A lot of those stores actually closed down because of Amazon.

Many that offer specialized equipment are located in locations that are far or difficult to access and/or have opening hours that are the same as my work hours.

I do my best to buy local and from physical shops, but sometimes nobody had what you’re looking for and Amazon can get it to your door in 24 hours.

I hate the company but fuck is it practical. They need a serious competitor but nobody wants to even try with the amount of money Bezos got.

I bought some 3D printing filament direct from the manufacturer. It got shipped to me by… Amazon. From an Amazon warehouse. I guess that’s how they do fulfillment. 🤷‍♂️

Huh. In my large city I have difficulty finding things in brick and mortar stores. Want a silicone tray for your air fryer? Walmart’s website says they have them, but when you call the stores, they confirm they absolutely do not. Hobby lobby has it for 5x the price. No local stores come up as stocking them period, None other listed locally. I have this issue quite commonly. Maternity clothes sections just don’t exist locally with any variety or consistency with sizes. Baby necessities, toys, and clothing is truly hit or miss in stores. You drive to the one store you think will have what you need and they closed two weeks ago.

I don’t live in the boonies. If you live in the US, you’ve heard of my city. I am constantly running into the issue that things are only available online, and then Amazon is always the quickest shipping, and almost always the least expensive.

Fuck bezos and screw Amazon, but unless you’re able to wait a week or three for everything you need, you don’t have any good substitutes. I’d love to run out and buy it same day, but it’s just not reliable to go to the store anymore.

I wish I could. Most of the stuff I buy from Amazon I can’t find anywhere else. They’ve become the Walmart of online stores and driven everything else out of business. He’ll even Walmart doesn’t have what I want 99% of the time. It sucks. I hate contributing to Wish version Lex Luther …

MORE FUNDING FOR USPS! FUCK CORPOS!

Sure, we did lots of things for a long time. We used to send mail instead of phone calls too. But the reality is Amazon is going to offer a bigger selection, with more convenience, usually cheaper prices, and the ability to see reviews of the product. It’s got a lot of merits that make it attractive.

AWS is the big one. And they are indeed somewhat unique in the scale and flexibility that they offer. You could leave them, but then you have to build those services and data centers yourself.

I’m delighted to hear that you can afford the prices of goods from modern brick and mortar stores. What about us 99% though?

Exactly! I also haven’t bought more than ten items from Walmart in the last fifteen years.

It can cost a little more, and requires patience, but I can think of very few times I’ve actually needed (versus wanted) some item before I could get it not via Amazon or Walmart. Even with the added expense for some individual items I’d wager I’ve spent less overall since it makes impulse purchases easier to avoid.

It’s probably not amounting to much in the way of resisting these mega corps, but it isn’t as difficult as some folks imagine.

Second this… If they have it available, they’ve been great to me.

Additional to backfill more “basics”, target is at least less crap than Bezos.

I’m not aware of being downvoted into oblivion, but I have a massive block list, so that might be why.

Vape supplies are 5x the price on the street compared to Amazon, I buy from some shady online retailer instead but it also takes much longer.

For pharmacy stuff things I need are impossible to get in any pharmacy, even as I have it on prescription and should be able to get it for free in the UK, in practice it’s just never in stock, online pharmacies require bizarre kafka-esque labyrintha of consultations ans approvals, and one that I was recommended by my gf that she uses tried to selectively scam me by asking for.my card details over the phone, including CVC for the excuse that it was some third party supplier, meanwhile on Amazon it can be delivered the same day for a pretty decent price.

For computer parts in 99% of cases Amazon is much much cheaper. Any hobby stuff like music gear all comes from Amazon because it’s much more expensive with the manufacturer (if even available directly) nevermind retailers, nevermind in store IRL. Print books (can’t stand reading electronic copies) and especially manga are almost never available outside of Amazon, where again it’s all 1DD.

I’m in the top 20% earners in the UK so I can somewhat afford IKEA as long as I use it for many years, but for most there’s no real alternative to Amazon price-wise despite the poor quality. Same goes for kitchenware, options in stores are far too limited, e.g. plate drying racks were all too big or too small unless I got the one I got from Amazon.

Clothing varies, if I only ever go with brands I already know and take days off to actually be able to visit the stores before they all close at 5PM, maybe, but otherwise the best way to buy any brand of clothing is prime wardrobe’s try before you buy thing if you filter to legit brands only.

There’s just no real alternatives, even if you pay more, you wait more, you choose worse options, sooner or later you just run into a wall because those businesses that used to sell this stuff were gone by the 2010s tops.

Maybe this is true in the US, but in the UK the difference in shipping is Amazon same-day or at the very latest 1-day for free, or easily £5.99+ for something between a week and never because they use the most cost-cutting human slavery looking ass parcel carriers. That’s before the fact most things just are flat-out not available outside of Amazon, and if they are, cost 5x.

I happily pay more for local, and I basically bought clothes only on Etsy for quite some time despite being scammed a number of times, but that’s crashed too now and is impossible to use, and even before there’s no persuasive economical argument to make.

Most suppliers only sell directly on Amazon, or also on AliExpress if it’s chinese made stuff, but that in itself is a very different beast because shipping from there is in the month+ range.

We don’t all live in mom’s basement playing [insert game] on a crusty Toshiba satellite here with every whim catered to.

Things break, things are needed, people live their lives. I don’t buy much, but when I need something there are rarely any alternatives to Amazon.

There is literally nowhere to buy most things on Amazon.

I’ve used ebay before. Full of scammers. No thanks.

Yeah bro you’re right let me just not buy medication or replace a busted hard drive or microwave… Degrowthers need to grow some fucking braincells istg

No, see rest of thread

No, there are essentially no other online stores for most things.

This got reported, but its a joke, I think people just didn’t get it- including me. Because its a weird joke.

There’s a dozen responses stating why the person is wrong.

Did you read any of the responses?