Ten reasons to avoid Amazon | Ethical Consumer
Ten reasons to avoid Amazon | Ethical Consumer
From ongoing abuses of its workers to aggressive tax avoidance, we list ten reasons to avoid Amazon.
I kind of stopped reading at "amazon suports (at least use proper grammar) new nuclear power plants."
Somewhat ruined article's/website's credibility with that one sentence
FTFY: *10 reasons to avoid capitalism
If it's not Amazon, it's another shitty company which exploits everyone and everything to maximize profits without regard to the well-being of humanity and life itself.
We need fundamental, systemic changes which grab those malpractices by their roots and rip them out. Our life will not get better if we continue to allow corporations like Amazon to exist.
Purge them from the face of the earth. Life is too precious to be sacrificed for the sake of greed and corporate dominance. A new paradigm must emerge, one that values people over profits and prioritizes the health of our planet. We need to foster a society built on mutual respect, fairness, and sustainability, where every individual has the opportunity to thrive. Only then can we hope to create a future that benefits all of humanity instead of a few.
The problem is that users are reluctant to pay more for the same product.
In my country the difference in price for a dozen eggs laid by free vs caged chicken is 1 euro. The caged chicken live their entire life in an overpopulated cage and are never allowed to walk outside. People don't care, they'd rather save 1 euro.
Companies like Fairphone seem to advocate for the values you describe but they can't possibly provide the same price of those other "dirty" companies. While most people sees the benefit and appreciates the values of such a product, they just aren't willing to pay more for an inferior product spec wise.
Canceled my prime subscription last month. No regrets
Same, honestly haven't missed it.
Pretty weak 10. Pick one or two and make a compelling article, I'm already trying to quit. We don't have to make up stuff like "JFC nuclear power!?"
Yeah, that one got me. That, and somehow making oil extraction more efficient is bad? I get that oil is bad, but surely there are more relevant reasons to avoid Amazon like:
- scams
- near monopoly
- waste of money
- poor warehouse working conditions
- dark patterns
Some of those were mentioned, sure, but there's no need to arbitrarily hit a number.
Exactly. Adding bad examples makes it seem like you couldn't get 10 good ones which is obviously not true.
I do not need reasons, I need ways.
Guess I'll be shopping at Canada Computers.
I agree with the message, but these two points following each other feels a little hypocritical:
“Amazon is supporting new nuclear plants” and “Amazon has a poor climate record”
Nuclear power is the most effective way to get out of climate change. Caring about climate change and being against nuclear power at the same time is a contradictory position to take, and needlessly puritanical.
If we could only rely on renewables, that would be very nice. That is not currently the case. We should strive to have more renewable energy, while keeping in mind nuclear power is here to stay and even be expanded as we eliminate carbon emitting sources of energy.
Imagine a capital juggernaut like Amazon invested in truly renewable energy instead of just trying to be power hungry assholes trying to race Google to the AI market.
The amount of technology that they could create simply from these investments could change the course of our planet. But, no. Line must go up next quarter. Not 2 years from now.
i disagree. nuclear power is expensive to build (usually exceeding the planned costs), is not resistant to high heat in summer (as shown by french summers), and a proper way of getting rid of nuclear waste is still not developed.
One Big Chart: how does the cost of nuclear power compare to renewables?
CSIRO confirms nuclear fantasy would cost twice as much as renewables https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/csiro-confirms-nuclear-fantasy-would-cost-twice-as-much-as-renewables/
Nuclear reactor in France shut down over drought Chooz Nuclear Plant on Belgian border turned off after dry summer evaporates water needed to cool reactors
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/nuclear-reactor-in-france-shut-down-over-drought/1952943
And how many times the cost of renewables are the required batteries to make it not nearly useless? More than 2x, that's for sure. Nuclear is the clear choice for base load and renewables for loads above that.
I don't have them right now but you can find report showing solar has a very high cost. Especially end of life. And the method used to total up the cost of nuke vs solar ofen doesn't properly count other effects.
Genuinely, disposing of nuclear waste is not the slightest issue. Just dump it in one spot.
Nobody has ever died from nuclear waste.
Nuclear waste itself is a misnomer, there is no waste it's just uneconomical to use at a certain point, it still has a ton of energy potential.
https://newrepublic.com/article/48426/sadly-there-such-thing-nuclear-waste
If people stopped being hysterical about a technology they don't understand we could probably develop it.
They go so far over budget because of lawsuits, usually. Vogtle was announced in like 2011 and didn't even get to break ground until 2017, then got caught up in even more lawsuits, if I recall correctly. And while conventional nuclear plants will probably always have huge upfront costs that take 30 years to offset, SMRs are darn close to a full reality and those will be a lot cheaper, and will get cheaper over time, like solar panels did.
There's a plant in Phoenix Arizona that uses city wastewater to cool the reactors, so they can hold up to hot dry climates just fine if designed to do so. (Fun side fact, the plant has to clean the rad waste out of the water before they use it - the rad waste from medical procedures that get into wastewater would be enough to exceed their allowance of acceptable release).
