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The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

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  • Thanks to my country here is no amazon

    Which country, if you don’t mind telling?

    Alternatively, is that a decision made by your country’s people/government? Or did Amazon just not want to operate there?

    Very inspiring, if it is the former.

  • full-stop

    Instantly distrust.

    Today, you learned that not everyone on the Internet is from the USA or Canada.

  • www.Camelcamelcamel.com for all your Amazon price comp needs.

    Owned by Amazon, FYI.

  • Amazon’s now-legendary “Prime Day” is July 8-11. Much like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, this means sales on lots of items on Amazon’s vast marketplace, and as such many people flock to the giant’s website to get sweet deals on everything from computers to small kitchen appliances and more. While many of us are feeling the financial crunch more than ever, I urge you, dear reader, to resist the allure. I don’t typically have strong opinions about where people chose to shop or how they decide to spend their heard-earned money, but in this post I hope to lay out a convincing case for why Amazon is full-stop evil, no caveats, and is undeserving of your money on a moral and ethical level no matter what your values are. Amazon needs to be stopped, and legislation will not do so. Only its loyal consumers – who keep the beast alive – can do that by taking their money elsewhere. No matter your political or personal beliefs, I'm certain Amazon violates them in one way or another, and you should vote with your dollar by buying from other places whenever possible. Here’s why.

    Amazon basically solved this problem for me: they locked me out.

  • Their business model has been to undercut and extinguish their competition for as long as they’ve been around. The ‘good’ you talk about is about controlling the market and leaving you with no choice as they’ve already largely done with your ‘nicer stuff’. Workers will be shit-canned without a second thought if they realize their ai/robot dreams. Drugs will become more expensive again once they capture the market.

    The world depends on everyone voting with their wallets despite the inconvenience. You don’t have to be perfect, just make some changes. Pay more and support your small local businesses whenever possible.

    It’s not about paying more. It’s that Amazon has products that local retailers simply do not stock and will never stock because the demand just isn’t there.

  • Amazon’s now-legendary “Prime Day” is July 8-11. Much like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, this means sales on lots of items on Amazon’s vast marketplace, and as such many people flock to the giant’s website to get sweet deals on everything from computers to small kitchen appliances and more. While many of us are feeling the financial crunch more than ever, I urge you, dear reader, to resist the allure. I don’t typically have strong opinions about where people chose to shop or how they decide to spend their heard-earned money, but in this post I hope to lay out a convincing case for why Amazon is full-stop evil, no caveats, and is undeserving of your money on a moral and ethical level no matter what your values are. Amazon needs to be stopped, and legislation will not do so. Only its loyal consumers – who keep the beast alive – can do that by taking their money elsewhere. No matter your political or personal beliefs, I'm certain Amazon violates them in one way or another, and you should vote with your dollar by buying from other places whenever possible. Here’s why.

    It's time to admit that any of the commentators here would dream of being at the helm of Amazon, but simply aren't talented enough to build such an empire.

  • Prices mysteriously go up about a week before prime day sales, then drop to a few dollars below normal, scream “39% off” and you feel like you beat the system.

    i usually find the good deals randomly outside of any holidays, i mostly ignore prime deals.

  • Or sometimes they remove a 25% off coupon that usually shows all the time and for the "sale" they just reduce the price of the item to that same amount without and then remove the coupon from the page. It will then look like it has gone on sale from camelcamelcamel because it wasn't accounting for the price after the coupon it was only showing the item price.

    i use another tracker, KEEPA.

  • It's time to admit that any of the commentators here would dream of being at the helm of Amazon, but simply aren't talented enough to build such an empire.

    I accepted a position at Amazon as a finance director for one of their many divisions, and it was hands down the most toxic work environment I have ever experienced-- and I've worked in public accounting for other a decade, so that's saying something.

    I resigned within a couple weeks and found myself a much better job elsewhere.

  • If I lived in a city where there are lots of different retailers that carry varieties of products then maybe I wouldn’t use Amazon. But when you live in a more rural area where the selection is limited and you like better stuff, there’s really not many other options.

    It also seems like a very one sided criticism of Amazon. No corporation is good, and Amazon might very well be evil™️ but not everything about it is negative. It has also brought thousands of jobs to rural or semi rural areas that pay better than anything else in the area. They increase access to products that people like me wouldn’t be able to access otherwise. And they are actively trying to disrupt the healthcare industry by lowering prices and giving greater access to healthcare to people who are far from cities.

