|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Amazonification
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
I love Amazon: there I've said it. I consider myself a careful consumer, considering what I buy and weighing the best options - not just on price but on various other metrics. I appreciate the enormous selection of goods available from them and that they can send them out almost instantly.
But there is a downside of course. For one thing there are the stories of poor business practices including the van driver I know who works for Amazon on uncertain wages because it is a zero hours contract.
The counter is that it is really really hard to find a "good" courier company which doesn't screw delivery drivers with crappy conditions and that other kinds of stores do not necessarily pay their staff eg in warehouses much better than Amazon. I dunno. What can you do?
Of course there is also the whole issue of Amazon dodging tax.
--
There is another issue, which feels obvious now I know about it.
I've been collecting something for years and have now decided that the whole collection has got to go because I'm out of space. So I've put it onto Ebay.
They're not particularly expensive or unusual items so I've priced them to meet market expectations. I need to get rid of them.
The problem is that once one accounts for ebay fees, paypal fees and postage fees (using the nearest - but also the one of the worst couriers, sigh) it is really hard to sell anything.
My guess is that people are so used to buying things from Amazon that we've lost any understanding of how much (in this example) postage and packing really costs - to the extent that people regularly ask me to send them things at below the cost of the cheapest possible postage, never mind the fees or even the value of the item.
It would have been cheaper to box all my junk up and take it to a carboot to sell for £1 each or even just to have taken it all to the tip.
I know, I know, it's my own fault. I'm part of a consumer culture that in the end is eating itself. But it has really got to some weird place when the ubiquitous corporation selling all kinds of (mainly new) stuff is ultimately both keeping other couriers - working for other people or brands - in poverty and pushing down prices for other goods to such an extent that they can only be sold at a loss on a completely different buying platform.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
|
Posted
Do Amazon run courier companies over there? Or does the van driver also work for Amazon?
Tough questions. I don't have the answer. I am a minimalist at heart so I don't have much stuff, but companies such as Amazon are a damned if you do and damned if you don't it seems. I argued about unfair practices with someone who could only respond how good their Prime service was. And how much stuff they can buy!
We all want to pay the lowest price. And as long as those involved are out of sight, be it in an Amazon warehouse or making Nikes in an Asian factory, I do not see it changing. Out of sight, out of mind.
Ian,
who admittedly has much time for Naomi Klein, but fails to match her standard.
Posts: 7800 | From: On the border | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
Everything I've ever bought from Amazon has been delivered by the Royal Mail postman. Though, only small stuff like books or DVDs - so I can't comment on how they deliver large items. I always assumed they just paid a courier to deliver it, rather than have their own dedicated delivery vans.
Though they may have their own trucks for moving stuff to their warehouses.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ian Climacus:
Do Amazon run courier companies over there? Or does the van driver also work for Amazon?
They have their own delivery drivers, but it is sub-contracted (actually sub-sub-contracted so that individual drivers are supposed to be self-employed even though they're working for someone who isn't actually Amazon...)
quote:
Tough questions. I don't have the answer. I am a minimalist at heart so I don't have much stuff, but companies such as Amazon are a damned if you do and damned if you don't it seems. I argued about unfair practices with someone who could only respond how good their Prime service was. And how much stuff they can buy!
We all want to pay the lowest price. And as long as those involved are out of sight, be it in an Amazon warehouse or making Nikes in an Asian factory, I do not see it changing. Out of sight, out of mind.
For me it isn't often about price. It is very often that I can't actually get whatever-it-is anywhere else.
quote:
Ian,
who admittedly has much time for Naomi Klein, but fails to match her standard.
Ditto. I don't know how we're supposed to live, but I'm sure this isn't it.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Everything I've ever bought from Amazon has been delivered by the Royal Mail postman. Though, only small stuff like books or DVDs - so I can't comment on how they deliver large items. I always assumed they just paid a courier to deliver it, rather than have their own dedicated delivery vans.
Though they may have their own trucks for moving stuff to their warehouses.
