Technology

Amazon is a place where you have to deal with fake items and getting fraudulent returns shipped to you as new. Your reward for this is maybe a 5% discount.

I’m surprised there’s so few mentions of AWS in this thread. It’s a huge profit centre for the company and a large portion of the internet is now running off of it. AWS is basically the internet’s landlord now, and the profits generated from being the most popular cloud service provider globally are probably why they can afford to invest so heavily into their logistics infrastructure and retail that people are more familiar with.

You were looking for office supplies: did you check an office supply store?

It's not just the tech industry, it's most industries. They have tons of inventory of everything.

I am fortunate to live in a country where amazon is not strong and we have aggregated search engines that over all the small shops, compete against Amazon on selection and cost, often beating it. I hope it stays this way.

I recently wanted to get a pre-workout, I looked it up on Amazon and then I went to the company site to just order directly from there. It was like $10 cheaper on Amazon because of free shipping and subscribe & save.

Not just tech, all over the product spectrum. They started by selling books.

A large problem is payment system and accounts. I hate going to a new shop and create a new account, a new password, bla bla bla. I hate it. And wiring with online banking is still a pain the ass, you have to enter some password into your shitty phone keyboard and then wait for an SMS... paypal and amazon payment make shopping convenient.

So part of the problem is banks who have been sleeping on the job for decades. At least here in Europe. You finally can wire money so it arrives immediately from your bank account at a shop! (without having to waste some tax on a payment provider either). But 2 factor authentication is still a pita. Where is my online bank with easy to use FIDO2?

There are now alternative popping up because amazon has become so enshittified (high prices for many smaller items and reviews etc). And of course I'm a fan of aliexpress but shipping from China is stupid too.

We definitely need to avoid a monopoly by a corporation like amazon.

Brick and mortar will always be more expensive and there are always cheaper options than Target. I used to love Fry's but they are no more.

Bought a RX 6400 for a little windoze game box, and shelled out around 30€ /35€ more at a conventional well known shop here, materiel dot net. Bought most of my stuff there over the years, nice people, etc.

But I couldn't just go get it, it "had to" be delivered, so I paid for that too (I guess you do the same on Amazon), high class delivery or so I thought. Ordered thursday, scheduled delivery "wednesday 8h-19h" so okay I WFH but man better be there every minute right?

Got a confirmation SMS/Text around 12, we're delivering your package today! (No more info).

Surprise, they didnt.

Suddenly it's scheduled "Thursday 8h-19h".

Grrr

I bet I would have gotten my card on saturday if I had used amazon (+30€ too...).

I mean are brick & mortar stores dead now for real maybe?

So the way it’s ruining those markets is by making more goods available at lower prices?

There are plenty of things to complain about with Amazon but, in my opinion, this ain't it.

I went back to Amazon, which I was trying to avoid, and saw the price 25 to 40% lower than anywhere

Amazon typically has prices the same as any other retail store. Your experience is an exception. You can't make a huge accusation like that based on a single product.

Not even Best buy has even close to the amount of inventory or variety, even when you're shopping online....

You can't compare a local brick and mortar store to Amazon. A vast array of hundreds of giant warehouses is never going to have the same variety of products as a handful of retail stores.

In addition, they leverage their warehouses to decrease shipping costs and local emissions. Which do you think costs more and causes more carbon emissions, a hundred people in old giant SUV beaters driving to and from a B&M location to shop for a single product or a single (often electric) delivery vehicle delivering a vast array of products to a hundred locations and are probably going to drive right by your house whether you order something or not?

Also Walgreens carries lots of different printing services and supplies and are pretty ubiquitous in large cities, so maybe give them a try.

Have you tried buying from aliexpress? It's the same products as on Amazon, but directly from the supplier. Imagine Amazon, but everything's 50% off.

Source: I'm cheap as heck and buy random trash from them

I canceled prime a year ago as I can no longer support the monopoly and destruction to everyone else

So politely, how does Amazon offering a better price on a niche paper product conflate into them having a monopoly on the "tech industry"?

I'd posit the real thing here is that Amazon's warehouses allow them to keep less-purchased products around in stock that a brick-and-mortar retail store simply wouldn't bother with at all, but that's been the case for decades at this point.

And, yes, printing out images has become an uncommon activity and I can't say I'd blame any of the larger stores for only having a single expensive option available, but that's their decision, not Amazon's.