- The author canceled their Amazon Prime subscription on a whim and realized they didn’t really need it.
- Leaving Prime meant slower shipping but the author was happy to wait and still found the selection and delivery speed satisfactory.
- Many people love Prime for its fast shipping and convenience, but some readers expressed ambivalence and considered canceling.
Archive link: https://archive.ph/3M27c
I just order from aliexpress. 10 day shipping (to canada) is worth the ~30% discount and the mask-off, low-cost chinese product offering. I’m sick of getting ripped off by useless garbage with 5 stars from amazon.
And Jeff, I am coming for you.
When the revolution comes, you won’t even be able to get to your car to drive to jeff before his housekeeper beats him to death with a dyson.
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No shit that it’s easy to live with marginally slower (but still really pretty fast) shipping and access to a second-tier streaming service.
It’s pretty much the definition of a luxury purchase.
I’ve never had prime and never felt the need to get it. I don’t order frequently from them so, when I do, I can hit the free shipping minimum easily. I have no problem waiting a bit extra for shipping. When they do get around to shipping my stuff, it usually takes just a day or two to get here.
I can’t live with Amazon, so I NEVER use them out of principle.
‘surprisingly easy’ is laughable because I have never lived with Amazon prime
Exactly, it’s like people are addicted to Amazon, like they need therapy to get out of an addiction.
Amazon sucks, it’s a toxic company, just don’t do it!Its sur… ok its not that surprising to me that so many people shop with a company that is so terrible to its workers and for the climate.
hey, its €2 cheaper on amazon, what do I care if their workers aren’t allowed to unionize
Cancelled two weeks ago, and while it’s too early for me to have a fully informed opinion, so far I’ve noticed that if you just hold items in your cart until you reach some kind of threshold (and I admittedly don’t know what that is) you can get free shipping anyway.
It’s almost like I was paying all that money just so I could one off order anything on a whim. I’m an adult, I can exercise impulse control and stick it to Amazon in some small way by doing it. Win/Win.
That’s what I do. And by the time I have enough stuff built up for free shipping, I realize I don’t need most of it anyway.
Yeah, they have order me minimums for some of their shipping options anyway. $25 for same day in my area, but once my membership lapses I bet I still end up getting shit in around the same time
Buying anything on Amazon hardly seems viable anymore. There’s so much counterfeit crap there, and a million low-effort rebrandings of the same stuff you can get on AliExpress for cheaper.
Shop local when you can, and at least shop not-Amazon for the rest.
Shop local when you can,
So local strangers working to support some local guy’s Maui beach house need our support instead of local strangers working to support some faraway guy’s Maui Beach House?
It’s all local business when their main cost is the employment of locals. Don’t be a snob.
Anybody know more about this?:
I’ve heard the following sentiment & a similar stat over the years:
When you spend money locally, those dollars don’t just evaporate to some corporate headquarters across the country or around the world. Instead, they tend to stay in the community, where they’re reinvested between three and six more times. When consumers spend $100 at a chain store, only $13 stays in the local community, on average. At a local business, that number rises to a healthier $48.
I can imagine a local shop owner sponsoring the local little league team… and I know the average hole-in-the-wall donut or phở restaurant owner won’t have a beach home, and I like they have the potential to make a decent bit of dough without college degrees… but perhaps somebody’s actually analyzed this?
This is my main point of conflict with shopping strictly on price. I do try to support local when possible. I’m price conscious of course, but community support is also important. Not all (or even many it seems) local businesses do support their communities but when I see it I make a note that they’re one of the local B&Ms I will buy from.
In summary, I think the statement is untestable because it’s so poorly confined. Basically it’s something that grumpy local business owners with poor value-propositions tend to say. One of those things that sounds like it ought to be true but doesn’t stand analysis.
For example, there might be a “local” store which doesn’t need many employees but sells products manufatured elsewhere. It’s a local store but most of your money is going elsewhere.
OTOH there might be a chain store that employs 100s of local people, and buys fresh produce from local farms. Not a local business owner but most of the money is benefiting your local community.
Additionally, local people own just as many shares in large chains as anyone else.
What an excellent point.