They deliver stuff in different ways depending on the size of the item - and possibly your location.
They absolutely have a team here in south wales of white van drivers who only deliver for Amazon. They're working for some delivery company you've never heard of.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
Amazon flex is the branding of their own delivery drivers. But in fact it isn't done directly by Amazon.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
|
Posted
I guess I am much blessed, in that Amazon does NOT post things for free to my country. In fact, they charge so much for postage that I never buy anything from Amazon if I can possibly get it from anywhere else at all. Though the problem of contracting or franchisee courier drivers being run into the ground by unrealistically low rates is a live one here, as well.
I, too, squirm about it sometimes, as I buy more and more stuff online (partly because we moved to a provincial centre a couple of years ago and there just isn't much in the way of options shopping-wise here). I must also confess to buying upward of 95% of my books - and our household is a book-heavy one - from The Book Depository, who DO post here for free, and in addition, can provide books for about 60% of what they'd cost here - if I could actually get them at all, that is. In doing so, I'm directly screwing NZ booksellers, who have no option but to charge 15% GST on books, whereas The Book Depository gets to deal exclusively in VAT-free goods, as I understand it.
--------------------
The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
I, too, squirm about it sometimes, as I buy more and more stuff online (partly because we moved to a provincial centre a couple of years ago and there just isn't much in the way of options shopping-wise here). I must also confess to buying upward of 95% of my books - and our household is a book-heavy one - from The Book Depository, who DO post here for free, and in addition, can provide books for about 60% of what they'd cost here - if I could actually get them at all, that is. In doing so, I'm directly screwing NZ booksellers, who have no option but to charge 15% GST on books, whereas The Book Depository gets to deal exclusively in VAT-free goods, as I understand it.
And the Book Depository is Amazon - they acquired it in 2011.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
|
Posted
We have a small cottage industry and sell exclusively on Facebook. It costs nothing unless I want to 'boost' a post, which I do about once a month for £8.
We get about seven orders a week, which is enough for the craftsman to keep up with.
(I'm the design, marketing, admin, postage and packing department)
--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
We have a small cottage industry and sell exclusively on Facebook. It costs nothing unless I want to 'boost' a post, which I do about once a month for £8.
We get about seven orders a week, which is enough for the craftsman to keep up with.
(I'm the design, marketing, admin, postage and packing department)
Mm yes, I think to be effective on ebay, etsy, facebook etc one has to have both something that is unusual and something that customers are prepared to pay a decent price for. I suppose I've just discovered that items in my collection aren't sufficiently unusual to attract a premium enough to sell them at anything other than a loss.
[ 25. August 2017, 08:56: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
And the Book Depository is Amazon - they acquired it in 2011.
Oh. Had no idea. I am marked with the sign of the beast too. Across the ditch from anoesis, when a bookseller here tells me it's $70 and I see it on BD for $30, I give in. I'm trying to stick to eBooks now, but God only knows who owns them.
Amazon is coming here. It will shake things up. I worry what comes after when they are dominant and powerful. Definitely in it for the long game.
Sad about your collection mr cheesy; meant to say that above. Very tough to compete, especially when low prices and free postage are the norm.
Posts: 7800 | From: On the border | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ian Climacus:
Sad about your collection mr cheesy; meant to say that above. Very tough to compete, especially when low prices and free postage are the norm.
Thanks! It's not the end of the world, but I guess just brought home to me how hard it must be for anyone trying to make an income from one of these selling platforms.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
|
Posted
This is one of the problems about tying to "boycott Amazon". YOu use them, in some form, on a daily basis.
They have learnt brilliantly well the benefits of providing platforms. So they provide a platform for buying and selling books. They expand it to provide a platform for selling everything, and (often if not always) not dealing with the physical items themselves. THey provide warehouse facilities, and distribution facilities.
These days, they provide cloud services as well. So lots of the other sites you use are AMazon hosted. WHy do they do this? Because they needed ot expand their data warehouses, and realised that they had a model they could sell.