    I also suspect that these descriptions of working conditions at Amazon centers seem to be cherry picked and might be attributed more to bad managers than company policy, because I’ve met people who work at Amazon warehouses and they don’t complain about this kind of stuff at all. In fact they seem to generally like their jobs.

    they bought Wholefoods a while ago, but the pay and benefits, if your part/full time is generally better than WF. still its a in-between job jobs though, and they arnt really a stickler when using your PTO/UPT like WF.

  • I accepted a position at Amazon as a finance director for one of their many divisions, and it was hands down the most toxic work environment I have ever experienced-- and I've worked in public accounting for other a decade, so that's saying something.

    I resigned within a couple weeks and found myself a much better job elsewhere.

    This matches every account I've heard from friends in Seattle that have worked for the HQ.

  • It's time to admit that any of the commentators here would dream of being at the helm of Amazon, but simply aren't talented enough to build such an empire.

    if you ever been a manager, admin or even a developer, you wouldnt be saying that. they are worked to being burnt out comparatively to other tech companies.

  • Amazon’s now-legendary “Prime Day” is July 8-11. Much like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, this means sales on lots of items on Amazon’s vast marketplace, and as such many people flock to the giant’s website to get sweet deals on everything from computers to small kitchen appliances and more. While many of us are feeling the financial crunch more than ever, I urge you, dear reader, to resist the allure. I don’t typically have strong opinions about where people chose to shop or how they decide to spend their heard-earned money, but in this post I hope to lay out a convincing case for why Amazon is full-stop evil, no caveats, and is undeserving of your money on a moral and ethical level no matter what your values are. Amazon needs to be stopped, and legislation will not do so. Only its loyal consumers – who keep the beast alive – can do that by taking their money elsewhere. No matter your political or personal beliefs, I'm certain Amazon violates them in one way or another, and you should vote with your dollar by buying from other places whenever possible. Here’s why.

    Not a fan of Amazon in any way shape or form, but for some purchases here in the UK they are simply miles ahead of other firms. Latest purchase by me, though not paid for by me is 2 x batteries for my wifes mobility scooter. 20% cheaper than anywhere else, took 1 week to arrive (not bad, not the best) but was so easy to order without all the hassle other solutions involve. We have a prime account still as there is some streaming stuff we also like to watch. Still (just) more pros than cons

  • I accepted a position at Amazon as a finance director for one of their many divisions, and it was hands down the most toxic work environment I have ever experienced-- and I've worked in public accounting for other a decade, so that's saying something.

    I resigned within a couple weeks and found myself a much better job elsewhere.

    Not your business, so you're getting annoyed, which means the problem is with you...

  • Not a fan of Amazon in any way shape or form, but for some purchases here in the UK they are simply miles ahead of other firms. Latest purchase by me, though not paid for by me is 2 x batteries for my wifes mobility scooter. 20% cheaper than anywhere else, took 1 week to arrive (not bad, not the best) but was so easy to order without all the hassle other solutions involve. We have a prime account still as there is some streaming stuff we also like to watch. Still (just) more pros than cons

    True. I ordered a book from them last week; it arrived in 2 days. Everywhere else, including Waterstones, was "oh we might be able to get it out the door sometime next year, if we can be arsed" so Amazon got the order.

  • Amazon’s now-legendary “Prime Day” is July 8-11. Much like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, this means sales on lots of items on Amazon’s vast marketplace, and as such many people flock to the giant’s website to get sweet deals on everything from computers to small kitchen appliances and more. While many of us are feeling the financial crunch more than ever, I urge you, dear reader, to resist the allure. I don’t typically have strong opinions about where people chose to shop or how they decide to spend their heard-earned money, but in this post I hope to lay out a convincing case for why Amazon is full-stop evil, no caveats, and is undeserving of your money on a moral and ethical level no matter what your values are. Amazon needs to be stopped, and legislation will not do so. Only its loyal consumers – who keep the beast alive – can do that by taking their money elsewhere. No matter your political or personal beliefs, I'm certain Amazon violates them in one way or another, and you should vote with your dollar by buying from other places whenever possible. Here’s why.

    The only reason you need - it's a monopoly. Fuck its all.

    And I also hate with passion that 5 years ago you'd need AWS in your CV.

