Americans really dont know how to protest…
Amazon Boycot March 7-14th | No Purchases. Its time to disrupt the system.
Submitted 2 days ago by juergen@feddit.org to technology@lemmy.world
https://mstdn.social/@Remittancegirl/114115831840378327
Comments
Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 2 days ago
My hope would be that some people realize they don’t need it after all and cancel their subscriptions and such.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 2 days ago
“Vote with your wallets” is a common expression among Americans after all.
slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org 2 days ago
Amazon breaking new records after the “protest”
endeavor@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
hey, come on, this is a good start. It should be replaced with a complete boycott, but both americans with impulse control will propably boycott amazon. For the rest, it’s a great start and you can bet it will not be the last.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 2 days ago
hackitfast@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I wonder if Amazon is pushing these “protests” to drown out the real ones.
Red_October@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Do you guys really rely on Amazon so much that one week without feels like a protest? Seriously?
REDACTED@infosec.pub 2 days ago
I’ve genuinely never used amazon to shop, not even once, but only because it’s always been the more expensive option compared to smaller shops. Right now seeing 5070ti tuf goes for 1400 on amazon, 1300 at my local store.
Cataphract@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
It’s so bad and cyclical while just being unavoidable in some areas. On the map, you’ll notice how heavily populated northern europe is compared to a lot of sparse areas which have less options. I’m in a relatively normal size town and there is one big box choice and maybe one defunct “local” store that’s barely getting by.
I had to beg a guy in a corner shopping center “repair shop” for a small syringe of thermal paste when I ran out (I’m not fucking kidding, there’s just no electronics store anywhere nearby, losing Radioshack was fucking hard). Dude at the shop was the only reason I didn’t have to go online and wait a week (he wasn’t selling it, just had spare for his own use). My trades and hobbies make this a common occurrence throughout the week. Most places now are forced to sell on Amazon to remain competitive (Amazon dominates with shipping cost reduction alone for large items), finding a local or even nationally based company through search algorithms becomes harder and harder as they can’t pay to keep up with SEO bullshit. You can try to keep it all legit but with competitive monopolies everywhere you just eventually find out your favorite company no longer really exists.
There are some suppliers I could shop with but each one is an hour drive in different directions and 80% of the time they’re ordering the same shit through the same companies I would be using if I went online. It works sometimes, but takes so much effort it becomes it’s own full-time job that no one has the ability to keep up with.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Guys I’m going to take a picture of myself holding up a sign saying that Amazon are racist oligarchs and I’m going to post it online
dan1101@lemm.ee 2 days ago
I will admit it’s been super convenient if I need shampoo or toner or drinks or dozens of other things to just take 60 seconds to order it from Amazon and it’s here in a couple days. Well it used to be. Now things often take many days to ship. I canceled Prime about 6 months ago.
Red_October@lemmy.world 2 days ago
You just listed things that you can pick up at any number of local stores. That stupid convenience of ordering crap instead of just adding it to the shopping list is why people think going a week without using Amazon will “disrupt the system.” This is exactly the problem.
Alpha71@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Here’s the thing. If I could shop somewhere else I would. Do you know what sets Amazon apart from other places? It’s their delivery, pure and simple. I ordered 3 TV’s from Best Buy. It took them a week to ship them. I had to pay for shipping on top of the $600 I spent. On the day I was supposed to receive them I was home all day. I got a notification they were an hour out. So I went outside and waited for them to arrive. They never arrived, but i got an email telling me they had stopped by but I wasn’t home.
So I had to go down to their depot to pick them up. I am stuck using public transit so Imagine trying to get 3 40 inch TV’s home on a bus. I ended up having to get a cab half way home with money I couldn’t afford to spend just to get it all home.
So for me, That is the main reason I buy from Amazon. Although lately I’ve been shopping with Uber from Walmart.
