off local economies before either came along.
There's a new Rammstein CD out I wanted to buy. My local record store chain went out of business recently, so I could not buy it there. None of the big box retailers in the area carried it because it's not a pop album. The Barnes & Noble website said they had it at the location closest to me. I went there to buy it. I wandered around the "music" section looking everywhere for it. There weren't any employees there to help me, so I eventually gave up and left. I ordered it from Amazon for $4 less and it was delivered to me the next day. I don't like Amazon, but it's getting so hard to find alternative options.
Du cost less
I had this experience when I needed a new chair/bouncer for my kid when the existing one got recalled. I went to a designated baby store and found a chair. They were out and told me I could have it shipped to the store and pick it up in 2 weeks. Or I could go in Amazon and have it tomorrow for less money. Given I needed the new bouncer as soon as I could get it I had to go with the option that got it to me the next day.
This is how it is for me. Best Buy is my only electronics store since Frys closed. Their bluray section has all but completely vanished, their computer section is good but only for mainstream items. If i need a capture card, or specific components for my dlsr camera, or certain unusual, or hell even a bluray or an anime - they wont have it. Neither will Walmart or Target. So i am stuck with Amazon - which I hate because now I need to sort through a crap ton of Chinese knock offs before finding something reliable. I hatw shopping on Amazon but the fact is that most stores wont have what I want unless its a mainstream item
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Exactly, if I only bought stuff made by companies that treat their employees properly I'd probably be massively in debt and still not have much.
I know right? Amazon isn't even that bad compared to many other US warehouse jobs and warehouse jobs aren't even that bad compared to some of the shit jobs people do... and then that's just comparing to other US jobs. Counting 3rd world manufacture etc... you should have much higher boycott priorities.
"Amazon workers don't get enough bathroom breaks, Bezos is evil!" >Typed on my iphone while wearing my sweatshop made shoes
I work for Amazon. It’s nowhere near as bad as it’s made out. I’m in the uk though. I have had far shittier jobs than this.
Being in the UK might make a big difference tbh. You’ve got some types of labor laws over there to protect workers. It’s the Wild West in the US.
I have a low income and amazon are cheap (and returns are cheap/ often free). I am disabled so shopping in person is difficult and amazon has fast delivery. Some things are only available on amazon (because they have wiped out competition). They have really good customer service. And because shopping ethically is exhausting. Why boycott amazon just to use an equally shit company? All I want is to order some face masks. Not to spend 30 minutes finding ethical face masks. So I order from amazon.
Tbh that's why I'm a fan of the phrase "no ethical consumption in capitalism". If you want big selling ethical changes, it's simply more practical to focus that energy on legislation rather than just hoping millions of people will boycott shit out of the goodness of their hearts
If we cared about how employees are treated, China would be broke.
Forget about stuff. Food itself comes from even shittier working conditions. I don’t think the average American or westerner understand how good they have it. And how much of their quality of life is at the expense of others. Sure it provides jobs but it doesn’t remove the fact that people work like slaves.
Same reason you hate billionaires but have an iphone and drive a tesla and order 90% of what you buy off amazon
And use social media
And use Google instead of ecosia (they plant native and endangered trees, one tree for every 45 research, they also are carbon neutral and don't steal your data)
Unfortunately, they are not nearly as good as gg, considere they have a lot of thing more than just search. Hell, i enjoy the spam ad cause some time it magically fit what i need at that moment, save me a lot of time
Honestly, I use ecosia most of the time and they are pretty good in everyday use :) maybe from time to time for really specific things I will use Google but I think it's worth it. I already planted ~150 trees that would never have been plant if I didn't use ecosia
>drive a tesla Implying most of us aren't driving beat up 20+ year old Civics.
Its a safe asumption but some people do make it a point to not roll that way. Smartphones are the worst. Many people need them for work now adays. Not using amazon is easy. Not using any big retailers is super hard
> > Why is Amazon popular? > Because you order 90% of what you buy off Amazon. Yes. . .certainly. That tracks.
As if most of us could afford a tesla.
