I started shopping at Amazon very early in its existence. I adored the convenience even when it was mostly just books and music. My not-yet husband, back in 2001, invested in Amazon when it was very cheap to do so. As the business expanded I got Prime, I had years when all our Christmas presents came from there, and by 2016, most of our recurring household goods purchases, many clothing purchases and 97% of the miscellaneous gewgaws of living were coming from there. It is safe to say that we spent thousands of dollars per year buying from Amazon.
I was not easy with the stories of the warehouse conditions. I was even less happy with the avoidance of local taxes and efforts to sabotage efforts to shore up Seattle’s awful housing situation for people who aren’t wealthy. I have enough friends in the area that I know things can get very expensive and very crowded, and that Amazon is a contributor to that problem.
I saw the back and forth between Amazon and publishers and was dismayed.
As a writer, when I could still imagine working with Amazon, it looked like a good way to connect to readers. Now? I’d rather not publish than publish through Amazon.
The biggest feather on the scale? Was the ten ton brick that was finding out that Amazon had marketed Rekognition realtime facial recognition software to ICE.
Hubby had already sold our Amazon stock by that time.
But that was the point where I cancelled our substantial subscribe and save order, and started looking elsewhere for literally anything we wanted to buy.
It wasn’t as hard as I expected. Still not quite as convenient, but at least I don’t have that pit in my stomach of “Am I working with a company that actively courts the Gestapo?”
I’m not boycotting, exactly. I’m not saying, “NO ONE SHOULD EVER BUY FROM AMAZON EVER FOR ANY REASON.”
For one thing, there are people who depend on Amazon and Amazon’s marketplace, servers and publishing resources for their livelihood, and for another, there are some things that simply cannot, as of yet, be purchased elsewhere (or if they can, cannot be delivered quickly enough in some circumstances.)
Amazon is harder to avoid than Nestle, and I’ve been avoiding Nestle for decades and am very good at it despite people proclaiming it “impossible”.
What I’m saying is that it was surprisingly not too complicated to buy elsewhere for most things.
I found clothing companies that fit me and that I like, and they still sell direct. (Woman Within and Target both have lines that fit my sensory issues, size and accessibility needs.)
Target has a lot of the miscellany that I used to get from Amazon, and they’re often cheaper and I can get there in my wheelchair, so the carbon footprint is smaller.
Best Buy has a lot of the minor electronics. Newegg has cables. Natural Grocers and Vitacost cover the vitamins and supplements. Costco covers a lot of the household goods.
I’m starting to look into alternatives to the kid’s kindle, because I’d like to stop with the Freetime subscription. Audiobooks and Prime (for streaming) are the last to go.
I’m not guilting myself about still having a few ties and occasionally needing to use Amazon, but we’ve gone from thousands of dollars per year to maybe a couple hundred, and if more people did that, the world would probably be a better place. Why?
Amazon is damaging the USPS. The FBI is actively using Rekognition even though facial recognition software is inherently racist and more likely to make mistakes with people of color. Jeff Bezos considers his profits “winnings” and in the most astonishing failure of imagination in history, says the only thing he can imagine spending his winnings on is space travel.
He doesn’t need any more money. Companies that aren’t Amazon need customers so they can employ more people (and hopefully treat them better.)
I’m not passionate about dragging people into boycotts. I know that my money is a drop in the bucket. But I can put it somewhere that doesn’t make me feel nauseated.
There is, of course, no perfect company. But I feel like Amazon has been actively trying to be evil, and thus they’ve joined the list of companies* I choose to avoid supporting.
It’s too bad.
I do still use the Amazon website. It’s decent for research, for finding items and finding review histories to a point. And then I look up those items and go elsewhere, which is the opposite of what it was at the beginning. Karma, really.
*I do not darken the door of Hobby Lobby, ever, for any reason. I do not purchase Nestle products if there is literally any other option available. I avoid Walmart most of the time, but sometimes they’re they only option. I have never and will never eat Chick Fil-a, and I no longer buy McDonalds but that’s mostly because I worked there when I was 15 and am now allergic to literally everything on the menu. I have never taken a Lyft or an Uber or stayed in an AirBnB. I recognize the privilege that I have in being able to avoid those things. But I expend very little effort on avoiding them, they’re just not on my person menu.