And Fuck Purolator.
b_tr3e@feddit.org 1 day ago
I haven’t bought a single TV in my whole life and I haven’t missed anything important. Whenever I am somewhere where there’s a TV and I’ve got nothing better to do or I’m just curious I zap through the channels whithout finding anything remotely interesting or entertaining 99% of the time. I really wonder what people want with these ad-infestes, annoying trashcans. Aren’t you dumb enough, yet? Try heavy drinking. Preferrably methanol or break fluid…
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Amazon boycott March 7th through forever. There’s no need to give them an end date. Our action is completely toothless when we literally spell out for them exactly when we’ll come crawling back start giving them money again.
13igTyme@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Boycott March 7th-14th. Amazon makes record sales on March 15th. Great job. High fives all around. That will show them. /s
BigBenis@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Or how about you just stop buying from that cancerous blight on our society altogether?
JazzlikeDiamond558@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Haven’t bought almost anything from Amazon in decades. I think Jeff Bezos got like 13 $ from me. Ever. Period.
There have always been better or just as good deals elsewhere (i.e. eBay). And I think that people do not realize that more than 50% of offered stuff can be obtained CHEAPER when bought directly from the seller/producer.
Just write an eMail and… off you go.
SeeFerns@programming.dev 2 days ago
Dude, same. It’s been about ten years since my wife and I stopped buying from amazon. Never have I had a problem finding the things I need on eBay or Craigslist or straight from the seller.
Just order some new headphones directly from Lenovo that were the exact price as on amazon and even had free two day shipping and don’t require me to have an account. Great, no issues.
For other things, people for the love of god please buy used and local as much as you can. I live in a smaller town and can find soooooo much shit locally. Not everything but I’d say most everyday things!
bob_lemon@feddit.org 2 days ago
One thing Amazon is better at (at least here in Germany) is free shipping. But seeing how that is a least partially responsible for creating a cutthroat delivery market, where companies contract out delivery work to barely self-employed drivers for barely any money, paying for shipping doesn’t seem like a bad idea (even though I know the drivers won’t really see any of that money in the end)
daggermoon@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I mostly shop on eBay now. Way better anyway.
slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org 2 days ago
I really liked ebay like 20 years ago. Now at least here, it’s just for people dropshipping stuff or sell stuff super overpriced. Like more expensive than new. It’s such a weird place.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 2 days ago
LOL Totally not a scumbag Omidyar company
Anivia@feddit.org 2 days ago
I avoid them as much as possible purely because their in-house logistics company recently started doing their deliveries here instead of DHL, and they are absolutely terrible. Delivery times range from 7 AM to 9 PM and they just leave the package in front of your door without even ringing the doorbell
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 2 days ago
as much as possible
Americans are great at mental gymnastics and making excuses to get out of things when it becomes slightly inconvenient or requires effort.
That’s why you lose and keep losing.
Xanza@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Boycotts like this do nothing because the people most willing to “participate” are people who already don’t purchase from Amazon. Even if you were able to get a critical mass of people to participate for even 3 months. So what? Amazon will post 1 bad quarter and then things go back to business as usual. Nothing happens. They don’t even really lose any money. At least none out of pocket, of which they have plenty for things such as this.
Amazon is a subscription model. You want to hurt them, then hurt their subscriptions. Don’t boycott them, cancel Prime.
spacequetzal@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I used to buy a ton of Amazon stuff. Mostly art supplies, pet supplies, clothes, novelties I didn’t need.
One day, I was browsing Reddit and I was like-- “what is this boycott thing all about?” and then I started by not ordering for one whole day!
Then one whole week!
Then one whole month!
Anyway, I ended up cancelling my Prime subscription, deleting my Amazon account completely, and cancelling my Prime Store credit card.
Then at work, for Valentine’s Day, we each received a $200 dollar Amazon gift card as an employee appreciation gift.
I spoke up and said that I would prefer to receive cash or nothing at all because my values did not align with Amazon-- which caused many of my coworkers to decline theirs as well.
