2mo ago

Amazon's Monopoly of the tech industry is ruining the US economy

I wanted to get printer photo paper for my printer, a Canon. I went to Walmart, They had nothing. Went to Target, they had one pack of photo paper and it was crazy expensive, so I went to micro center. That one was just as expensive. So finally I went back to Amazon, which I was trying to avoid, and saw the price 25 to 40% lower than anywhere I had been. Literally everything that I was looking for, I could find within seconds. Not even Best buy has even close to the amount of inventory or variety, even when you're shopping online....

Therefore, I think Amazon has a literal monopoly in the tech industry right now, you're literally forced to buy from them, because unless you have the money and financial fortitude to protest with your wallet, you're going to be buying from them. There's no other choice. They have so aggressively and dominantly taken over the supply chain market that no other tech company can currently compete with them in any aspect at all. You will be paying 40 to 50% more on everything by cutting out Amazon, and no one has the money for that anymore unless you're upper middle class or above

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221 comments

Here in Germany there are still plenty of independent online retailers and they're competitive with Amazon. I always try to avoid buying from Amazon and for tech products that's usually no problem.
- Same in Spain. I don't even have an Amazon account, btw.
  
  Here in Italy practically no one is as quick as Amazon tho
  
  So? What's the deal in waiting a couple of days?
  
  Exactly. I convinced my wife that we really don't need everything to arrive in 0-2 days, it's totally fine if things take 3-5 days. So I cancelled our Prime sub, and it's been absolutely fine. In fact, we spend a bit less due to that minimum order size. We still usually get things in 2-3 days if we go w/ Amazon (we're right next to a hub), but we've been buying from more retailers now that we plan for longer delivery times.
  
  Sometimes I need stuff faster.
  And usually it's more than a couple of days. For example I always order PC parts from other stores, and some of them take over two weeks to deliver. Of course that's not an urgent purchase... Usually.
  
  Let me guess, the EU actually put laws in place to ”remediate that problem” like a ”functioning government”.
  
  I'm also in Spain, and only use Amazon for things i genuinely cannot find elsewhere, which happens to be like once a year
- Netherlands here and as well we have so many local shops that outbeat Amazon that it isn't even fair. There is a very small chance I buy something of Amazon, think the only time I did was for a replacement item for a Dyson.
  
  I think “beat out” may have been what you meant. And in this example I would probably just say they “beat” Amazon.
  
  How dare you expose my mobile typing and/or my not-native language speaker! /s
- Do you have some good examples? I recently moved there, and want to avoid Amazon, when possible
  
  In more general terms, you can look up the item at e.g. Idealo.de or other product comparison sites and then decide where to buy. Amazon is most often not the cheapest, even including additional delivery cost
  
  I like to order tech stuff from mindfactory.de
  
  Just don't let them assemble anything. I am serious. Whatever they can mess up and break, they will. It's honestly astonishing how careless they handle sinfully expensive high end parts. And sure you can generally send it back and wait another week or two, but only after making several calls with their customer service. So yeah you better prepare to build your machine yourself. This is not really optional.
- Please name an actual good store that can compete with Amazon. Now, I'm lucky my local book store has a digital front where I can order but when it has to be something more general, Amazon remains the only address where the majority of orders didn't range between faulty and actual horror stories so far.

221 comments