  • It's time to admit that any of the commentators here would dream of being at the helm of Amazon, but simply aren't talented enough to build such an empire.

    I would dream of coming up with a solution to existence of such monopolies, which is not exactly the same.

    In any case, no. I suppose you are simply incapable of understanding it, but no, not everyone wants to be the biggest turd in the room. There are people who want there to not be turds in human habitats outside of intended compartments and environments.

  • I try to use local stores or other websites, and only use Amazon if I can't find what I need there. But at least half the time I end up having to use Amazon because I can't find what I need.

    It's probably a kind of vicious cycle: as Amazon eats further into profits of other companies they are more limited in what they can offer.

    Know the struggle, just keep trying local stores or other sites first, maybe we can be a small part of change for the better 😉

  • Amazon’s now-legendary “Prime Day” is July 8-11. Much like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, this means sales on lots of items on Amazon’s vast marketplace, and as such many people flock to the giant’s website to get sweet deals on everything from computers to small kitchen appliances and more. While many of us are feeling the financial crunch more than ever, I urge you, dear reader, to resist the allure. I don’t typically have strong opinions about where people chose to shop or how they decide to spend their heard-earned money, but in this post I hope to lay out a convincing case for why Amazon is full-stop evil, no caveats, and is undeserving of your money on a moral and ethical level no matter what your values are. Amazon needs to be stopped, and legislation will not do so. Only its loyal consumers – who keep the beast alive – can do that by taking their money elsewhere. No matter your political or personal beliefs, I'm certain Amazon violates them in one way or another, and you should vote with your dollar by buying from other places whenever possible. Here’s why.

    ITT: "I agree they're systematically fucking us over (and don't get me started on their horrible politics!) but will continue to enable them because it's convenient and saves me a few bucks" this defense doesn't make you look reasonable it makes you look like a clown

  • Thanks to my country here is no amazon

    As someone from Russia, we have Ozon and Wildberries and Yandex and Mail.ru, neither of which exists in all business niches of Amazon, but in the overlapping ones seem close.

    It's not that they are really bad, but I don't like monopolies.

    I think for all of these - marketplaces with delivery, social networks, cloud hosting, - there has to emerge some standard, some global system. Similar to the Internet or maybe to the postal service. Something has to be done, because these unfortunately work in a way encouraging monopoly.

    Even when I was almost unconditionally ancap, infrastructure was a special case (and it still is for most ancaps, theoretically unconditional private property applies to hypothetical things fully created by a person, and for territory, infrastructure, discovered ideas it's closer to the other extreme). These things are infrastructure.

    In the Internet one person can host their stuff on one hosting, another on another, and their email on different providers, but they'll be able to interact. A buyer on Ozon and a seller on Amazon are not.

    That's because email and web hosting require only the Internet the functioning system to exist. A social network requires more (if we want it to be interoperable and global),

    I think the missing part to make such a standard is automated payments in the Internet. The platforms' inner management of resources is hidden from us, but for a global system computing and storage resources are necessary, and they are neither provided by governments nor pooled by enthusiasts, it's impractical to rely on pure altruism for such. And to have a global system with monetary encouragement of providing infrastructure means that we need payment for resources as simple and general as how we pay for landline or Internet service. ISP's no longer provide shell accounts and web hosting, but even when they did, this wasn't quite the thing.

    The platforms emerged because it's bothersome to pay for infrastructure and maintain it, there's not even a straightforward way. You need a humongous service with plenty of computing, someone should pay for it.

    So - there was Usenet at some point solving a lot of the similar problems, except, of course, a news server would store lots and lots of stuff for each hierarchy. But that wasn't reimagined for the new things we do in the Internet.

    For twiddling and various kinds of power abuse to be impossible they should be technically impossible in the system. So:

    1. Various functions of platforms should be decomposed into different pooled untrusted services (to pool anything you have to design for untrusted) in the Internet. Pooling can be done the way similar to bittorrent trackers - a service comes online, announces itself and repeats that regularly. A client needing a service requests a few trackers and picks a few services from the results. Services might be, say, storage (anything, like FTP servers even), computation (submit bytecode, receive result, or something like that), indexing (a search engine, returning results in standard machine-processable format), notification (like NOSTR relays). Maybe trade for resources can be a separate type of service. And user identity caching.

    2. It should be possible to provide a paid service and pay for that service, easily enough, like MMORPG scripted marketplaces - a setting like "buy no more than 2G of storage, by price no more than N per K, stop if remaining money less than K". Or same for selling on a service you host.

