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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2325 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Happy Prime Day, Here's A Brief History Of Why You Shouldn't Give Jeff Bezos Your Money

I'm still a big promoter of the whole "buy local" idea, but if you're gonna shop online, there are tons of great alternatives out there. I have a few more online stores that I need to add to this list.





tacocat  ·  2325 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The problem with Amazon is that they're "the everything store." I say that kinda vaguely. What I mean is all of those alternatives are specialized in some way. People enjoy Amazon because it fulfills so many needs easily. They literally sell people a physical button that they can push to send a message to Amazon telling Amazon that it needs to mail more toilet paper or tampons or batteries. They're a monopoly in this economy. The solution to a monopoly is government intervention and our government is currently cool with companies that fit the definition of a monopoly at the time government intervention became the apparent solution because on new platforms those parallels are hard to discern unless you know history and can draw historical parallels and give a shit and have an incentive to change things if you're in a position to do so. All the caveats I added at the end of that run-on sentence are failure points in what it would take to make Amazon less than the dominant retailer on the internet.

user-inactivated  ·  2325 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's not about stopping Amazon. It's about supporting other businesses.

tacocat  ·  2325 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I support both ideas.