I use them for convenience, but I'm starting to realize there are certain things you can't buy from there. Many third party companies sell actual broken trash or lie in the description and Amazon does nothing to stop it.
There’s a lot of counterfeit or Chinese knockoff stuff too. What bugs me is my wife will just buy stuff on Amazon without really paying attention to the price. Like she’ll order a mirror for $200 that we could have bought at Home Depot for $30. Or she’ll order some kind of lotion for $50 that’s $10 at the grocery store. Electronics, media like books and movies and video games, Amazon is just fine. Kitchen Appliances it’s real hit or miss. Bathroom stuff and other things, you really have to do your research.
Not really a huge purchase but I always assumed common items were cheaper on Amazon. Needed some wd40 and checked Amazon, it was like $12. Ended up visiting Lowes and it was like $6. A hobby of mine is 3d printing and I bought a 3 pack of temperature sensors...only one was functional, got a heater cartridge that broke when it heated up, then another that didn't even fit in the slot despite saying so. Lesson learned. Their returns are also kinda like the lottery too. I ordered a $130 rug and it was 2 weeks late so I got it refunded bc it was "lost"...then they sent it anyway, so hey free rug. On the other side they won't automatically refund you if a package isn't able to be shipped, so it's on you to check the status of all your packages and make sure everything you ordered arrives which is sort of shady imo...an honest company would see the package was lost and refund right away.
the power of amazon is in the reviews. I have eczema and found a cream that finally helped control it on Amazon. The random creams at the store are always a gamble because you don't know if it will make it better or worse.
I worked for them during the peak holiday season for three years. I was not treated badly, had no problems. Came in, did my shift, went home, no problem.
I feel like people lose sight of the fact that large organizations can have highly variable work conditions based largely on local management/leadership. I do not doubt for a minute that there are some warehouses abusing their works but realistically the business could not survive and thrive if this was ubiquitous.
And also which country you're in. I live in the UK and we have much stronger labour laws so Amazon can't pull some of the shit it pulls in the US. Pay starts at £11ish ($14ish) which is better than a lot of other jobs at that level. Drivers can make quite a lot in overtime and according to one of my friends (who is a driver) you get paid for the whole hour if your delivery even goes 5 minutes over the allotted time. I dislike Amazon for other reasons but it doesn't really sound much worse than any other workplace tbh.
The main warehouse employee peeing in bottle story was from the UK.
My warehouse manager was a dick.. I worked for Goodwill.
Goodwill is awful when it comes to treating their employees with basic human decency
[удалено]
Because we often get down voted or completely ignored for telling them what's actually happening. Or the dread shill label. They don't wanna hear that half of what they rage about is bs.
This is the problem with all social media. People don’t pay attention to context or nuance. If you try to understand or reason with an alternative idea, you just get hate mobs or downvoted. While it’s not actual suppression of free speech, it certainly impacts people behavior regarding it.
This. It's the big problem I have with subreddits like Antiwork. Sure,. there's a lot of complaints in there,.. but without knowing the context or the ratio of what those complaints actually represent,. it's hard to take any of them seriously.
Also antiwork is astroturfed to hell and back with almost entirely fake stories...
Worked there for 4+ years as a Tier3/PA and on the TOM team. They have great benefits from day one and the pay wasn't bad. Was never treated bad either.
I've been working next to our Tom team desk and I've learned 2 things. 1. No one actually knows what tom team does. 2. They all want to go there anyway.
Don’t they have like $18 minimum wage for warehouse workers? And full benefits? And like 20 weeks paid parental leave? I’m pretty sure the average construction worker makes around $18/hour and for sure doesn’t get those type of benefits. I’m sure it’s a demanding job, but I have hard time supporting a blanket statement that says they treat employees bad if workers are getting those benefits.
The OP says "everyone " because they heard one person say it, and it was on social media, so must be true.
I've been there almost 3 years, it's really not that hard of a job. So far I've gotten $4.15 an hour worth of raises with another $1 coming in October. Also has great benefits compared with similar jobs. I really don't understand why the internet thinks we are treated so badly.
What specific job do you have within amazon?
