No one is on Lemmy because they like shitty corps so I need your help
I’m at a loss. Increasingly whenever I order New on eBay or wherever, the order gets fulfilled by Amazon.
When I complain to the site I bought it from they shrug.
I’m regularly paying more for items and still funding an undeniably awful company
You accept that you live in the most late stage capitalist country of all time that’s very pro monopoly.
And then you move I guess. No one believes USA will ever change for the better.
Move to Czechia! Amazon’s presence is negligible here, we have our own local alternatives (Alza.cz being the biggest one, but we also have a plethora of e-commerce sites in general).
Really it’s the internet that enables these monopolies. It nullifies space for information. Like a little pizza place can only have so much reach. But if the product is teleported, then that little pizza operation can just keep growing and growing smoothly and taking more of the market. And it can happen really fast.
eBay is just as filthy of a corp as Amazon. Who are you fooling?
Depending on where you live, just order less. Try to pick up the stuff you order or go to shops directly (or sometimes question if you really need it). Its not all or nothing, every single product less bought with them is a step in the right direction
This is how I’ve been shopping for years, but not to be woe is me, I’m a wheelchair user with a variety of medical nonsense that keeps me in the house. Trying to shop ethically online used to be feasible, but it’s increasingly impossible
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism (never has been), and while it might make you feel a bit less shit for an instant, this effort you’re making isn’t going to have any actual impact (the companies don’t care about you, or their workers, they care about profit. All of them. And your personal spending is insignificant to them in that sense) and a much better use of your fight energy (which, as a fellow wheelchair user I know is probably already spread extremely thin) would be on addressing the system itself, not the symptoms of it which are pretty identical across the industry… Other curriers treat their staff just as poorly, they’re just not a big name so it’s not in the news.
Give yourself a break, pick your battles (E: much easier said than done, I know, but you still must, for your own wellbeing)
You can’t avoid Amazon entirely but your order is still a drop in the bucket that tips the scales in the right direction.
For small brands trying to establish a presence, the first thing retail buyers and distributers ask is how their Amazon sales numbers look. Having an Amazon presence is not optional for small brands that are trying to grow.
If 90% of orders come from amazon and only 10% come from their own website, it frequently doesn’t make sense to both pay for Amazon distribution and keep their own warehousing and distribution capabilities. But if more people like you and I convince people to order directly and 40% came from direct orders, that math starts to bias more heavily in favor of setting up their own fulfillment.
So find some comfort in that you are playing a small part in paving the way to a better future for these companies even if they are beholden to the Amazon monopoly currently.
Why not create a logistics company to compete with amazon? It’s not the outsourcing of logistics that’s the problem — it’s outsourcing it to Amazon specifically because of their specific culture and nature as a company.
Clearly that’s much easier said than done.
However, this recent news feels very relevant.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/14/24038042/fedex-fdx-e-commerce-platform-amazon-rival-shoprunner
I don’t know enough about FedEx culture to know if this is a good thing, but any serious competition is probably an improvement at this point.
It is shitty corporations all the way down to the turtle my kind dude.
I have the exact same issue. I thought buying directly from the manufacturer’s site would fix it, but I still get Amazon boxes from some of them. I don’t buy from them again, but it still sucks. I have ended up buying even less, and I wasn’t buying much before.
I try to buy things used, but sometimes that’s just not possible. If it has to be new I try different sites until I find one that doesn’t go through them. You can even call customer service for some smaller sites and find out ahead of time.
I don’t agree with the “don’t bother” hopelessness in this thread. Trying to do the least bad thing is still worthwhile, even if you can’t do something perfectly ethical. I’m proud of you for doing your best.
I don’t agree with the “don’t bother” hopelessness in this thread. Trying to do the least bad thing is still worthwhile, even if you can’t do something perfectly ethical. I’m proud of you for doing your best.
Yup. Don’t let others choose your ethical views and decisions for you. I know boycotting big companies makes life more complicated (and sometimes more expensive) but I’m still doing it myself.
If you don’t want to support a cause because of whatever, go for it and look for an alternative. Enough asking around and studying the Internet should bring out more options eventually, if you got the resources for this study.
I buy from online stores (eg, clothing, jewelry, beauty) who don’t use amazon, and fortunately I’ve never seen evidence of amazon involved in those purchases. I admire your efforts to find alternatives from that awful company
