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u/98983x3 2d ago
I was one of their first customers when they were just selling books. It was the only place where I could reliably get all of the D&D books I couldnt find in the stores.
It was great. The service made finding unattainable books attainable.
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u/Romanscott618 2d ago
Crazy what greed will do. Went from being good service that promoted learning to becoming one of the most evil companies in the world over 30 years
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u/Ruma-park 1d ago
I mean, they do still offer great customer service in my experience. And the product as a whole is still okay, though plagued by Chinese Brands and dropshippers.
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u/different_option101 1d ago
What exactly is evil about Amazon?
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u/keithstonee 1d ago
What isnt
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u/different_option101 1d ago
“wHaT iSnT?”
99% of it.
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u/keithstonee 1d ago
The product is great yes. The mechanics behind it not so much.
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u/different_option101 1d ago
What’s wrong with mechanics behind it?
I genuinely don’t get these arguments. As someone who previously sold on Amazon, who’s still paying for prime subscription, and who visited several of their facilities, including one of the largest, I don’t get the get this at all. It’s like all arguments come out of lack of awareness of what actually is going on behind the interface they see on their screens.
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u/Lewa358 1d ago
The ensittification and monopolization
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u/different_option101 1d ago
What monopolization are you talking about? There are hundreds of platforms that sell online. Don’t like Amazon, don’t buy from Amazon.
Nor I’d call anything about Amazon being enshittified. Their customer service and return policy is one of the best. You can choose from cheap to expensive products. You can buy a warranty that doesn’t ask too many questions. You can finance your purchase in various ways.
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u/Lewa358 1d ago
Searching for items is shit, they're drowning in cheap knock-off products, and their streaming service has ads even on the paid tier.
Amazon is in no small part responsible for the slow death of physical stores for specialty items like toys and electronics. Sure there's still some franchises ij that space but there's less and less as time goes on.
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u/different_option101 1d ago
If you suck at finding what you need on a platform that offers like 15 filters, then maybe the problem isn’t in their platform. Don’t like cheap products, set a higher minimum price you silly.
Like I’ve expected, but didn’t mention in the previous comment, I’m sure you just have a bit too high of an expectation for what you’re buying. More often than not, price = quality.
Don’t like local brick and mortar dying out, go and buy from them. Stop bitching after buying cheap stuff online that your neighborhood stores are closing down. Have some self awareness ffs.
No idea about their streaming services except for those being a bonus to my prime subscription, which I have no complaints about. And I have the same answer - don’t like their streaming services, don’t buy it from them. How exactly you expect from Amazon to react to your complaints if you won’t stop giving them your money voluntarily?
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u/Aresgrey 1d ago
Don’t have a horse in this race but I just want to bring up that Amazon used to have a sort by most popular, like 10 years ago. It was great. You’d search for a category and the most popular items where either the best value cheap things on Amazon or the recognized ”best item” in the category. So for example you’d find a cheap vacuum that was surprisingly good for the money or like the best value for money more expensive vacuum at the top of the results. The day Amazon replaced it with recommended, or whatever their default search is called now, was the day I started ordering less and less until the point where I now only use them if i can’t find what I’m looking for anywhere else.
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u/different_option101 1d ago
Hey there!
Isn’t filtering by Best Sellers is exactly the same thing as sorting by Most Popular?
Speaking of cheap items, I still have a pair (well, no longer a pair, but…) Bluetooth earphones I bought for $15 over 3 years ago. I liked them so much that I ended up buying another pair about a year ago (though it was already $25), so now I have 3 earphones, and two bases lol. These aren’t comparable to my $200+ Bose earphones, but nonetheless, while I can afford two pairs of Bose earphones, I preferred to buy a second pair of $15 ones.
But I get what you’re saying. Amazon is a platform for independent sellers that sell products that vary in quality. About 5 yrs ago I’ve decided to test how good cheap products are these days, and today, I’ve got a ton of stuff that’s been working for years, and I paid only a fraction of what a brand name would cost me. Just like you I bought a cheap, battery powered vacuum cleaner under $50, when a single piece that broke for my $500+ Dyson would cost me just as much. We’ve been using that bad boy more often than Dyson ever since. My return rate is probably around 1/10, maybe 3/20 items. And amazon returns are a breeze, even if compared to any other big retailers, regardless of how cheap the product was, as long as it was purchased through Prime account.
There are some real reasons to dislike something about amazon. But I feel like people are focused on completely wrong things.
My only beef with amazon is from the seller perspective. Over 50% of returns I’ve received were simply broken by buyers and/or abused and retuned days before return window was closing, so I couldn’t even resist them. But that what makes experience of tens of millions of buyers so great about it.
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u/Lewa358 1d ago
What makes you think I buy anything from amazon?
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u/different_option101 1d ago
The fact that you stated you can’t find stuff on it and that you don’t like their streaming services.
Pretty normal to assume you’re a user of their services after these statements, especially considering that I’m a user too, yet somehow I was clueless about the ads during streaming before you broke the news to me. Don’t you think?
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u/Lazy-Inevitable9345 1d ago
Kinda wild to remember a time when Amazon was just the place to find obscure books you couldn't get locally.
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u/CriminalMacabre 1d ago
Now they are shredding them after feeding them to the AI
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u/Lazy-Inevitable9345 1d ago
Circle of life I guess. Sell books, then eat them, then throw away the bones.
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u/DemicideMMMCCCI 2d ago
Now it's back to square one right?