It was so perplexing to leadership, that they decided that going forward they are just going to give us a $200 cash bonus on our paychecks
So anyways, that’s the impact one of these “pointless” boycott posts had on me.
Xanza@lemm.ee 1 day ago
So anyways, that’s the impact one of these “pointless” boycott posts had on me.
I didn’t say they were pointless. I say they don’t do anything. What does do something is this;
I ended up cancelling my Prime subscription
That’s it. You “buying a ton” on amazon is small peanuts in the grand scheme. Even if you buy a lot amazon is only making a percentage of whatever you spend. Something like 30%. So even if you spend $10k in a year, they make $3,000 net and have to deduct for the cost of getting those items to you. When all the financials are worked out, it’s next to nothing.
The price of their subscription service is their e-penis. They get to say “500 million people pay for Amazon Prime!” @ $139/yr is $69.5 billion. You can buy nothing and they can still survive… But if you stop paying for Prime they lose their e-penis, which affects their stock price, which loses them bargaining rights with their suppliers and ultimately can affect the price of Prime itself.
It’s the surest way to kill them.
4dagoth@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I disagree. Even if just YOU boycott and no one else does. The boycott does something. Even if you don’t believe in it, step aside and push the train forward while it passes you. Don’t create friction.
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I agree with the principal of personal boycotts, though not effective in doing anything to affect the companies that you are boycotting, are necessary. But OP is right. For instance I have been boycotting Chick-fil-A for the last 10 years because I don’t agree with their homophobic attitude. But it has zero effect on their bottom line because no one else boycotts them or even cares. I think the kesson is that you should not expect any kind of real outcome from your personal boycott of a company. You should just be satisfied that you are not personally supporting that company.
joel_feila@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah i stopped using amazon years ago. So I can’t really join. Plus amazon makes so much money from orime sub aand truly absence amounts from aws.
rational_lib@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s very hard to avoid buying stuff on Amazon even if we hate them. This provides a bit of extra motivation.
Naughty_not_bad@lemmynsfw.com 1 day ago
I have been boycotting them for the last 7 years. I’ll gladly participate with this one for: indefinitely
MuscularGoddess@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Awesome. Do you still buy online from other billion dollar companies or have you been able to go all local? I’m having a hard time getting past the convenience and cheapness they are able to provide. I have cut back a huge amount though since Covid where I never wanted to leave home to purchase things I need for home.
And009@lemmynsfw.com 1 day ago
Forgoing the convinience isn’t easy, even gotta look at the purchase and decide if it’ll be used frequently or just a use and throw
Engywuck@lemm.ee 2 days ago
LOL, I’m boycotting Amazon since 2007, at least. Good luck!
thesystemisdown@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Me too, 2010ish though. I wish I could figure out how to boycott AWS. As an aged developer with a little bit of influence, I’ve steered plenty of clients, employers, peers, and juniors away, but I still use the internet. There’s no detaching from that.
Brodysseus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
This is off topic, but as a new developer (about to graduate) I’m having a tough time envisioning places to work. Ideally once I get enough experience I can be more choosy (non profit work is my goal) in the meantime I need experience.
Based on what you can infer about me from being on Lemmy in this thread, do you have any advice for a new developer in regards to fun or ethical work?
rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
A boycott or strike with an end date is seldom effective.
See for instance Reddit
Animated_beans@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Not necessarily. The employees of airlines have been quite impactful with partial, random strikes in a method called CHOAS. Not everyone will strike at the same time and their strikes only last a few hours- enough to cause problems for the flight they’ve been scheduled on. This hurts the company without harming too many customers and has been effective in the past and has been effective as a strike strategy.