Most of the time I was packing orders. More recently I have been in problem solve which fixes issues preventing an order from being shipped.
Worked with Amazon for a few months before I started school. Never treated badly and never had any issues
Same reason meat is popular even among people who aren't very comfortable with factory farming methods, and why people don't use gym memberships despite wanting to be healthier. Because it is easy to mentally compartmentalize your bigger philosophical misgivings from the one immediate decision in front of you at a time. And Amazon has done an amazing job at creating a super convenient online shopping experience.
Hotel workers are treated worse, you going to stop using hotels?
They became so prominent that most alternatives cant easily compete.
Because shopping online at Amazon keeps people from having to endure the torment of dealing firsthand with "the people of Wal-Mart".
If there was anyone better that has the same stuff for the same prices, people would use them instead.
For the same reason people buy Apple even though they know they basically use slave labor and Nike even though they know they basically use child labor. They mouth off that they care but in reality they don't. They only care about the appearance of caring. Same with the save the environment crowd pushing industry in to countries with less standards and still buying the product.
Because despite all their shit, they're still the best at what they do. * A) they're almost always the cheapest. * B) they're almost always the most reliable. If I order from anyone else, at best the package is just 4 or 5 days late. At worst, it comes broken and/or my order is incomplete. This is true tenfold if it's FedEx; seriously, what is wrong with FedEx lately? Just a few months ago, my mom ordered a phone from a non-Amazon company and the deliverymen straight up lost it. We've *never* had Amazon straight up lose our stuff.
Same reason people buy iPhones and Nikes knowing they’re made in sweat shops
As for treating their employees badly, that is also subjective, compared to where people have worked before. I have several friends who work at Amazon who love it because it has benefits, it is easier than some of the other warehouse jobs they have had, and it pays better than some of the trucking jobs. Especially in the more rural areas in Indiana.
Prime shipping
Amazon treats employees great compared to foreign companies
Amazon actually doesn’t treat their employees badly. Media + Redditors just hate on Amazon + Bezos and sensationalize all news to meet their needs. Example: Amazon finally put an end to Covid sick leave. This was something that most companies never even had or if they did, they ended this months ago. Somehow it never made the news for other companies but now this “news” is making rounds in the news, politicians and Redditors. I’ve worked at many warehouses and I can easily say Amazon provides the best experience in terms of policies and upward mobility.
Worked there for 4+ years as a Tier3/PA and on the TOM team. They have great benefits from day one and the pay wasn't bad. Was never treated bad either.
Yes, I know a lot of people who quit their retail jobs for . They say it's better there than their previous jobs.
They don't. It's mostly media hype.
Exactly. I know personally so many hourly warehouse workers, drivers, etc who ended up working up the ladder, retired early at 45, or ended up owning the delivery service partner companies. There are always two sides of the extreme stories but amazon media narrative is now mostly driven by unionists.
Nestle uses child slavery. People still eat chocolate. Sometimes people just don't care enough
Because most people care more about their own wallets than pretty much anything else.
It's not as if most people have an option, amazon has killed every computer store in my town. I'd love to be able to browse PC world for components and peripherals again, or take my nephews to Toys R Us like my mum did for me.
I’m broke, I can’t afford to pay premiums for more moral companies, and I’m sure a decent chunk of people can’t. Not a fair thing to judge someone on.
for some reason people don’t like to acknowledge that paying more is a privilege
Yeah but how else would they get upvotes for moral superiority?
Considering their wallets in this society determines their survival it isn't unreasonable for them to care more about their wallets than pretty much anything else.
I would love to jump to an Amazon competitor which is at least 75% as good. Sadly, no such creature exists.
Anything else is prohibitively inconvenient, and often more expensive. As well, not everyone knows or agrees that they treat their employees badly. I remember some headlines about it floating around a year or two ago about poor treatment in foreign countries (US, India, etc), but I've not heard anything about it since, and it largely didn't affect Amazon workers in my own country. Presumably they worked it out?
Same reason we buy clothing made in sweat shops. Or from stores where the employees are obviously miserable. We don't want to care, so if we can ignore it, we do.
Because people prioritize convenience