I came here to say obviously it's enshitification, only to find that the article is actually written by the Corey Doctorow. Love that guy.
Providing good service and quality products used to be primary. That's how economies prospered. Nowadays it's all about subscriptions, trickery and collecting money. Bad service and little value for your buck seems to be the norm. We throw away unrepairable good products and replace them with new products, by design. Sell, sell, sell (not fight, fight, fight).
I've always thought Amazon was trash.
Really good article and worthwhile a read!
Let the implications of most-favoured nation settle in. If Amazon is taxing merchants 45-51 cents on every dollar they make, and if merchants are hiking their prices everywhere their goods are sold, then it follows you’re paying the Amazon tax no matter where you shop – even the corner mom-and-pop hardware store.
I haven't shopped at Amazon for well over a decade now, but apparently even I am affected by their business model...
That is why I get tired about the "individual action" suggestion, that I alone could stop using Amazon and hurt their sales, I could de-Google my life and keep my privacy, or recycle plastic and save the ocean, or swear off AI to fuck with Nvidia.
But all that is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of people who all readily handed over their lives to these companies and haven't left (or can't). And governments who abdicated regulatory authority to them, which have allowed them to run rampant.
They're still making it so these massive companies have force in my life. I alone can't do anything about that.
Hmm are you implying collective actions are in order?
Well yes, the article is saying exactly that: that individual actions and consumer activism don't do shit and structural changes are needed. It even gives some examples for structural changes that could be helpful in the short-term.
I completely empathize with your frustration and I feel like individual actions are used as a way to give people some feeling of power that they don't have and that stays ineffective. It takes the pressure off of companies to change while giving people the feeling like the achieved something. And politicians in most countries don't have an incentive to change the system either because they live off of lobbying and may get a job at those companies later.
I added the anecdote in my original comment just because I was surprised at the scale that Amazon had an impact on the economy. And yes, it obviously didn't do much when I took individual action and boycotted them (apart from giving me a feeling of some integrity).
100% with you, well put
That surprised me. I always try to buy from the manufacturer's website or official reseller rather than Amazon to avoid such bullshit. Apparently that's not enough.
If brands selling on Amazon are overpriced, everywhere, could favoring brands that do NOT sell on Amazon help find products with a fair price?
Interesting. Not selling your stuff on amazon could possibly be a selling point for a new business.
I doubt "Not on Amazon" would be a selling point. If merchant have put up with it this far, it's probably because Amazon bring sales.
If leaving allow selling at a lower price, that would definitely be a selling point. But they would need a solid online store, their own or another markeplace.
People consume prime so inelastically thinking they can't get by without it.
I cancelled mine when Trump won and don't miss it at all. Most places will ship for free nowadays and charge the same prices as Amazon. Two day shipping is the only perk of Prime and even that doesn't always happen. If I need something that bad, I just go to a store, which again, charged the same prices as Amazon nowadays.
I cancelled prime quite a while back and I'll use the free month they offer and immediately cancel and also get it for the month of November to make life a little easier, and again, I'll cancel it immediately.
It just isn't worth it!
I canceled my Prime in 2023 to save money. They offer free months of it all the time. I swear we've gotten at least 8 out of 12 months free. I'd accept the offer then immediately cancel it and you still get the remainder of the time. Just pay attention to the offer because they do word it weirdly sometimes. Sometimes they'll also offer 1.99 for 14 days. Accept and then go to Prime settings and cancel.
I was holding onto Prime for the unlimited automatic photos backup (I had 300+ GB backed up) but I finally cancelled a few months ago. I've ordered a couple of times since then when I couldn't find what I needed elsewhere and instead of 2 days shipping is has consistently been 3 days delivery.
Enshittification is a well documented and understood concept
Well yeah, because the author of this article has invented the term and has given insightful explanations like in this article ;)
Sure as shit, there he is, lol
because they killed all the brick and morter stores
Meh, lots of them earned it.
Finding things is such a pain in the ass nowadays. You get a problem with something, say you need a spare part. None of the stores have it. It is on Amazon....but it won't be here for a solid two weeks. It's infuriating.
Something that should take less than an hour to fix is now a multi week wait, because of stupid online retailers. And it will be something super common, like a tool to tighten up loose spokes on a bike wheel.
stopped using Amazon when they switched to Bluetooth lockers that can ONLY be opened via their shitty amazon app. Prior to that? was easy and the lockers were great. either enter the code you get emailed or scan the barcode and boom locker opens. NOW you need to have the amazon app which tries to connect to the locker via bluetooth. It's hit or miss. I don't want to use your amazon app, I just want my stuff. The thing doesn't even work most of the time. I remember once I was waiting in line to pick up my package and of the 5 people standing in line with me at the locker 3 of them couldn't get the locker to open. Contact customer service? it's a known issue...
that's what we have at our apartment; you either scan in the barcode from the amazon app order page or you enter the code from your email
Enshittification.
As soon as a company goes public, they are only concerned about generating money for shareholders.
Investment is not inherently a bad thing, but this is certainly the case. When the owners of the company care about increased profit instead of the employees and customers (which would be aligned in a perfect world but they are not necessarily so in this one) enshittification is inevitable.
As soon as it is more profitable to lobby for legal changes that make more money at the expense odds your customers or employees—or find other ways to use your money to the same ends, you've gone to the dark side. I wish it was illegal for organizations (other than non-profits) to be involved in politics, but as a practical matter you can either allow it or accept it will happen out of view and ability to influence, like drug use.
These issues are why I'm happy being a worker bee than a queen—there's no solving people's problems when the problems almost always turn out to be the ability/drive of some of us to adapt to any system for maximum personal gain at the expense of others.
I mean, Amazon makes the majority of it's money from AWS at this point and the store is small potatoes in comparison.
...which makes it so baffling. They could buy a lot of goodwill if they just made the store more consumer-focused, even if they earned less from it in the process. But no, they have to just commit whole hog to just being the worst.
If a megacorporation could profit nine zillions and fifty dollars, and instead it's profiting only nine zillions, its shareholders are already screeching at the CEO "YOU INCOMPETENT FOOL, YOU'RE ROBBING US FIFTY DOLLARS!".
The path to a better Amazon doesn’t lie through consumer activism, or appeals to the its conscience. Corporations, being artificial, immortal colony-organisms that use humans as their inconvenient gut flora, do not have consciences to appeal to.
A great argument for efficient regulation.
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