Why not both
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
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Pleasant Politics
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porque no los dos
Or, idk, maybe people shouldn't be subscribed to a newspaper owned by the world's richest capitalist. The owner of a company that brings in former intelligence officials to bust unions, sells facial recognition tech to police, does business with the Israeli military, dodges taxes, spends tens of millions of dollars on lobbying, and BOUGHT A FUCKING NEWSPAPER?
Seriously. You can debate the merits of boycotting a company that sells generic products. They may be doing bad stuff, but so are a lot of companies and you need, say, food, and their food is as good as any others. But in a case like this the very essence of the product is compromised by it's ownership. Even if the moral argument isn't persuasive to you, why would you consume news generated by a company owned by capitalists who have very direct, material interests in shaping narratives and influencing the government? This obviously goes beyond WaPo and Amazon, but it certainly seems like one of the more egregious examples of a "news" outlet just being another arm of a giant conglomerate.
I would consider commissions and patreons supporting independent artists and journalists as equivalent to supporting most charities if you have the means, people need to eat and pay rent or a mortgage and directly supporting that I think is virtuous if you're able to cover your family costs and savings goals first. If you don't have the time to research independents then local news orgs would probably benefit more from individual subscriptions way more than national news corps.
Tl;Dr if people with the means to don't pay for journalists to give them some autonomy from corp sponsors then we'll get what we pay for
Me as of yesterday:
- WaPo
- Prime Video without ads
- Audible
- Kindle Unlimited
- Amazon Cloud Storage
- Sprouts > Whole Foods
We left AWS for Azure two years ago, so that doesn't count.
Me today:
I am currently studying what it would take to drop Amazon Prime. So far a combination of sites seems to do the trick. I first search Amazon for what I want, then I start searching elsewhere where to buy it from. My guess is that I'll be able to cancel it by the end of the year.
I spend five figures on Bezos owned products every year. Not anymore.
I cancelled WaPo yesterday, and Prime today, with a refund.
I canceled WaPo, but Prime will be a discussion. Maybe.
You can always shop on Amazon without prime. It just takes a couple extra days to get stuff to you and you have to buy a certain dollar amount at once to get free shipping. We dropped prime months ago but still occasionally make an Amazon purchase.
I am trying to eliminate Amazon altogether.
Totally get that. Just trying to say that you don’t have to keep Prime while you figure it out.
AWS is roughly 70% of Amazon's profit. The retail side is inconsequential.
Yeah, our AWS yearly spend was high eight figures if you count the clients we supported on the platform. The software update has included a migration to Azure with Oracle Exadata which has now pushed that spend to nine figures. AWS fell asleep at the wheel, IMHO.
Cloud spending is massive.
Yet I’d say Amazon’s retail operation has had the far greater impact on the market. That’s the reason Lina Khan launched the antitrust lawsuit against Amazon. She wrote a detailed paper on how Amazon uses algorithmic pricing to crush the competition.
That's like saying the tip of the iceberg is the most dangerous section.
Do you know how much AWS touches? 33% of the Cloud market. That's about 1.5 x Azure and triple Google Cloud
Oof. Is there any way for a layperson to avoid it or is it just ubiquitous with the internet?
Canceled
The problem with this is that they won't recognize that you're cancelling in protest of bozos meddling with WaPo, they'll just think you're cancelling for some reason related to Amazon. I understand they need the money and this hurts them, but they need to see a direct response to his actions in a way that gets the message across.
I say cancel both.
Well, if you insist, then I'll sign up for a WaPo subscription, and AMZN prime. And then cancel them both.
I do use AMZN on occasion to check prices. But gah! no! I don't buy stuff there.
This is the way. But no one will do it.
It’s like that SNL skit on fast fashion/Temu. They list out all the reasons not to buy Temu and everyone quietly with heads down says they’ll still keep buying.
It really doesn’t take longer to get your crap either, not being subbed
I did it. I am also trying to avoid using Amazon altogether.
I never understood the idea of paying for a subscription to the mall because I’m too lazy to drive there and too impatient to wait for a delivery