Think of a partial strike as a warning that more could follow if demands aren’t meet.
yardratianSoma@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Difference here: Amazon being owned by a man worth fucking $200 BILLION, any temporary disruption will hardly register on the grande scale of his wealth.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 1 day ago
A warning? Wtf
b_tr3e@feddit.org 1 day ago
Reddit is fucking dead, nowadays. You can’t seriously call that “living”. Ok, braindead at least
Holistic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Honestly its just too easy to entirely cut them out of your life, coming from a heavy user previously. Alexas are gone. Prime canceled. Chase card closed. It was tough for one day, but now I feel great knowing I am not contributing to my own disenfranchisement. Also, saving lots of money after killing my consumption addiction.
I highly recommend it!
jhymesba@lemmy.world 1 day ago
…killing my consumption addiction…
This is the key right here. Do more with less. Keep that phone a year or two longer. Don’t spend money into the pockets of the billionaires lining up for Trump’s new fascist country. A 7 day boycott can show you you CAN go longer than a day without buying from Amazon. And if you can stay away for a week from them, maybe you can do without the unnecessary stuff they’re throwing down your throat.
const_void@lemmy.ml 21 hours ago
Just stop using them entirely. Delete your account. It’s not that hard.
nodiratime@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Someone recently gave me a voucher for them. A few minutes later I mentioned my intention to boycott them indefinitely – awkward.
Anyway, I used it up (since it’s essentially lend money to them) and closed my account after.
teslasaur@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You guys buy from Amazon?
Literocola@lemmy.ca 22 hours ago
Corporations don’t react as much as you’d think to 1 week interruptions in revenue numbers unfortunately as they are beholden to shareholders and shareholders react to quarterly earnings report. To truly send a message it would need to boycott from Q1 to Q2, basically Jan-April or even May.
pineapplepizza@lemm.ee 6 hours ago
I’m in.
AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
sounds easy considering I haven’t bought anything from Amazon in years
TheFriar@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Right? One week of not buying things from Amazon is fucking nothing. They’ve proven over and over that they’re evil and should be boycotted. Do people seriously buy something every week from Amazon? That’s like addiction shit.
Just stop buying from Amazon. I reached that tipping point like twelve horrific things ago. If you’re still using it, you’re just kind of a bad person with zero self control.
NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
“…Do people seriously buy something every week from Amazon? That’s like addiction shit.”
Yes. I have one family member with an amazon affiliated credit card and when it’s combined with prime… Anyways, multiple family members use that account to make orders from. This includes ordering cases of softdrinks ever 2-3 weeks.
SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You and me both my friend. ✊
hagishi@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Me too. I’m from europe and it wasn’t a big deal for me to avoid Amazon.
ovovo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
The problem of boycotting Amazon for over a year now is that I can’t participate in collective actions like this one.
radicalautonomy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That’s not a boycott. That’s waiting until payday to shop.
There needs to be a succinct way to say “Never shop Amazon again if possible. If you absolutely have no other option, don’t do it March 7-14.”
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
Would be better to plan this a little farther out but I am already on a permanent boycott so I support this obviously.
sunglocto@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Is this a joke? Like 2k people on fedi don’t buy anything from Amazon for a week?
These "economic blackout"s are completely futile. Especially if they only target a single service, or if they target a service as big as Amazon. If this blackout is for everything Amazon operates, you can’t use Twitch, or Fire TV, or Prime Video, or Fire devices, or Kindles, or any website that is run with AWS. You think normies are going to sacrifice all of that ease of use for a week, and even if in some alternate dimension they have any self control over their consumption, they’ll just go back to using Amazon.
Amazon will survive for 7 days. What about people all around the world that quite frankly don’t give a fuck about uspol? What about subscriptions? Invincible 3x8 comes out in this time period? Nobody will watch it? People will stop using a third of the Internet, their streaming slop devices, their e-celeb propaganda outlets? It simply won’t happen.
These blackouts are an immature way to “break the system, man”. They completely ignore the reasons why normies go to the slop mill in the first place. The general population has 0 self control over their spending. They will consume, and consume, and consume, until they die.