Have to get to know the business owners in your own community and figure it out yourself perhaps!
I suppose a study could figure out average impacts though, via random sampling? Not sure how my source had calculated it.
Additionally, local people own just as many shares in large chains as anyone else.
You mean our neighbors own stock of Wal-Mart so shopping there is beneficial that way?
Shop local when you can
Not sustainable for me, I price it from time to time and local stores are usually, at best, double what Amazon or even Walmart has it for and that’s if the local store even has what I’m looking for to begin with
So my choices are Amazon or Walmart (or similar big name stores) and going to Walmart…yea fuck that it’s a last resort for everything but groceries…
There’s so much counterfeit crap there, and a million low-effort rebrandings of the same stuff you can get on AliExpress for cheaper.
I keep seeing this over and over, but I order a lot off Amazon and I’ve never had a problem with it. Don’t know if I’m just incredibly lucky or what, but the only times I get counterfeit / cheap Chinese crap is when I order it on purpose.
Ofc, those things I can just get off AliExpress too and sometimes I do when I don’t mind waiting which is the biggest issue with AliExpress, the waiting
I, and probably millions of others, are shopping where the best price/value is and nothing else because we can’t afford not to. I wouldn’t mind shopping locally owned and paying the premium…if I could afford it. Stop pushing for expensive alternatives people can’t afford and push for regulations instead.
I think people who see countfeit stuff don’t know what they are buying before they go on Amazon and order from Chinese brands. I know what I’m going to buy before I go on Amazon so I never have the issue. I just use it to check prices and buy if it’s a good enough discount.
Ya simple solution: don’t buy no-name chinesium crap regardless of the storefront and you won’t be disappointed
Search for a desk mounted USB hub. They’re all cheap junk and none are to spec. I looked at well over 200 listings and most were white label.
And if you go to Best Buy, staples, Walmart, target… what is different? I’m actually close to a microcenter and they’re also no different.
Where do you go for a desk mounted USB hub?
So it like, screws to your desk? I too am in search of a quality high powered fast data transfer USB hub that does not cost a kidney, and have not had any luck yet
damn right
every time i’ve intentionally picked the ASNDSZYY brand i’ve been disappointed in the thing and in myself. now i’d rather just spend up front for something actually good rather than waste time and effort going back and forth returning things
I can’t say that I have ever gotten anything counterfeit from Amazon. What I have been victim to is no name garbage that has 4.5 stars due to thousands of fake reviews. Generally it is stuff that is difficult to research good brands and the review websites often simply redirect back to Amazon. It’s also very little use leaving a bad review because Amazon will remove it. For an example, Louis Rossman bought some fuses on Amazon. The 2A fuse did not blow until 10A was passed through it. That was not a fluke either. He left bad ratings which were removed and those products continue to be sold on Amazon. That is shit easily that can start a fire. If there actually was blow back, the manufacturer would simply stop selling that named version but keep the half a dozen other identical ones up they use to flood the results. So while this may not have ever been an issue for you, it can easily get someone killed. Your conclusion is spot on. We need regulation for this garbage. While Walmart is generally seen as garbage, there is at least someone responsible for purchasing shit to put in the stores and they generally have it tested. That is not the case for Amazon or Walmart’s online marketplace or AliBaba.
And not only are there a lot of crappy products with inflated scores because fake reviews, there are also a lot of good products with low scores because of fake negative reviews but competitors. The reviews are pretty much useless now.
If I see something on Amazon that I want, I just go to the manufacturer’s website and order it directly from them. If they don’t have a site that sells it, then I try other online stores besides Amazon. If they only sell on Amazon, then I decide I just don’t need it.
Except a lot of times it’s cheaper on Amazon, with faster shipping, even without prime. Most recent example I ran into.
$75 direct
$65 Amazon
Only 50% risk of counterfeits, but you save $10!
Cheap items/electronics can be more expensive on Amazon than direct, though.
Amazon:
Direct:
Doubt that site has free shipping tho
Amazon hardly seems viable anymore. There’s so much counterfeit crap there, and a million low-effort rebrandings of the same stuff you can get on AliExpress for cheaper.