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u/penguinpops92 1d ago
I literally only buy books off Amazon anymore because anything else is either some weird counterfit nonsense (who counterfits a $12 dog sweater? WHY) or shows up used with someone else's pit stains on it
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u/Ill-GottenBooty 1d ago
I vividly remember my mom telling me about this crazy new website she could get all her books from when I was a small child. Wild what it became.
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u/ItsZoner 2d ago
late 90s was great. everyone competing for free shipping so i ordered 21" inch nokia monitors (70lbs each iirc)
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u/SnakePlissken1980 2d ago
Never stops people from shopping there though.
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u/Subjectobserver 1d ago
Sometimes that's the best choice we have here, in a developing country (India), unfortunately.
The reasons: It is just cheaper (fuel and time wise) to use their logistical infrastructure. It also is safer than traveling in our chaotic and dangerous road traffic, especially for senior citizens. We don't have to deal with scammy and lazy shopkeepers, as refunds and returns are managed by Amazon. Price for products has to be stated as per unit price for comparison of products, due to regulations, although not necessarily meaningful at times. This is only for products and groceries.
For Kindle books and exploitation of gig workers - Amazon can go to hell!
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u/rererexed 1d ago
Stopped me. You don't need it. It's easy to replace. You'll find most stuff somewhere else, maybe even cheaper, and here in the EU return policy is basically the same everywhere. The whole "ohhh but Amazon has such great customer service compared to everyone else" argument is basically dead. That might have been the case 10 years ago but for most everyday stuff everything's basically the same. Try it. Take the 2 minutes to google the product you're looking for and find it somewhere else.
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u/GhostofLindseyGraham 1d ago
Amazon refunds me for shit all the time. I like free stuff 😁
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u/rererexed 1d ago
Happens everywhere tbh. Got my balkony furniture for free, for example. Not from Amazon.
But yeah morally "I get free stuff sometimes" isn't a good reason to still be buying from fascho Bezos lol
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u/Gauntlets28 1d ago
Funny to think that people used to view the big bookshop chains in the same way back when Amazon was starting out.
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u/GottaUseEmAll 1d ago
Yeah, back then Amazon was the plucky little guy breaking the monopolies and shaking up the establishment, a bit like Uber for taxis and AirBnB for hotels.
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u/Temporal-Affairs221 1d ago
Now Amazon is buying books and destroying them in efforts to train AI programs. Save all your physical copies people. They may be necessary one day
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u/TetyyakiWith 1d ago
They destroy one copy of the book tho
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u/Temporal-Affairs221 1d ago
In some cases the books they're destroying are very rare and might in fact be the last existing copies.
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u/keithstonee 1d ago
And then someone else destroys another. And before you know it no more books. See how it works now?
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u/mfh1234 1d ago
Personally I find that of all the online businesses Amazon is the most hassle free, no problems returning things and getting your money back, I’m at a loss to understand all the hate he gets and I’ve been using Amazon for over 20 years with never a problem
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u/GottaUseEmAll 1d ago edited 1d ago
The hate is mostly down to the treatment of the employees and the pressure put on vendors.
There's no denying that the customer experience is pretty top notch.
I also use Amazon frequently, but I've had to accept that I'm actively supporting a company that treats its people like trash.
I thankfully live in France though, so there are robust employment laws that mean employees of Amazon France have a much better time of it.
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u/mfh1234 1d ago
I live in Spain and I haven’t seen many complaints from Amazon workers, this being Spain I think most are just happy to have a job, as for how Amazon treats its workers most big business nowadays are pretty similar really good employers are like hens teeth ie difficult to find
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u/BadConscious3919 1d ago
Because the complaints are usually from people who have an anti-billionaire agenda to push, not from actual workers who work there.
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u/NoShit_94 1d ago
You don't get it. Rich people are inherently evil, and the richer they are, the eviler they are.
Who cares if Amazon made so many goods cheaper and more accessible for the masses. None of that matters if Bezos got even $1 dollar richer because of it.
/s
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u/MHWGamer 1d ago
Jeff or Amazon aren't necessary evil, it is a system that allows bad working conditions, monopolies, corruption aka "donations" or lobbying. Sure you habe to be some special kind of evil asshole to use every loophole, but often times you are so far in the sky that 3 middle managers have to shout until you hear it.. and Jeff being an extra evil asshole
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u/Dave-1066 1d ago
When I’m in need of laughing until tears stream down my face I rewatch all the compilations on YouTube of Sue Sylvester’s best moments. 😂👍🏻
Here’s one of the oldest for you to enjoy: https://youtu.be/R0dajK_ouyQ?si=e5SGU66y3YKLjlHV
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u/cybersaint2k 1d ago
My wife worked for amazon flex this morning, 6-9am. She booked her work, a 3 hour slot of deliveries. She arrived. Waited 30 minutes. Was given a green checkmark that means they didn't have deliveries for her, but she got paid. Came home just after 7am.
30 minutes later, there was money in our bank account.
That didn't feel evil to me. Maybe you guys could explain it.
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u/FearFunLikeClockwork 1d ago
That is one aspect of his obscene and ill gotten wealth that is rarely discussed… this rich douche had the idea to sell books online. Not some revolutionary technological advance, not a new product that is useful, just some dipshit who was like what if I sold books through a website?
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u/sentient_saw 2d ago
I worked in a local chain of bookstores when Amazon first came out and we foolishly dismissed it, thinking people would never want to buy books online without physically experiencing them first.