Amaranth@lemmy.ca 22 hours ago
Canceled Prime weeks ago and done with Amazon. Unsubscribed to all US websites. We always prefered to buy locally, but would occasionally jump the fence. No more jumping. If it’s not either local, made in Canada, or Product of Canada, we’re doing without.
Mandelbrot@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Boycotts are useless.
FatTony@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Ooooooh 7 whole days??? That’ll teach 'em. What is this, Whale Wars?
MayorOfAlmonds@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Amazon is just so convenient, it’s hard to say no. If I need new socks, I can press one button and somebody brings it to my front door in a couple hours at a cheap price. Alternative? Order them somewhere else online and get them in a week or drive 20 minutes, deal with parking + crowds to get them a couple dollars more expensive.
It’s a crap situation but I understand how Amazon got so big.
rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I’ve already been “boycotting amazon” for a while because everything on there is complete dogshit or overpriced and I just don’t feel a need to buy anything from them.
Also their website doesn’t fucking work on my phone.
SloganLessons@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That’s so stupid. Boycott only works if it’s indefinite, because you want the company to try to win you back.
If you say that you are coming back, what exactly are you expecting to happen? They’ll change nothing because you already said that you are coming back
Manitobruh@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Don’t just boycott stop using it all together. I haven’t used it since 2014 and have never had the need.
flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I week long boycott will do nothing. If that is the most you are prepared to inconvenience yourself to send a message, then just give up now.
kamen@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Can’t remember the last time I bought something from there.
0ops@lemm.ee 2 days ago
This is great and all, but here’s a bonus challenge: don’t use Amazon ever fucking again!
Do it and you’re cool!! Even though I haven’t used it in awhile, I have the app downloaded. I’m going to uninstall it as soon as I post this comment.
Echofox@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Easily done, I already avoid them.
sunfur82@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
I deleted all my amazon accounts a few weeks ago, and have no plans to go back. When I order things now, I’ll just order through the vendor instead of Amazon, I can live with it taking longer or costing a bit more.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 days ago
A whole 7 days??? Gosh gee willakers!!! You think people can uphold a boycott a whole 7 days???
Look. Boycotts are effective, but you gotta be stubborn. It’s gotta be “boycott from now on” with no end date.
Otherwise, it’ll just look like normal fluctuations in their business.
“Oh, this week was slightly down…ah, but then it stopped. We’re good!”
But if you boycott forever, then their numbers continuously go down. And if you get other people boycotting, those numbers go down faster.
THAT’S how you make an impact.
null@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
How do you get people who can’t see themselves boycotting indefinitely? You get them used to it by getting them on board to boycott for a fixed length of time. Ideally, as they warm up to the idea, you get them to boycott for longer.
thejml@lemm.ee 2 days ago
True, but 7 days isn’t enough time for that. I’ve gone weeks between purchasing the kinds of things Amazon delivers, so it’d just be normal. 2+ months is probably better. Especially if those months are Nov & Dec.
crabigno@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I have ordered from them line 5 or 6 times, subscribed for a year because I wanted to watch a series by terry Pratchett, and never again interacted with it in the past 8 years or so. You are not boycotting food or water or oxygen.
marv99@feddit.org 2 days ago
In 1995 we boycotted Shell for environmental reasons and it worked: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Spar
So it needed few days more than week of concerted action to bring big business into trouble.
villainy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That boycott had a demand attached, to prevent the sinking of the Brent Spar buoy. Effectively “unlimited” boycott until Shell gave into the demand.
This and the last no shop Friday thing seem mostly pointless. I mean fuck Amazon for sure but shouldn’t there be some goal? “Boycott Amazon until X, Y, and Z” not “No buy from Amazon for a week but then we’ll be back so no worries!”
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Boycott action, and a smidge of arson.
CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Okay, so start boycotting Amazon now and don’t stop.
rotmulaaginskyrim@programming.dev 2 days ago
This is how strikes are organized generally. You do limited time events too minimize the hurt on both sides, and bring them both to the table.