What do you mean? You don’t want to buy PRAZO USB-C CABLE FOR DATA TRANSFER AND CHARGING, 3M LENGHTH, COMPATIBLE WITH LAPTOP, DESKTOP, IPHONE, ANDROID?
I love these.
EXTRA HIGH QUALITY PREMIUM KNIFE AND FORK AND SPOON CUTLERY EATING SET COMPATIBLE WITH RICE DISHES, ASIAN FOOD, CHIPS, SAUSAGES, CHICKEN, GALAXY S24+, SALAD.
plus i have gotten several obviously used items when it wasn’t even available as used and cost full price.
I got a motherboard once where it was obvious that someone bent the pins then returned it. I had purchased new item though
Plus their search algorithm, which used to be amazing, now pushes so much crap because the companies pay them to be at the top that the results are horrible now.
Every trip to Amazon overwhelms me with choice, then I realize it’s all from Ali, then I close the tab.
I really only buy things from it now if I know what I’m looking for already
It’s getting to the point where even searching for specific products is almost pointless. I did a search for a specific phone model recently and the phone showed up as the fifth result after four prompted results and several ads. When it becomes a chore to even track down a very specific thing you want, why would I keep going back?
The only search worse than Amazon is probably Wayfair.
Ssst… don’t tell or they will start to make delivery times longer.
Start? They’ve already been doing that for at least a couple of years now.
Well, the 2-Day shipping guarantee was fucking destroyed through pandemic/online shopping & stimmy checks. We just hit crazy peaks of rampant consumerism & the guarantee couldn’t easily be honored.
I meant without Prime. Most of the time, my orders take 4-6 days to even ship anymore. I’ll occasionally sign up for a month of Prime when they offer it for free again, and it’s back to normal for that month.
But yeah, there isn’t free 2-day shipping anymore, just “free Prime shipping,” which is slower than 2-day and faster than non-Prime.
I only activates prime with the 30 days trial when I bought a TV that didn’t have free shipping otherwise. Canceled it the day when the TV arrived to my home.
I’ve done that 30 day free trial thing about three times, they caught on to me and started to make it extremely difficult to cancel. So I don’t do that anymore. I just endure the long shipping times and it’s no big deal. I don’t need Amazon prime for anything, I don’t watch movies or whatever else the heck promises they promise. I don’t need it.
I do the same, it is not worth it. Ans they even ship big things now for free, so the wait of a couple of days is ok with me too.
the 30-day* trial
Lmao it’s surprisingly easy to live without AMAZON.
Eh. I live in the middle of nowhere. It’s fucking awesome cat litter comes delivered cheaper than the store 40 miles away.
Good luck using the internet without using AWS.
I cancelled my prime because free “2 day” was actually 3-4 day shipping despite living 8 minutes from a distribution center. Among other reasons too but my shipping times haven’t changed much. Maybe an extra day or two now since their probably creating an artificial delay for non prime members.
I have prime for the no rush shipping. Every time I delay my same day or next day shipping to the 3-4 day no rush shipping I get a few dollars of digital credits which I use to buy ebooks. Over the course of a year it essentially pays for the cost of prime with free books I would have bought anyway.
I have never not been able to pirate a book, if you’re interested. Book piracy is super super easy
I only support book piracy because most of that money goes to a publisher anyways, and Amazon gives credits because they take a huge cut anyways when people do pay out of pocket.
The hoops people jump through to justify why this way of getting free shit doesn’t hurt anybody is nuts lol.
Trust me when I say music artists, writers, and anybody else selling their creative arts aren’t getting their money through you. Having to justify your theft by saying you’re stealing more from a nameless corp instead of the person who created it doesn’t mean shit. You aren’t Robin Hood.
You’re hopefully just stealing from someone who won’t notice because you’re hopefully too poor lol.
Yo ho!
When I lived in NYC I could not even understand the appeal of Prime. Now that I live in the burbs I can’t live without it. I hate that I keep throwing money at Bezos but abusing their return policy is my little solace.
As somebody who lives on an island, I don’t understand the appeal of Amazon Prime. It’s a bogus product - if you live outside the mainland USA, you still get slower shipping speeds (usually like 1 week with Prime vs 2 weeks without it). It’s literally just an instant gratification thing - if I need something now, I’d just go out and buy it from a store instead of ordering it through Amazon or any online retailer.
