[coldpie]

I've completely stopped ordering from Amazon, for three reasons: they have too much market power, they have serious ethics problems, and their 3rd party seller program has made the buying experience garbage. Welcome to the club.

[ethbr0]

I've come full circle and only order books (usually used) or things I don't care if they're Chinese bargain-version off Amazon anymore.

Target, or occasionally Walmart, gets what used to be Amazon's business from me.

[coldpie]

Even books aren't safe. Support your local booksellers! https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/amazo...

[dan-robertson]

Even for non-counterfeit books, I’ve often got shit quality print-on-demand versions with plates that look like an inkjet printer running low on ink and with the letters having fuzzy boundaries.

[aaron-santos]

I purchased a book this year which included encoding errors. Original greek text which amounted to a couple of quotes was replaced with garbage output. Tables were printed but unformatted. Furthermore, it only included the first 1/2 of the text. The entire second half of the book was missing. I could look past many of these except for the last. Selling half a book is fraud.

[steelframe]

For books I've gone from buying on a Kindle to Kobo+OverDrive which I use to check out e-books from the library. But I'm one of those freaks who actually prefers e-ink devices over dead tree books.

[Moru]

So instead of dead tree books it's better with dead ecosystem electronics? :)

Have you seen what they do in China too get those rare earth minerals needed for electronics and batteries?

[80mph]

I love my Kobo e-reader. Syncs perfectly with my library and Pocket, and using the natural light feature hasn't hampered my ability to fall asleep.

[hinkley]

B & H photos has done right by me so far. CDW seems okay. Newegg appears to have vendors reselling stuff from Amazon with markup. And while you can filter third party out, you quickly discover Newegg doesn’t have much inventory.

[nicwolff]

Last year I ordered a high-priced item from Newegg, received a different model from a reseller, and returned it – then ordered it from Walmart and got the same different model from the same reseller! Finally CDW sent me the correct product.

[cratermoon]

Newegg went down the toilet in 2016 when Liaison Interactive bought it out.

Adorama is also good and, like B&H, you can't do any business with them on Saturday.

[coldpie]

Has any retail company ever gotten better after being bought out (thinking NewEgg, Toys R Us, Guitar Center...)? Some incentive is fucked up if decent businesses are being run into the ground.

[cratermoon]

Toys R Us and Guitar Center are among the retailers bought by private equity firms explicitly so the investors could wring the value out of the company and throw the remains in the dumpster. G.I. Joes was another. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/toys-r-...

By the way the remnants of Toys R Us are now owned by Tru Toys and they are looking to make a comeback.

[stjohnswarts]

Also to load them up on with debt from other sources and then let them go bankrupt. Which should be illegal.

[sampo]

> so the investors could wring the value out of the company and throw the remains in the dumpster

What does that mean in practice?

[jamiek88]

Vulture capitalists bleed them to death. Toys R Us is particularly sad as their business was strong.

[jurassic]

I 100% agree, B&H is my goto for anything photo or tech related.

[steelframe]

tl;dr: I expect to get something with shoddy build quality from Newegg, but at least the reviews seem non-gamed.

After a few months of lackadaisically making sporadic attempts to order an RTX 3080, I finally threw in the towel and ordered a prebuilt machine which will come with whatever brand 3080 card is in stock at the time from Newegg. I could really use the CPU upgrade anyway, and the markup on the parts isn't at all bad compared to the markup from scalpers, who I refuse to do business with on principle.

The reviews on Newegg at least seem not-gamed. They're largely, "Quality parts slapped together and shipped unprotected, so I received the box with cards and RAM modules unseated and case parts bent due to being thrown around during shipping." I'm going to end up merging parts from two systems to produce a watercooled variant anyway, so all I really care about is just getting the parts, in particular the 3080, at this point.

[SkyMarshal]

>I'm going to end up merging parts from two systems to produce a watercooled variant anyway, so all I really care about is just getting the parts, in particular the 3080, at this point.

Fwiw you still run a risk that the CPU heatsink or something similar will come dislodged during shipping, and tumble around inside like a wrecking ball, smashing up the CPU, 3080 and the other parts you want to keep.

I learned this the hard way. There's a difference between how computers like Dells that are designed for mail order are made, vs modular DIY ones. The interior parts of the former are more strongly locked down inside. They're more likely to be non-standard and difficult or impossible to upgrade, but that's the cost of making them UPS-proof (United Package Smashers).

[colejohnson66]

ahem It’s “United Parcel Smashers”

[SkyMarshal]

Haha, I've seen both actually. There used to be a website for the movement, https://unitedpackagesmashers.com/, but it's no longer maintained.

[nitrogen]

I know a couple of people who've done the same thing -- order a prebuilt machine just to get one of the new CPUs or GPUs. Hopefully it remains unviable for scalpers and thus viable for users who actually want to use what they buy.

[monksy]

Don't give them money if you don't support them doing crappy things. Still using them is giving them money.

Also if you're looking for Chinese knockoffs.. go directly to the source and go with Aliexpress.

[julianlam]

Many Chinese sellers will list items on Amazon for a multiple of the price listed on AliExpress. You're essentially paying a multiple of the price for faster shipping.

[nucleardog]

And a middleman that will give you your money back more or less no questions asked if the product doesn’t match its description.

Getting something in two days instead of two months and being able to get a refund if it was completely misrepresented is easily worth, say (as an example from today), paying $50 for an IP cam instead of $40 from Aliexpress for something with firmware so butchered from upstream it doesn’t even fulfill basic requirements or provide listed functionality anymore. And being stuck with it.

At least the firmware is so full of security holes I can probably find some use for the device one day when I feel like spending another evening with it.

[dasudasu]

Ebay isn't that bad either for cheap Chinese products. Lots of direct Chinese sellers.

[randallsquared]

I would love to use Target or Walmart, but the killer feature that Amazon PrimeNow and Fresh still have for me over all the rivals is that they will not allow me to put something in my cart that they do not have.

That's it. Instacart, Shipt, Seamless (yes, I've bought groceries through Seamless in NYC...), this is all I want from you: let me know what I'm getting.

[coffeefirst]

Bookshop.org and Better World Books are great alternatives to Amazon for new and used respectively.

[hndude]

For used books you could try thriftbooks.com

[georgeecollins]

It is really good to diversify your purchasing. Walmart is often a great alternative to Amazon: Newegg or Bestbuy for consumer electronics; Jensen for bikes; Adafruit or Robotshop for hobby electronics; Apogee for rockets.