[justinf]

I'd guess that the only way to really dislodge the Amazon widget would be to make sure it remains unprofitable. If it remains a major talking point and doesn't pull in enough money to compensate for its negative effect on community evangelism, it won't last long.

I have mixed feelings about the new system. On the one hand, I respect a lot of what Canonical is doing with linux regarding mainstreaming, streamlining, and even Unity. I also recognize that they are a company and need to make money, and think Amazon integration is preferable to dozens of preinstalled, hard-to-remove junkware applications.

On the other hand, I really don't like the intrusive-by-default nature of the integration, and the fact that I'll have to go tell all the folks I've installed Ubuntu for that they need to essentially disable spyware the next time they do a distribution upgrade.

On the third hand (what, you don't have one?) I'm not sure what other profitable solutions Canonical might implement in a community that values privacy and freedom.

[curiousdannii]

Amazon postage is prohibitively expensive for those outside the US (except perhaps for those who live in another country where Amazon is based?) The only time I'd ever use Amazon is if I'm after an old rare book which is out of print and Amazon is the only place I can find a second hand copy. And in those times I'd actually be deliberately searching for it, checking many sites in my browser, not casually using Unity!

[chipaca]

We only query amazon if you are in a country that has a local amazon store.

[takluyver]

According to Wikipedia, Amazon has national sites covering North America, most of Europe, Brazil, Japan & China. That's a pretty substantial slice of the world's population.

[zurn]

Only a handful of European countries: Germany, UK, France, Italy I think. That's 15.2% of Europe by area.

[takluyver]

But probably rather more by population. Also, I'd guess that at least some of the other countries get reasonably cheap shipping from those sites.

[Kliment]

If you ever need anything that can be sourced from German Amazon, poke me and I'll get it for you and mail it on. I'm Kliment on freenode IRC.

[willvarfar]

http://catb.org/jargon/html/O/on-the-gripping-hand.html

Just enforcing the lore