Solidarity with the Amazon strikes

[Fambo Number Mive]

Amazon workers around the world are striking today with 25 demands including increased salaries, better job security, and improvements to the workplace, as part of the 'Make Amazon Pay' campaign.

According to computing.co.uk

In the UK, Amazon warehouses are not unionised, so legally they can't strike. While many workers in UK will be working on Friday, the campaign groups say they will stage protests at Amazon buildings in Leicestershire, Coventry, Coalville, Peterborough and at its London headquarters...

"Amazon's growing power is a threat to communities and workers around the world," Owen Espley, from the War on Want campaign group told the BBC.

"Amazon is abusing its dominance across online retail, cloud services, and logistics, to create unfair competition that is driving down standards for everyone. Amazon workers face unsafe conditions, constant surveillance and are treated like robots."

"It's time for Amazon to pay fair wages, fair taxes, and for its impact on the planet."

https://www.computing.co.uk/news/4041092/amazon-workers-plan-global-black-friday-strikes-protests

[steveh]

Extinction Rebellion also targeting Amazon warehouses today: https://www.independent.co.uk/business/extinction-rebellion-targets-amazon-warehouses-in-black-friday-blockade-b1964626.html.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Good on 'em.

I longed off prime when my annual membership was due and haven't used them since, it has been incredibly easy so far to find similar or cheaper replacements for most goods.

[The Mollusk]

Good on 'em.

I longed off prime when my annual membership was due and haven't used them since, it has been incredibly easy so far to find similar or cheaper replacements for most goods.

I've never actually challenged anyone for using Amazon so I'm not sure if the "it's a million times easier shopping there than anywhere else" argument exists or if (much more likely) people just can't be fucked t think for themselves and make the change. But personally speaking I've not used Amazon for a few years now (save for maybe two or three purchases where it was massively cheaper, I'm not made of money sadly) and it's made no difference to my life at all. Finding stuff elsewhere takes maybe 5-10 minutes extra searching and entering payment/shipping details. Like I said, I just think people cannot be bothered with that tiny inconvenience.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The one advantage I would say it has is better control over delivery stuff for some people; if you're not allowed to get deliveries to work then you can have it scheduled for Saturday at the push of a button and easy integration with locker services too.

Of course not using amazon's storefront is no guarantee that the alternative seller's logistics side is amazon free, and I'll be honest most times I've never been inclined to check even if they do tell you.

[NattyDread 2]

I just think people cannot be bothered with that tiny inconvenience.

I'm trying to use them as little as possible. They used to be my first port of call until I read about some of their shenanigans (on here I think). Unfortunately it's often more than a tiny inconvenience to find somewhere else. We're in the highlands and even though we're on the mainland our postcode is usually subject to massive hikes in postage prices. Some places even refuse to post here, so I often find myself using them through gritted teeth.

Good to hear about this though. A timely reminder when doing the Christmas shopping.

[Petey Pate]

Of course not using amazon's storefront is no guarantee that the alternative seller's logistics side is amazon free, and I'll be honest most times I've never been inclined to check even if they do tell you.

Has there ever been a comprehensive list of alternative online retailers that don't use Amazon for fulfillment?

Must admit the only thing I've used Amazon for in the past couple of years is for eBooks, being able to purchase and instantly download them to the Kindle is super convenient. While not as labour intensive as shipping and delivery presumably some person still has to press a button which makes me an inhuman monster.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Has there ever been a comprehensive list of alternative online retailers that don't use Amazon for fulfillment?

Must admit the only thing I've used Amazon for in the past couple of years is for eBooks, being able to purchase and instantly download them to the Kindle is super convenient. While not as labour intensive as shipping and delivery presumably some person still has to press a button which makes me an inhuman monster.

i buy my ebooks off hive then download copies with the drm stripped off from libgen

unless the author's long dead then i tend to skip the first part

[Retinend]

I just think people cannot be bothered with that tiny inconvenience.

You're right. I could easily just "deconstruct" the pools of products I use Amazon for (e.g. electronics, books, home items, etc.) and, once I have accounts set up, I would never look back. It is a tiny inconvenience, and I should make it a new years resolution to make 2022 my first year of Amazon abstinence. It is an evil company. Tracking every fucking step of their employees and holding them accountable for missteps.