They have learned - incredibly quickly - that they can make a stack of money from providing theis service level. The fact that the main item they use this for is books is irrelevant, except that they were a perfect e-commerce item - one of the first things that were easy to sell online (I remember The Internet Bookshop - soon taken over by Amazon).
So yes, I hate Amazon, I htink htey should pay taxes. But I can;t avoid them.
--------------------
Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
|
Posted
(relevant!)
TV here is running an ad for a new thriller by James Patterson, who does the ad himself. The book is "The Store", about a store that knows everything about us...
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
I haven't read his books, though I might have seen movies based on them. But this might be worth a try.
--------------------
Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
|
Posted
Amazon drivers - 'self-employed' under something called Amazon Flex - get a pre-ordained route to deliver. They have to travel to the depot, find their parcels (not done for them) then get on the road. Average working day without taking into account time to get from home to depot and depot to home at each end of the day comes in at around 10-11 hours in more urban areas and over 12 in rural areas.
The company's attitude towards things like tax, employment rights, etc, is well-documented.
I don't use Amazon and neither do my children.
--------------------
Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Egeria
Shipmate
# 4517
|
Posted
I hate them. For their abuse of employees and their aspirations to monopoly and their cheating on taxes and their smirking megalomaniac boss.
And I do boycott Amazon. If I want to order a book, I may check their web site first, but I'll order the book through a local bookstore or directly from a publisher. I can order clothes from other places. I can order household stuff from a hardware firm. Nobody "needs" to use Amazon.
They're one of the firms I'd like to see disappear from the face of the earth.
--------------------
"Sound bodies lined / with a sound mind / do here pursue with might / grace, honor, praise, delight."--Rabelais
Posts: 314 | From: Berkeley, CA | Registered: May 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
|
Posted
I am deeply ambivalent about Amazon. They're one of the few places that won't make me pay through the nose for delivery (honourable mentions to CPC, Screwfix & Ethical Superstore, however), and I know that the couriers they use locally won't be getting ripped off. Amazon and eBay are a lifeline out here for everything from bike parts to electronics to bedding. The tax and wages issues bother me, but I blame the governments that let them do it more than the companies.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
In fact, they charge so much for postage that I never buy anything from Amazon if I can possibly get it from anywhere else at all.
That's been my experience with Amazon also. I much prefer ebay, where merchants often ship for free (i.e., the cost of shipping is included in the price of the item, which is already reasonable). If I am selling something on ebay, I always offer free shipping.
--------------------
"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Egeria:
Nobody "needs" to use Amazon.
This is ableist. They are a godsend to people with mobility impairments, as well as the blind. And for people who live out at the end of a 100 mile dirt road in East Bumfuck, Arkansas, they may be many times cheaper in time and gas than driving to the nearest place to get a book not carried by Walmart.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
|
Posted
But they ain't the only on-line merchant that computers at the butt end of Wastewater Ditch, East Bumfuck, AR, can browse to.
--------------------
"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
But they ain't the only on-line merchant that computers at the butt end of Wastewater Ditch, East Bumfuck, AR, can browse to.
I'm sure you can think of one or two products that few other merchants can supply, a set of products that would require two or three other merchants, and you can imagine what a godsend cheap or free shipping would be to someone who does a lot of ordering online.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
|
Posted
Amazon, it seems to me, did a great thing for online shopping. They showed people "look - it should just be this easy" and everyone else had to raise their game, rather than have a website that worked like their traditional piece of junk paper catalogue.
I've bought a bunch of stuff from amazon - it just works, the stuff shows up, and amazon are pretty good about replacing things that don't work.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
|
Posted
I live in Seattle. I'm currently mobility impaired and Amazon provides groceries, books, and a long list of other things. I don't like being in a walled garden, and it's beginning to look that way.
This week the newspaper pointed out that Amazon office space in Seattle is the largest of any company in the country. They currently fill 20% of the office space and attracted new workers to the city in droves who will pay the high rents.
