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by djsumdog 3292 days ago
I too stopped shopping at Amazon a little over a year ago after returning to the US. I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart in 2009 and simply see Amazon as the new Wal-Mart.

But you and I and everyone else who decides not the shop there; we don't make a dent. You cannot vote with your dollars. There are still way too many people who don't care or who follow the advertising. It's the reason why Uber will be around for decades.

Public Relations/Propaganda/Marketing is amazing. McDonalds convinced millions of Americans the girl who sued for spilling coffee on herself had fought and won a frivolous lawsuit when the reality was far from the truth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNWh6Kw3ejQ
2 comments
Treegarden 3292 days ago
sorry if this is a silly question, but whats so bad about amazon? Do you mean they threat their workers badly?
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gaius 3291 days ago
There was a big thing about it a couple years ago https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-...

Anecdotally all the ex-Amazon folks I know have horror stories of their own... Having said that as a customer I LOVE Amazon, I have de-Googled my life as much as possible, but Amazon is addiction and my (not so) secret shame...

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cududa 3290 days ago
All my Amazon friends aside from two teams hate it there: Prime Video, and Alexa/ Kindle software.

Fun fact - Brian Valentine, a well revered engineering director in Windows up until ~2010 went over to Amazon and basically rebuilt the exact same Windows software team there - employees, structure, and all. The same team that gave you Vista gave you Alexa and basically every other Kindle product (that's not meant to be a knock against vista or that team)

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yladiz 3291 days ago
I do agree that you don't make a dent, but it's a nihilistic point of view, because you're disregarding the ethics point of view. Sure, you don't make a dent in Amazon personally, but you make a conscious effort in your life to change something you don't like, which is significant and can't be quantified directly.

Also, I disagree that Uber will be around for decades, but it's primarily because of their finances.

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