[thenoise]

It's the easiest and best place to have multiple wishlists across many different products;  public and private ones, wedding/birthday lists, etc. I can't think of anything else that is as intuitive or convenient.

Rest of it is shite tho. Navigating the site is much harder than it needs to be (although it isn't the worst offender), half the products are dodgy wish.com level knock off shite. Their returns system is hassle free and easy to use, but then, it has to be - you'll be using it A LOT. They send thing broken, used, wrong thing, multiples of the same thing or not bother at all.

And their business model is 21st century workhouse.

[Fambo Number Mive]

The one advantage I would say it has is better control over delivery stuff for some people; if you're not allowed to get deliveries to work then you can have it scheduled for Saturday at the push of a button and easy integration with locker services too.

Of course not using amazon's storefront is no guarantee that the alternative seller's logistics side is amazon free, and I'll be honest most times I've never been inclined to check even if they do tell you.

This. I think if there was an easy way to schedule Royal Mail and other couriers parcels to come a certain day/time (or if Royal Mail and other couriers had the locker type system that Amazon did) it would be a lot easier to avoid Amazon.

Also, a lot of private courier companies such as Yodel seem to have really bad reputations.

[bgmnts]

I use amazon every so often if i need something to my shame especually during covid. Brilliant for the folks striking. Billionare income went up something stupid like 27% over the pandemic so maybe Bezos and his cabal of pure greed will give in to the basic dema- hahaha

[Johnny Foreigner]

I fear the effect may not be all that striking.

[Pinball]

So Amazon shopping is now added to the list of things you don't admit to and must criticise, to avoid peer pressure-driven criticism.

Fucking Amazon bastard Bezos.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Good is it amazon?

[Noodle Lizard]

Of course, they also make the vast majority of their money (something like 2/3) from web hosting, and they (and Google, Microsoft etc.) have such a monopoly on that it's basically impossible to successfully boycott them. The pandemic gained them a whole lot of employees too.

I fully support people using their services as little as possible, though.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Of course, they also make the vast majority of their money (something like 2/3) from web hosting, and they (and Google, Microsoft etc.) have such a monopoly on that it's basically impossible to successfully boycott them. The pandemic gained them a whole lot of employees too.

Yeah, and due to the interconnectedness of stuff if you rely on other services then something somewhere will touch them.

It's basically impossible to find an ethical could provider in a meaningful sense (AWS exploit everyone, Microsoft do too and take all sorts of government contracts that put people in cages, Google are cunts) - there are people who market themselves as green providers but at best they usually tend to do vps or vm hosting only, which compared to the 'serverless' offerings of AWS/MS/Google is pretty shit.

If only a bunch of nerds could join together and form a communist cloud.

[Noodle Lizard]

Yeah, and due to the interconnectedness of stuff if you rely on other services then something somewhere will touch them.

It's basically impossible to find an ethical could provider in a meaningful sense - there are people who market themselves as green providers but at best they usually tend to do vps or vm hosting only, which compared to the 'serverless' offerings of AWS/MS/Google is pretty shit.

If only a bunch of nerds could join together and form a communist cloud.

Yeah, I tried quite hard to find "ethical" (i.e. privacy-respecting, non-evil) replacements for all of the services I need. It's astonishing how difficult that actually is, especially when your work tends to want you to use Google Docs, Facebook and Amazon. In your personal life, it becomes an overwhelming task. The only real solution is just not to do it at all, but that's basically not an option anymore. I've settled for VPN, ProtonMail, a bunch of privacy extensions and containers, zero social media (other than CaB, naturally) and I just try not to use Amazon directly.

One good thing (here anyway) is that some stores will price-match Amazon for certain items, and I'd always rather do that. But the only stores that can afford to do that are places like BestBuy and Target, who would be every bit as evil if they were half the size, and they're not exactly "mom-and-pop" as it is. It's all quite horrid, really.

Every home in our neighborhood has a Ring camera on their front door, and I'd wager most have an Alexa inside. Your movements and chatter, constantly monitored by Amazon, even if you don't agree to it. Don't even get me started on how it feeds into social phenomenons like NextDoor.