I do wonder if it could collapse when their stockholders get tired of taking losses for increased market share.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I know that the couriers they use locally won't be getting ripped off.
Not sure how you can know this - many of the drivers are self-employed and get variable amounts of work on a week-by-week basis.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
|
Posted
Amazon is that thing which, according to capitalists, the thing that shouldn't happen: a private company heading towards a monopoly. It also relies on the central myth of late capitalism: that money insulates consumers from the consequences of their consumption.
Amazon is the delivery arm of the digital complex that is essentially restructuring global society to its own advantage. Google is its information arm; Facebook and Twitter its social arm, and Amazon takes its place. Is anyone going tell me that only the public sector fosters monopolies? The human consequence of this movement is isolation, in particular lack of mutual physical presence, which is essential for human happiness. We are rebuilding our society in a way that ensures our own misery because a few billionaires have managed to trigger the general mania for novelty without triggering any kind of suspicion. How this is working I don't know, but it is, and it's doing the same for the human psyche as climate change is doing for the natural environment.
--------------------
Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Amazon is that thing which, according to capitalists, the thing that shouldn't happen: a private company heading towards a monopoly. It also relies on the central myth of late capitalism: that money insulates consumers from the consequences of their consumption.
Amazon is the delivery arm of the digital complex that is essentially restructuring global society to its own advantage. Google is its information arm; Facebook and Twitter its social arm, and Amazon takes its place.
In fact it is even worse than that: much of the internet is run from Amazon servers.
quote:
Is anyone going tell me that only the public sector fosters monopolies? The human consequence of this movement is isolation, in particular lack of mutual physical presence, which is essential for human happiness. We are rebuilding our society in a way that ensures our own misery because a few billionaires have managed to trigger the general mania for novelty without triggering any kind of suspicion. How this is working I don't know, but it is, and it's doing the same for the human psyche as climate change is doing for the natural environment.
I don't know, there are one or two interesting things about Amazon. First is that it isn't actually very profitable compared to the turnoever. Investors have had to wait a long old time for it to get to profitability.
Second amongst various bad practices, it has also developed market dominance with cleverness and ruthless efficiencies.
Will it become a monopoly? Maybe. I think that's quite a way off yet and there are other ruthless competitors it will have to beat off first.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I know that the couriers they use locally won't be getting ripped off.
Not sure how you can know this - many of the drivers are self-employed and get variable amounts of work on a week-by-week basis.
Because here they subcontract to the local firms that do all the deliveries to the island or send via Royal Mail. The local firms pay reasonably well (full time, waged work mark you) and are clearly not short of a few quid themselves. I know arrangements are different on the mainland.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Because here they subcontract to the local firms that do all the deliveries to the island or send via Royal Mail. The local firms pay reasonably well (full time, waged work mark you) and are clearly not short of a few quid themselves. I know arrangements are different on the mainland.
OK, sorry I'd forgotten where you were geographically.
Of course, Highlands and Islands often costs more in courier prices (not sure what happens with Amazon as I've never had opportunity to need something delivered there).
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Amazon is that thing which, according to capitalists, the thing that shouldn't happen: a private company heading towards a monopoly.
Really? I thought even capitalists knew about barriers to entry and associated matters that lead to monopolies. Adam Smith was well aware of the need for regulation for markets to function. I thought the issue with anti-state deregulators was that they knew about the tendency for monopolies but just didn't give a shit, or pretended that it's only a monopoly if there is literally no other choice.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Of course, Highlands and Islands often costs more in courier prices (not sure what happens with Amazon as I've never had opportunity to need something delivered there).
If it's supplied by Amazon we generally get it on the same terms as the mainland (with a longer lead time, obviously). With other sellers going through Amazon it's a bit hit and miss.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
The human consequence of this movement is isolation, in particular lack of mutual physical presence, which is essential for human happiness.
What a load of horseshit.