    3. The history of platforms in the last 20 years shows us that the Internet is for the machines. The user representation should be in a local application, and the logic combining those non-application-specific services should work on the client machine. Say, aggregating results of a few indexing services, or aggregating trade offerings from a few trade services, or online users from among friends from a few notification services.

    Shit, I wrote this again.

  • 8 Stimmen
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    alphane_moon@lemmy.worldA
    I see where you're coming from and I generally agree. That being said, there is a time and place for everything and this is not a serious thread.
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    No I don't think there really were many so your point is valid But the law works like that, things are in a grey area or in limbo until they are defined into law. That means the new law can be written to either protect consumer privacy, or make it legal to the letter to rape consumer privacy like this bill, or some weird inbetween where some shady stuff is still explicitly allowed but in general consumers are protected in specific ways from specific privacy abuses This bill being the second option is bad because typically when laws are written it then takes a loooong time to reverse them
  • Russia frees REvil hackers after sentencing

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    What makes even more sense is that they now might be secretly forced to hack for the government in exchange for bread and water and staying out of prison.
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    Same, especially when searching technical or niche topics. Since there aren't a ton of results specific to the topic, mostly semi-related results will appear in the first page or two of a regular (non-Gemini) Google search, just due to the higher popularity of those webpages compared to the relevant webpages. Even the relevant webpages will have lots of non-relevant or semi-relevant information surrounding the answer I'm looking for. I don't know enough about it to be sure, but Gemini is probably just scraping a handful of websites on the first page, and since most of those are only semi-related, the resulting summary is a classic example of garbage in, garbage out. I also think there's probably something in the code that looks for information that is shared across multiple sources and prioritizing that over something that's only on one particular page (possibly the sole result with the information you need). Then, it phrases the summary as a direct answer to your query, misrepresenting the actual information on the pages they scraped. At least Gemini gives sources, I guess. The thing that gets on my nerves the most is how often I see people quote the summary as proof of something without checking the sources. It was bad before the rollout of Gemini, but at least back then Google was mostly scraping text and presenting it with little modification, along with a direct link to the webpage. Now, it's an LLM generating text phrased as a direct answer to a question (that was also AI-generated from your search query) using AI-summarized data points scraped from multiple webpages. It's obfuscating the source material further, but I also can't help but feel like it exposes a little of the behind-the-scenes fuckery Google has been doing for years before Gemini. How it bastardizes your query by interpreting it into a question, and then prioritizes homogeneous results that agree on the "answer" to your "question". For years they've been doing this to a certain extent, they just didn't share how they interpreted your query.
  • Adaptive Keyboards & Writing Technologies For One-Handed Users

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    Came here to say this.
  • AI and misinformation

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    Don’t lose hope, just pretend to with sarcasm. Or if you are feeling down it could work the other way too. https://aibusiness.com/nlp/sarcasm-is-really-really-really-easy-for-ai-to-handle#close-modal
  • How a Spyware App Compromised Assad’s Army

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    I guess that's why you pay your soldiers. In the early summer of 2024, months before the opposition launched Operation Deterrence of Aggression, a mobile application began circulating among a group of Syrian army officers. It carried an innocuous name: STFD-686, a string of letters standing for Syria Trust for Development. ... The STFD-686 app operated with disarming simplicity. It offered the promise of financial aid, requiring only that the victim fill out a few personal details. It asked innocent questions: “What kind of assistance are you expecting?” and “Tell us more about your financial situation.” ... Determining officers’ ranks made it possible for the app’s operators to identify those in sensitive positions, such as battalion commanders and communications officers, while knowing their exact place of service allowed for the construction of live maps of force deployments. It gave the operators behind the app and the website the ability to chart both strongholds and gaps in the Syrian army’s defensive lines. The most crucial point was the combination of the two pieces of information: Disclosing that “officer X” was stationed at “location Y” was tantamount to handing the enemy the army’s entire operating manual, especially on fluid fronts like those in Idlib and Sweida.
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    In highrises with lots of stops and users, it uses some more advanced software to schedule the optimal stops, or distribute the load between multiple lifts. A similar concept exists for HDD controllers, where the read write arm must move to different positions to load data stored on different plates and sectors, and Repositioning the head is a slow and expensive process that cuts down the data transfer rate.