this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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187
Amazon wants to be everything to everyone. (www.voanews.com)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 88 points 2 days ago (8 children)

This is the main reason I cancelled Prime. They started advertising "More than just free shipping", and I realized that I only used it for free shipping, and as Prime got more and more expensive I wasn't getting any value from it.

Now I just put stuff in my cart until I have $35 worth of stuff, and get free shipping anyway. It's not that much slower. An extra day or two usually, and it doesn't bother me one bit. I can wait a little while for my $10 guitar strap and it's not the end of the world.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I just stopped shopping at amazon altogether. My online shopping experience has improved a lot since then.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

This is the correct answer. There's so much counterfeit garbage on Amazon you're better off going straight to the company that made whatever you're trying to buy or wherever else they say their product is sold

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Even then sometimes manufacturers will still use Amazon for fulfillment and shipping. I agree though, the shopping experience is pretty awful and I try to avoid it

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Where do you shop online?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Luis Rossman said he started buying from Ali Express because they actually sell branded supplies and do QA on their stuff (it was a reaction to Amazon selling fake products that endanger ppl)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

If you're willing to wait for a month, that might work.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

offline or directly from sellers' webStores

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Anywhere and everywhere that isn't a scam site. Etsy, ebay, local and small business websites directly, b&h, sweetwater, newegg.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago

Newegg has gone down the toilet since being bought out (story of everything). If you have a Microcenter near you I'd recommend that.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago

wait a little while

I cancelled Prime and discovered that... everything shows up in 2 days anyway.

I guess being near a warehouse means you get super-fast shipping even if you don't pay for it?

And like, not just a one-time fluke: of the last ~15 or so orders, all but one showed up within 2 days, and maybe 1/3rd of them were next day. Same shipping time but no free money for Bezos? Okay, sure, I'll take it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago

No, their idea of value is bothering with a bunch of shit you could honestly give less of a shit about. Audible? Oh cool, you mean another service you gotta sign up for and keep track of? And you have to cancel that separately or get a subscription charge, which happened to me before. Aggravating.

Prime Video...E-Book...Games...

Yeah they're trying to shove all of this content in your face and you may not likely be interested.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I also cancelled prime. It rapidly became clear that they were, and are, deliberately delaying my shipments by like 5 days or more. They don’t even ship my orders until at least 3 days after I place them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

I notice the same thing. I think it's because they are busy moving it from a distant warehouse to one closer to you, because you can't possibly keep all of the same crap in all of the warehouses. So it's being transported, but not "shipped", allowing them to take longer.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I feel like they should pay me for watching The Rings of Power. But I’ll always be grateful to them for picking up The Expanse and finishing the show.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I loved rings of power. It’s so good! Was it not entertaining for you?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I found it boring and overwrought on its own merits. And of course it butchers the Tolkein source material. The way they bend over backwards to get the characters to repeat lines from the Peter Jackson trilogy is embarrassing, and their lame attempts at origin stories like “how Gandalf got his staff” are also embarrassing (and that one was a literal shaggydog story to boot). I liked the actor they got for Tom Bombadil but again, making him into a spirit guide for Gandalf was a cliche and butchers the source material.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Not OP, but to me the first season kind of hurt to watch. Super poor pacing, bad acting, lack of connection to the characters. The second season picked up a bit and was at least somewhat entertaining because Sauron put on a great performance and carried every scene he was in, but thats just my two cents.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago

It used to be $25. Now it's $35, waiting for them to raise the threshold further.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

I started the same thing earlier this year when my subscription to Prime was expiring. So far it really hasn’t been a big problem and has the nice perk that it encourages me to shop less at Amazon.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I mostly had it for streaming video but cancelled once they started offering a sub + ads tier for their videos, I don't want to support companies that do that greasy shit like cable TV did.

[–] [email protected] 78 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Except an employer, they don't want to be that.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago

Well, they want to be everyone's former employer at least.

https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-warehouses-hiring-shortage

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

In my experience, that's a good way to overextend yourself and end up becoming nothing to no one as a result.

This too shall pass. Granted, it might take a while, though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Yes. They are chasing corporate profits during covid. It’s a recipe for disaster on the already worker shortage they are facing. If i could afford a long term put on Amazon if take it. They are a bubble waiting to burst.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

It'll pass, but it'll pass like a kidney stone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

your experience is good and all, but the president exists, they very much can be everything for everyone, just look at the power companies used to have locally

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Join us. Thrive.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Immediately thought of jojamart.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 days ago (2 children)

There are things that you can't find anywhere but Amazon and it blows

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

you're saying that like their search works

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You mean you didn't want the "ZVIANX USB Charging APPLE ANDROID TRUE WIRELESS Charging PAD"?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago

No, they want ZELLA USB-C MICRO THUNDERBOLT APPLE ANDROID 100% chrging pad.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

There are probably more things you can only find off Amazon but they’re distributed all over the place so this is harder to see.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago

They behave exactly like black mold. They start coalescing in some adjacent space and suddenly BOOM. Online storefront, starts hosting its own servers, that becomes part of the business. Starts building out warehouses, that becomes part of the business. IoT things that run on their servers, then cameras, gobbles up Blink. They even had a pilot project for restaurant delivery, we'll probably see that again once they can tie it into their parcel delivery fleet

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

maybe they can start by fixing their search. yesterday i was looking up the cheapest rechargable lithium battery of a certain type across several sites. amazon was the worst experience. after i sorted by price, i noticed the top 3 results before sorting were missing from the results, one of them should have been near the top. i tried a few things, but they (and a few others) just show up without sorting. horrible.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They won't because it works exactly as they want it to

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

The purpose of a system is what it does, after all.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Where’s my waifu Bezos body pillow?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Wow really? So nice of it to go ahead and start protecting its namesake from total annihilation.