Amazon Prime is a remarkable success but also dystopian. It has made convenience and speed the norm, habituating consumers to buy more products. Prime’s flywheel effect - where more customers lead to more data and scale which attracts more customers - has fueled Amazon’s dominance. Prime subscribers spend twice as much and Amazon’s value has multiplied 97 times since 2005. While canceling Prime may not hurt Amazon, it can benefit local businesses by gaining a new customer. However, Prime has rewired how people think about what is possible to obtain and how fast, making a Prime-free life unimaginable for many.
Everyone who thinks people should cancel their prime account because of horrible working conditions should first look at their phone… then their tv… then any other random electronics they have… then look at their shoes and their clothes and everything else they have made cheaply in a factory that abuses human labor. Then find a dictionary and look up the word hypocrite.
Living under capitalism is living under the yoke of devils. You cannot escape them, and you sometimes make deals with them, whether because you have to, or you think the deal will work out for you. But that doesn’t mean you should love the devils, and if you can get away from them you should.
Yeah, most people’s phones or shoes or whatever probably have some dirty pasts, but that doesn’t mean we should just give up on making any kind of good or moral choices. We’re locked into capitalism, and we will have blood on our hands whether we are aware or not, but using that as an excuse to give up on trying to do better is not a coherent moral position.
I think there’s a significant difference between “any shoe I try to buy is shady, and if a wholesome option even exists it is incredibly hard to find/buy/pricey”, and “sure Amazon workers literally die in warehouses, but next day shipping on my random knickknacks is soooo convenient!”
There exists real and valid use-cases for prime, as several other people in this thread have expressed. But just shrugging and saying “eg whatever” because you want to save $1 on random junk isn’t one of them.
You realize that the alternatives to Amazon all do the same thing, right? Working in a warehouse supplying brick-and-mortar shop isn’t exactly a cushy or well-paid job, either.
What are people buying that they need same-day arrival from Prime instead of waiting 5-7 days? Do people get their medicine and groceries off of Amazon? Or is it just convenience?
Of course, I’m able to say this because I never got Prime in the first place so I never acclimated to same-day shipping and thus never got attached to it. When I had to order off Amazon, just wait and bundle with other items for free shipping anyways, no extra money sent off to get Prime. And they were never important enough that I needed them right now. I could wait.
I’m extremely motivated by convenience, so I’m no better, I just so happen to be able to say “no” to Amazon now because I never let it too far into my life in the first place.
For real, the amount of people acting like the choices here are Amazon Prime or driving over to the B&M is ridiculous. It is like people forgot how to shop online. There are many other choices for online shopping. It is so incredibly lazy to just throw your hands up and say “Whelp, the local store doesn’t have what I need, guess I need to use Amazon Prime.”
Amazon and B&Ms won’t steal your credit card. A lot of other websites will.
I’ve literally never had this happen to me. Plus, you are never on the hook for it anyway with a credit card. Also, privacy.com
I bought in because of the free shipping, but I cancelled when the price went up.
Turns out, you can still get free shipping if you bundle your orders together and are willing to wait an extra day or two.
And at least in my case, shipping got faster once I canceled my prime. Lol. Fast shipping had been the only reason I had signed up in the first place.
Life is a parody
Canceled it awhile ago. Generally, I can search it to know what kind of niche products are out there. Then either buy directly from the distributer or find it in a different place
That is way less common than you seem to think it is. Most online payments are fairly secure.
Last I heard, identity theft and credit card fraud were rampant. Did something change?
PayPal is always an option. If it isn’t an option then nope the fuck out.
I dislike most things I know about Amazon as a company. However, being disabled Prime isn’t just convenient it is a useful tool to make my life better.
Because that would be more work than I want to do, or maybe more work than I have energy for. I’m not defending Amazon but there are more concerning things in my life than always fighting the good fight for or with other people. This is just one of those areas I chose to make a small moral sacrifice to relieve a substantial physical burden.
See my other reply to your same question above. It isn’t hard to be better than the worst.