Similar to the person who commented below. I live in a very rural area so it would be 10 bucks in gas just to drive to the closest Target to buy a pack of pens that I need for work the next day. And I know that I could just swing by on my way home from work and pick them up, but then it becomes a time thing. I mean my entire plan is to ditch Amazon prime after my current subscription expires. But man, there are some interesting things that have just become normalized with the convenience of getting things mailed to me that I’m totally going to miss. But fuck bezos
the convenience of getting things mailed to me
You can still get things mailed to you, with free shipping. Just order $35 of stuff at a time.
It just takes some forethought, some planning, and yeah maybe some “going without” for just a few days. But it can be done! Fuck Bezos.
Speaking from my experience in Australia, Prime is quite good for ad-hoc ordering.
For AUD6.99 a month I can order something that will usually turn up tomorrow morning, meaning that if I need a light bulb or a dishcloth or weed killer it’s just a 30 second search with the app on my phone and I can get on with my day.
Compare that to:
eBay - free shipping, a week or so, “express” , 3 days and AUD12-18 per purchase.
Small online retailers - generally no free shipping, usually an Australia Post option at AUD12 or so that takes about 4-5 days, “express” via various couriers that takes that to 2-3 days for AUD18-30.
Large retailers - a week or more for delivery, AUD10-40 depending on size.
Say what you want about their treatment of workers, from a consumer point of view Amazon’s warehousing and delivery logistics are pretty effective.
Where I live it’s either Target or Amazon Prime. And give how crappy the Target selection is there’s no real choice.
I cancelled Prime late last year, and haven’t really missed it, either.
Leaving Prime also meant the end of free Amazon Prime Video (you can still rent or buy many movies without it), but I’ve been able to bear it.
While I had Prime, I think there was 1, maybe 2 instances where I wanted to watch something and it was actually included with Prime. Every other time, Amazon Video had the movie, but they wanted an additional fee to watch it, so this was absolutely no loss.
One thing to note: Every time I check out on Amazon, now, they offer me a reduced price 1-week “trial” of Prime, to get the expedited shipping, for like… $5 or so? If you cancel yours, and also see this offer: You can take the offer, submit your order (and get the free 2 day shipping), then once you get the shipping confirmation, go in and cancel the Prime subscription. Since you’ve had it for only a few hours, Amazon actually refunds the price you paid. In effect, you get the shipping benefits for free. We’ll see if they close this loophole, but for now, it works.
There have been zero times Amazon video has had something I wanna watch
If you decline a few times they’ll eventually offer you an entire month of Prime for free. I’ve thus never paid for Prime, ever.
No gain or loss there. Amazon’s logistics are so grabasstic now that delivery lead times are about the same with or without Prime. So I don’t particularly care.
I only buy commodity bullshit on Amazon anymore, and sometimes not even then. If they have it for a good price I might get a pack of crimp connectors or a roll of 3D printer filament or nuts and bolts or something. Otherwise it’s just wall-to-wall Chinese word salad non-brand knockoff shit on there anymore. You may as well just shop on AliExpress since at least they’re honest about hawking tat from Shenzen and it’s cheaper to boot.
You might find this very interesting
He tests crimps and various Amazon electical products.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/B90_SNNbcoU
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Some of us have been living without an Amazon account since 2007 and we’re still alive. Go figure.
i have reverted to this lifestyle, and i love it. creating the 5-6 accounts for local platforms was a slight hassle, but now i can enjoy the benefits of a “small” company which still cares about what the customer thinks.
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It’s kind of crazy how Amazon has dominated so much that alternatives pretty much aren’t a thing over there.
Here in Sweden we didn’t get Amazon until a couple of years ago, and they’re honestly so skeevy. Most of the stuff they sell is weird computer generated garbage, and the brand stuff they sell is usually available cheaper or for the same price elsewhere. They also use the same shipping all other companies use, so there’s literally no upside to using Amazon outside of buying weird little niche products. These niche things could be bought on AliExpress or EBay anyway though.