I don't get anything out of the mutual human presence involved in shopping for stuff. Time saved by ordering stuff online and having it delivered is time I can spend with people I have real relationships with instead of random strangers.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
Also chances are that any individual shopkeeper selling stuff you could get on Amazon is using couriers working in the same-or-worse conditions, is selling products produced in the same factories - if he has a physical shop is either (a) a larger shop owned by a multinational which isn't really any great improvement on Amazon or (b) is a small shop, likely being run at - or near - a loss.
The fact is that the retail price is only tangentially related to the quality of the product, the price it cost to produce and the pay throughout the supply chain. There is no guarantee that buying a book from a neighbourhood store is any better than from Amazon (and if the shop is only making little or no profit due to the current retail environment, he's paying little or no tax either).
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
The human consequence of this movement is isolation, in particular lack of mutual physical presence, which is essential for human happiness.
What a load of horseshit.
I don't get anything out of the mutual human presence involved in shopping for stuff. Time saved by ordering stuff online and having it delivered is time I can spend with people I have real relationships with instead of random strangers.
That may be your experience but it isn't mine. It's not horseshit.
Fuck off and lecture someone else on their own experience of isolation.
--------------------
Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
The human consequence of this movement is isolation, in particular lack of mutual physical presence, which is essential for human happiness.
What a load of horseshit.
I don't get anything out of the mutual human presence involved in shopping for stuff. Time saved by ordering stuff online and having it delivered is time I can spend with people I have real relationships with instead of random strangers.
That may be your experience but it isn't mine. It's not horseshit.
Fuck off and lecture someone else on their own experience of isolation.
To be a little more nuanced, I hold no particular brief for the quality of relationships. But if one is in an area and on foot, one sees the same people repeatedly over time, and a kind of connection, or at least mutual recognition, builds up. It's slim pickings, but it's not nothing, and it is infinitely better than sitting in one's four walls with no form of recognition other than one's own reflection.
It is also vital to function in public space and not just in private. Again, this is not helped by the online experience.
--------------------
Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
CBC and several other outlets have personal data as the nost valuable commodity in the world. You buy something, they cookie-track you, you post on Facebook, they track that. They advert to you. You buy something in a store with your ctedit or debit card or cellphone app. They connect that too. They know everything about you. Amazon is merely another brick in the wall. They have the ability to price everything to screw over everyone else. And because they know us thoroughly we say yes when they ask to slit our throats.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
That may be your experience but it isn't mine. It's not horseshit.
It's clearly horseshit to Ruth. I'm happy you like buying the things that the shops you can walk to stock, and enjoy seeing the same faces waiting for the bus.
Your experience and preferences are just that - yours, not universal.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
I know of retirees, people with transport or mobility issues, whose lives have been changed by Amazon. You can get them to deliver anything: kitty litter, toilet paper, groceries. You can live out in the countryside, and they still deliver to the door. You do not have to hoick the heavy sack of kitty litter up your front steps, or into the shopping cart, or into and then out of the trunk of your car. You can order books that, in the past, you could only have gotten by traveling to a big city.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I do wonder if it could collapse when their stockholders get tired of taking losses for increased market share.
Um ... losses?
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
|
Posted
I hate shopping with a passion and never do it. I only shop online.
But is do frequent shops, very regularly - but strictly for puppy training.
This may sound odd, but - so long as I'm not at the checkout, I'm fine.
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
|
Posted
I have heard of a remote Inuit village in Canada where almost everyone has Amazon Prime. They get everything they need delivered free.
Moo
--------------------
Kerygmania host
---------------------
See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
|
Posted
I agree with Ruth to a large extent - shops are generally designed to deliberately lead you past lots of things you don't want in order to get to the thing you do want. Supermarkets are just about bearable because you frequent them often enough to know their layout. But in general all shops are designed to confuse, distract and trigger our desires.
I'd much rather do a 5 minute shop online and then head to the park.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Supermarkets are just about bearable because you frequent them often enough to know their layout.
And they know that, so from time to time they rearrange the layout to get you to walk past things you weren't walking past previously.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
The human consequence of this movement is isolation, in particular lack of mutual physical presence, which is essential for human happiness.