I'll give you the waste issue, but it's 100% a matter of politics. You're going to have to convince a state to take it on and none of them will. But on-site cask storage isn't the worst option. It's worked for a long time. There's also a lot of research going into other stuff we might be able to do with it. (In fact, waste isn't an issue in France because they already recycle it; the US doesn't because some of the recycled materials could be used to build bombs).
By footprint (in terms of land and waste) nuclear is the best option still. It's still the most stable output (save perhaps geothermal, but you can't do that everywhere) One day we might have batteries good enough to make that less of an issue but right now it's probably not a good idea to abandon nuclear.
nuclear power is expensive to build
So? It pays for itself.
Horrible take.
The missing reason is that you should just buy less anyway and if you avoid Amazon it is slightly harder to just buy stuff.
That being said, if you need it cheap, quick, and you cannot source it locally, just buy it on Amazon. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. You are not guilty of a moral crime by using them when the need exists.
… when the need exists.
Like you already said, it's much easier to separate needs from wants when you just don't go to Amazon. It was a real eye opener for me, how I could just add a tiny bit of friction to my "customer journey" (just don't automatically start my search on Amazon), and my desire for the object would usually just … evaporate.
Like a fey mood had overtaken me, but I managed to shake it.
I guess that's consumerism.
This is so so true. I cancelled prime ages ago so I don't get fast shipping at all, and I only get free shipping if I spend over $35. Even in the cases where I decide it's worth buying the thing on Amazon, I've got to wait to need more than $35 worth of stuff. Surprise surprise most of it just gets deleted out of the cart anyway.
That being said, I have only been able to find filters for my vacuum on Amazon (some no name brand I bought off there a few years ago) so they'll still get some money out of me, but most stuff I can just ignore now. Next vacuum will be a big brand name so I can avoid that, but it will be a while before there's a next vacuum, hopefully. Because in my mind it's more ethical to keep using the old one as long as it works even if some more $ goes to Amazon vs buying a whole new item I don't actually need yet.
Ugh, here's a new wrinkle (at least to me), that literally showed up in my inbox as I was reading this post.
I'm actively trying to avoid Amazon, researched and found the site of a small company making the product I'm looking for, and then find out that Amazon is handling their shipping.
No mention of this anywhere on their site.
This just happened to me. I purchased shoes and they shipped via Amazon even though I didn't buy them there.
I think that's part of what people don't understand. Amazon isn't a website that sells stuff, they are a dozen infrastructure based industries.
Shut down their website and they still have the logistics to fulfill for the sites you shop on and their servers are probably hosting them too.
That's vertical integration, and the end result for a virus like Amazon is that, left unchecked, they own everything.
I keep running into the same exact thing.
I feel like I found a new reason to avoid amazon every time I looked for a product not being sold under some random fake brand name. I cancelled prime over a year ago and started shopping elsewhere. It costs more, but the quality of just about anything is higher.
I avoid amazon for the same reason I avoid walmart: everything is a simulacrum of an actual product. Somehow, amazon is even worse than walmart.
So yeah, boycott amazon and shop at places selling actual products.
And if you really want a simulacrum of a real product for whatever reason, Aliexpress exists and has the same crap available for a fraction of the cost, and doesn't enrich Jeff Bezos.
What I don't get is HOW people shops on Amazon, their search engine is the shittiest I've seen in a long time: "you searched for AMD RX1234 video card; here is a RX1235, a RX1024, and another one from a completely different brand! People also searched for other that is maybe related to that"
Yeah, their search is basically the main thing keeping me away from their store.
If I type in EXACTLY what I want, down to the exact type number, it’ll first show me things that vaguely have the same text, followed by things in the same category, followed by something totally random like a waffle iron, and MAYBE on page 2, there’s the thing I need. Show me that FIRST, not the slew of crappy clone/fake/off-brand shit or things not even in the same category.
I usually have better luck just going to Google and searching it that way. Usually that gets me to the item straight away. Like it should be.
People are looking for "king sized sheets" of "paper towel holder" not gtx4070ti super from gigabyte or esp32 chipset bullshit is how. Most people are getting basic shit, not trying to get around Newegg or a PC parts supplier.
That's not a real sharp take tbf.
People looks also for those, they wouldn't have a "Cyber" event specifically for that otherwise; anyway it shouldn't be hard, in 2025, for one of the biggest online shops, to have an internal search engine capable of discerning one product from another.
For sure; you'd have better luck finding product listings from another search engine their own search. I feel like it used to be better. Years ago, it would return exactly what I searched for, but not today. I think that was before 3rd party resellers were as common as today though
It's a real shame, because amazon was able to deliver to some very remote communities in the north. It was the first time they really had access to shit that big cities had without having to fly down there and carry everything back.
Well, 8 reasons anyway. Only one I needed is Amazon is a shit company that will try to squeeze money out of you anyway they can.
I’ve got a $25 Amazon gift card sitting around that I don’t know what to do with. My mother-in-law gave it to me for Xmas, and I don’t shop on Amazon.
I'd give you $20 for it ;)
This situation is the only time I use Amazon. May as well burn it on something cause they already have the money
I might try to sell it to a coworker for cash.