When it comes to “real” products, it’s just generally preferred to buy them from Swedish/Scandinavian retailers. You know they operate within our legal framework with consumer protection in mind, and if you ever have any issues, contacting support puts you in touch with real people that work for the store, not some outsourced representative that’s disconnected from the whole thing.
The only good thing Amazon has brought is hilarious machine translations. Like curtains of people frolicking in the sexual assault, or fondue sets with integrated email functionality.
Where I am (US), Amazon’s anti-competition practices make it pretty hard for other companies to be cheaper. If Amazon doesn’t think they’re getting the best price, they can drop you, and so many people shop exclusively on Amazon that that can be a death knell. Which is part of the reason to stop shopping there.
seeking arrangements
Can you please expound on this?
I gave up on Amazon last year. I do without many things which is fine, but there are some things that are more difficult to find without them. I am still doing without as I’d like to figure it out for the long term.
Can you give examples of the vendors that supplant Amazon for you?
Not the person you asked, but generally I just go to the manufacturer website. Amazon is useful for it’s pictures and an aggregate of similar products, but now it’s usually just a catalog of stuff so I know what to look for
Plus then you can be far more certain you are not receiving a Chinese knockoff of your desired product
Home Depot, Staples, B&HPhoto (decent selection of general tech merch, but tons of photo/video)
As much as I dislike it, google shopping helps me find where I can pick things up locally.
There are things that I’ve been unsatisfied with the alternative options, or particular brands that only sell on Amazon, so I use it occasionally. But I don’t have a subscription to prevent the compulsion to use it.
Sometimes shop around on amazon. Find something I like or need: look for the website of the producer or distributor, order directly from them. Usually same price, sometimes cheaper. Fuck the middleman.
I started boycotting Amazon back in 1999 when they pulled the 1-click patent bullshit. I loved them before that.
In 1999? Brah.
I was an edgy college kid who was raging against software and business process patents. Their 1-click patent started me on a 25 year grudge.
What’s this one click patent ?
In 1999 Amazon applied for and was granted a US Patent for One Click Purchase. Before then, everyone had a shopping cart that you had to go into to check out and pay. Amazon realized that a huge percentage of people would add stuff to their cart and then leave without buying anything, either because they decided they didn’t REALLY need that thing or because they found it cheaper somewhere else or whatever. They allowed you to save all your credit card info plus shipping preferences, then just hit “1 Click Purchase.” It was convenient for shoppers because they didn’t have to go through the whole checkout steps or add everything then come back later to check out. They could just hit a button and be done. For Amazon, though, it prevented the dreaded “items left in cart.”
Other sites like Borders and Barnes & Noble, etc also implemented the feature, since it made a lot of money. Amazon filed for a business process patent (I think they also tried it as a software patent??) and forced the entire internet to go back to normal shopping cart purchases. They ended up losing the patent lawsuit in the EU, but that didn’t stop them from enforcing it on US websites. Borders and BN both implemented “2 Click Purchase” to get around it, but the damage was done. In everyone’s minds, Amazon was the place to go for convenience and speed. Amazon made more money, while others started losing money. With that extra money, Amazon was able to move into the “niche” of Walmart, since Walmart hadn’t yet figured out e-commerce. Amazon out-Walmarted Walmart on the web and became the trillion dollar behemoth we have today.
Wow. Thank you for all of this I had no idea. That helps put a lot of amazons growth and lack of competition into perspective.
A fellow Great Book of Grudges enthusiast! I too started writing mine early. I have not purchased anything Sony since they put rootkits on their CDs in 2005. Nothing. Fuck Sony. And anything Intuit makes for multiple reasons.
And I am absolutely passing The Great Book on to my kids. They know exactly why we don’t buy certain brands.
Not a lot of people hold onto such a niche part of their righteous rebellious college years for so long. I love that, and your bar was so high too!
It’s kinda weird knowing I advertised for them (word of mouth) back around ~2007.
Cheaper than brick & mortar! INCREDIBLE customer service! No sales tax (until you paid it at tax time of course)!
Didn’t realize I’d be concentrating power, helping create just about earth’s richest human.
I barely manage, but I suvive.