What a load of horseshit.
I don't get anything out of the mutual human presence involved in shopping for stuff. Time saved by ordering stuff online and having it delivered is time I can spend with people I have real relationships with instead of random strangers.
That may be your experience but it isn't mine. It's not horseshit.
Fuck off and lecture someone else on their own experience of isolation.
To be a little more nuanced, I hold no particular brief for the quality of relationships. But if one is in an area and on foot, one sees the same people repeatedly over time, and a kind of connection, or at least mutual recognition, builds up. It's slim pickings, but it's not nothing, and it is infinitely better than sitting in one's four walls with no form of recognition other than one's own reflection.
It is also vital to function in public space and not just in private. Again, this is not helped by the online experience.
First, you can fuck right off yourself, and take your pronouncements about how the world is and how people should live in it with you.
I live in an extremely walkable neighborhood, and I spend money in it as much as I can. I am quite familiar with the benefits of walking around a neighborhood, and in fact love I the fact that I see many of the same people again and again. I've met a lot of people that way and made a few friends as well.
But there's no bookstore in my neighborhood. Neither is there a furniture store. Or a computer store. Or a kitchen wares store. Or stores for any number of other things that I need or want to buy. I can drive 10 miles (25 minutes) to the nearest Ikea store, go through the whole fucking store, find the shelving unit I want, stand in line to pay for it, and drive home again, or I can order it online and have it delivered, while not wasting more than an hour on an excursion to Ikea. Guess which it's going to be.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
|
Posted
I do stand up for the central element of what I have said. A city is an arena for a social model of living. At the moment, the shared part of the city is (just about) built around a variety of shops, in which people interact with each other and at least acknowledge each other as part of the same society. If you take that arena away and privatise it, where do we go to experience the society of which we are notionally part?
One thing has become clear from experience so far: hairdressers, cafes and betting shops do not a social arena make.
And OK, this will not make sense to many rural dwellers, but even in rural areas, there are social spaces, albeit ones shared with fewer people, and these are still needed to balance the tendency to isolation and anxiety.
I'm not addressing supply problems because that is not my point. My point is that the usual consumerist default of focussing exclusively on immediate personal supply issues to the exclusion of all else destroys the social branch on which one is perched. All of a sudden it withers and dies and "it wasn't my fault guv; I was just getting on being a consumer and all of a sudden all the rest just died away"
[ 27. August 2017, 08:41: Message edited by: ThunderBunk ]
--------------------
Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I do stand up for the central element of what I have said. A city is an arena for a social model of living. At the moment, the shared part of the city is (just about) built around a variety of shops, in which people interact with each other and at least acknowledge each other as part of the same society. If you take that arena away and privatise it, where do we go to experience the society of which we are notionally part?
Though I see your point about social space, the problem is that this is built around consumerism. The decline of that centre didn't start with Amazon, or even the earlier catalogue shopping. Out of town supermarkets and malls were also spreading consumers away from the town centre shops. If we want to recover central social spaces for our societies the solution isn't to try and hold onto consumerism centred on small geographical locations, but to find what would be a sustainable alternative to consumerism.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Though I see your point about social space, the problem is that this is built around consumerism. The decline of that centre didn't start with Amazon, or even the earlier catalogue shopping. Out of town supermarkets and malls were also spreading consumers away from the town centre shops. If we want to recover central social spaces for our societies the solution isn't to try and hold onto consumerism centred on small geographical locations, but to find what would be a sustainable alternative to consumerism.
This.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
|
Posted
Alan has nailed it. Today I rode public transit and drove a shared car. The drivers and passengers on the bus were friendly, but I didn't feel lonely or isolated when I switched to the car. I shopped at a small independent business and at Costco. The staff and customers at both places were equally friendly. Shopping may include pleasant human interaction, but it's not the kind of socializing I need to sustain my soul.
--------------------
"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
...
One thing has become clear from experience so far: hairdressers ... do not a social arena make.
...
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess you're not black.
--------------------
"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
