Amazon

billbasher@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 44 points –

With the addition of ads for paying users, is there anything subscribers can do to protest? I hate ads with a passion.

Maybe separate all shipping items to cost them more? I’m not seeing many options other than cancellation

27

The only power consumers have is voting with your wallet. Which in this case if this is important for you you need to cancel else they'll let it be and then later down the road they'll push even further. Also this is what always happens when a company gets big and think/know they can get away with it.

Don't use amazon !

The money you spent in a billionaire owned shop is less money for family owned shop in your community. Not only it transfer tons of wealth to billionaire, but having a nice neighbourhood bookstore, and other small business nearby is a real improvement to your local community and everyone benefits from it.

The sad thing is that at least here in Germany they are becoming the only option for more and more products. Most of the things I ordered in the last few years I couldn’t have gotten locally. Often my only other option is a different soulless and ethically questionable online retailer that asks a 30% higher price, uses the worst delivery service in the country and is just as much of a threat to family owned stores.

This mainly applies to movies on DVD and BluRay but I even had to order some semi-exotic cooking ingredients from Amazon because nobody in my medium sized city has them in stock.

I just wanted to buy safety pins. I couldn't find any. Looked at the supermarket, dm even mall like stuff like Galaria Kaufhof, nothing. The only place at that time I could buy some was amazon or as you said, another soulless online retailer with the worst shipping companies.

I go to great lengths to not use Amazon but in the US, unless you live in a large urban area Amazon and Walmart have systematically run most smaller, neighborhood retailers out of business already. If I wanted to go to a bookstore that wasn't a Barnes and Noble, I would need to drive about an hour and a half.

4 more...

I cancelled my Prime. You have the power.

Same. Canceled last month. You vote with your dollars, people.

Cancelled prime ages ago for a different reason. Don't miss it. I don't know about other places, but where I'm at the "prime 2 day shipping" pretty much never arrives in 2 days anyway.

If you are forced to use them:

  1. Do not use the app
  2. Find what you want on the website
  3. Copy the description with a reasonable amount of detail
  4. Paste description into your less evil search engine of choice
  5. Click through and buy

That way, Amazon has to pay the search engine.

While you could go as extreme as canceling Prime completely, it's not the only way to send a message.

Stop watching Prime Video.

They have as many metrics for what gets watched as they do what physical products get clicked on. Their Video division will see that their viewership has plunged. They will have to report reduced engagement to those who control the budgets. This will probably take a while, because they probably expected to ride out the initial subscriber backlash. Stick with it and show them that in the long-term, they'll make more money by not being greedy.

As to how you get your Amazon exclusive videos in the meantime… well, purchasing the same content on Amazon only shows them that they can make money in a different way through putting their "free with subscription" content behind a pay wall. You're not hurting them in that regard. So look for other ways to get the same content, in whatever way your conscience and technical ability permits.

The only power consumers have is voting with your wallet. Which in this case if this is important for you you need to cancel else they'll let it be and then later down the road they'll push even further. Also this is what always happens when a company gets big and think/know they can get away with it.

Me trying to imagine how

The only power consumers have is voting with your wallet.

is getting downvotes.

What ads do you have in mind? Where do you see them? (Website / phone app?)

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/22/media/amazon-prime-video-ads/index.html

Yeah, the answer here is cancel prime and pirate whatever amazon video content you want. if you absolutely have to have prime for some reason, don’t sign in to amazon video on any of your devices and pirate the stuff you want to watch so at least your not contributing to views or their prime video ad revenue.

Edit - I see in another comment you said you unsubscribed, good on you.