EDIT: Also, if you needed any more reasons to hate Amazon, have a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6U2Un5kEdI
You couldn't move for the presentation of "job opportunities" in one of their terrifying compounds once the pandemic started.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Yeah, I tried quite hard to find "ethical" (i.e. privacy-respecting, non-evil) replacements for all of the services I need. It's astonishing how difficult that actually is, especially when your work tends to want you to use Google Docs, Facebook and Amazon. In your personal life, it becomes an overwhelming task. The only real solution is just not to do it at all, but that's basically not an option anymore. I've settled for VPN, ProtonMail, a bunch of privacy extensions and containers, zero social media (other than CaB, naturally) and I just try not to use Amazon directly.

I welcome using Google suite because I've managed to once again work in a Microsoft Office/Sharepoint shop*

On the personal level I recently had a shot at using an android phone with microg (it uses android but is 'de-googled' with some fudged libraries to do the google stuff to make most apps work) and it does work very well aside from casting not working - but I've got an old bare tablet for that. I've tried to get in to duckduckgo instead of google for searching and it very hit and miss oddly good for searching local stuff if you put your location in, but shit for technical queries, or even some very obvious queries and I can't manage to trick it into finding what I want using usual search engine nudges.

* I am not a token microsoft hater but have come to find heavy use of microsoft gear at a workplace is a big red flag as it's synonymous with top-down management and grim working environments generally.

[Ferris]

I also switched to DuckDuckGo a year or two ago and it's... fine, mostly, but it is a pain in the bollocks when you have to search there, review the results, decide it's not what you want, then open a new browser tab and pop it into google.

Now I've typed that out it looks laughably minor. It is a pain though.

[Sebastian Cobb]

You want to look up what the ! bangs do, !g <query> directs you straight to google and there's... !imdb and !rottentomatoes and loads of other shit I can't remember.

[Ferris]

Oh nice one, thanks!

[Noodle Lizard]

Yeah, I find myself using !g far more than I'd like to. There were a couple of similar alternatives which basically just repackaged Google results (Qwant was one), but I think they've all gone downhill.

Someone on one of those privacy subreddits pointed out that DDG isn't as squeaky clean as it presents itself either, but those folks are considerably more extreme than the average internet user.

[BlodwynPig]

But what about the vital Funko Pop market, will someone think about the Funko Pop market!

[Goldentony]

dyou think if you had sex with jeff bezos on film and called him little man and wor the whol time and then cum on his bald head you'd get the empire to fall somewhat, im not saying it should happen but someone who builds rockets for fun is 100% first ballot vulnerable to the fall of all insane men through history from genghis khan to hitler - they were taken down by getting pumped and belittled, and being covered in semen

[PlanktonSideburns]

But where you guns upload the video? AWS has farms of caged Ugandan schoolchildren searching for and deleting all bezo-compromat daily

[Goldentony]

you're right, ballache that be over 2GB aswell so no free uploading

[Crenners]

I ordered Troll 2 on Blu-ray during breakfast and it'll be here by this evening, in plenty of time for when I want to watch it in six months.

[flotemysost]

dyou think if you had sex with jeff bezos on film and called him little man and wor the whol time and then cum on his bald head you'd get the empire to fall somewhat, im not saying it should happen but someone who builds rockets for fun is 100% first ballot vulnerable to the fall of all insane men through history from genghis khan to hitler - they were taken down by getting pumped and belittled, and being covered in semen

My job has unfortunately involved a lot of dealings with Amazon in recent years, and my colleagues, knowing my loathing of Bezos, have concocted a HILARIOUS running joke where they insinuate I fancy him and do things like print off loads of pictures of him surrounded by hearts and stick them all over my desk and monitor before I get to the office. They are by and large a complete nightmare to work with, too (Amazon, not my colleagues).

I haven't used a personal Amazon account in years and agree with others that it literally hasn't affected my life one jot. I appreciate I do have the privilege of not being especially time-poor (compared to people with, say, children or caring responsibilities) and I'm physically able to go round shops in person, which I know not everyone can, but I think once you get into the habit of knowing where to look for alternatives it's absolutely fine.

Receiving a home PCR test (ordered from the NHS website) in Amazon packaging last year felt like peak 'rona deso.

[PlanktonSideburns]

you're right, ballache that be over 2GB aswell so no free uploading

Exactly. What are you going to do, upload it to VIMEO?