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The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

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  • 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.

  • 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.

    the buisnesses near me will never sell rp-sma to mhf 1 cables as there is approximately no demand for them. Not everyone lives in mega cities with dozens of stores selling the same products.

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    ...the ruling stopped short of ordering the government to recover past messages that may already have been lost. How would somebody be meant to comply with an order to recover a message that has been deleted? Or is that the point? Can't comply and you're in contempt of court.
  • The largest cryptocurrency money-laundering ring

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    ulrich@feddit.orgU
    It has their name and where it came from so. Yes? That's not what I asked. Are you expecting people to direct link everything even when it is already atributed? I mean is that really too much to expect of people? To simply copy the link where they found the information and post it along with where they shared it?
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    smartmanapps@programming.devS
    At least that’s not how I’ve been taught in school If you had a bad teacher that doesn't mean everyone else had a bad teacher. You’re not teaching kids how to prove the quadratic formula, do you? We teach them how to do proofs, including several specific ones. No, you teach them how to use it instead. We teach them how to use everything, and how to do proofs as well. Your whole argument is just one big strawman. Again, with the order of operations Happens to be the topic of the post. It’s not a thing Yes it is! I’ve given you two examples that don’t follow any So you could not do the brackets first and still get the right answer? Nope! 2×2×(2-2)/2=0 2×2×2-2/2=7 That’s kinda random, but sure? Not random at all, given you were talking about students understanding how Maths works. 2+3×4 then it’s not an order of operation that plays the role here Yes it is! If I have 1 2-litre bottle of milk, and 4 3-litre bottles of milk, there's only 1 correct answer for how many litres of milk of have, and it ain't 20! Even elementary school kids know how to work it out just by counting up. They all derive from each other No they don't. The proof of order of operations has got nothing to do with any of the properties you mentioned. For example, commutation is used to prove identity And neither is used to prove the order of operations. 2 operators, no order followed Again with a cherry-picked example that only includes operators of the same precedence. You have no property that would allow for (2+3)×4 to be equal 2+3×4 And yet we have a proof of why 14 is the only correct answer to 2+3x4, why you have to do the multiplication first. Is that not correct? Of course it is. So what? It literally has subtraction and distribution No it didn't. It had Brackets (with subtraction inside) and Multiplication and Division. I thought you taught math, no? Yep, and I just pointed out that what you just said is wrong. 2-2(1+2) has Subtraction and Distribution. 2-2 is 2 being, hear me out, subtracted from 2 Which was done first because you had it inside Brackets, therefore not done in the Subtraction step in order of operations, but the Brackets step. Also, can you explain how is that cherry-picking? You already know - you know which operations to pick to make it look like there's no such thing as order of operations. If I tell you to look up at the sky at midnight and say "look - there's no such thing as the sun", that doesn't mean there's no such thing as the sun.
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    Business Insider was founded in 2007.
  • Large Language Models Are More Persuasive Than Humans.

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    aka psychopathy is a natural advantage for managers.
  • How to delete your Twitter (or X) account

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    I also need to know the way to delete twitter account of my brand : https://stylo.pk/ .
  • CrowdStrike Announces Layoffs Affecting 500 Employees

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    This is where the magic of near meaningless corpo-babble comes in. The layoffs are part of a plan to aspirationally acheive the goal of $10b revenue by EoY 2025. What they are actually doing is a significant restructuring of the company, refocusing by outside hiring some amount of new people to lead or be a part of departments or positions that haven't existed before, or are being refocused to other priorities... ... But this process also involves laying off 500 of the 'least productive' or 'least mission critical' employees. So, technically, they can, and are, arguing that their new organizational paradigm will be so succesful that it actually will result in increased revenue, not just lower expenses. Generally corpos call this something like 'right-sizing' or 'refocusing' or something like that. ... But of course... anyone with any actual experience with working at a place that does this... will tell you roughly this is what happens: Turns out all those 'grunts' you let go of, well they actually do a lot more work in a bunch of weird, esoteric, bandaid solutions to keep everything going, than upper management was aware of... because middle management doesn't acknowledge or often even understand that that work was being done, because they are generally self-aggrandizing narcissist petty tyrants who spend more time in meetings fluffing themselves up than actually doing any useful management. Then, also, you are now bringing on new, outside people who look great on paper, to lead new or modified apartments... but they of course also do not have any institutional knowledge, as they are new. So now, you have a whole bunch of undocumented work that was being done, processes which were being followed... which is no longer being done, which is not documented.... and the new guys, even if they have the best intentions, now have to spend a quarter or two or three figuring out just exactly how much pre-existing middle management has been bullshitting about, figuring out just how much things do not actually function as they ssid it did... So now your efficiency improving restructuring is actually a chaotic mess. ... Now, this 'right sizing' is not always apocalyptically extremely bad, but it is also essentially never totally free from hiccups... and it increases stress, workload, and tensions between basically everyone at the company, to some extent. Here's Forbes explanation of this phenomenon, if you prefer an explanation of right sizing in corpospeak: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/rightsizing/
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    kolanaki@pawb.socialK
    I kinda don't want anyone other than a doctor determining it, tbh. Fuck the human bean counters just as much as the AI ones. Hopefully we can just start growing organs instead of having to even make such a grim decision and everyone can get new livers. Even if they don't need them.