Amazon finally exceeded my tolerance for slimy behavior last year, and I let Prime lapse. The amount of time and energy they have put in to making it hard to compare prices in their own goddamn store was enough by itself; behavior like this is motor-oil icing on the garbage cake.
I had to readjust a few common purchases, but I was far less habituated to them than I thought I was. Having to actually pay attention and look meant I found cheaper options. And I never cared about Video or their other goofy add-ons.
Still handy for pricing data-points when buying elsewhere, though.
As much as Amazon seems to be throwing their mud in consumers' collective faces, the Waltons are 100% not better people and Wal-Mart's entire success is based on exploiting low-wage workers and subsidizing your workforce through social programs.
I'm fascinated that you cycled through the U.S. Did you happen to write anything about your travels that you're willing to share? I'd love to hear your experiences seeing America.
I also like to use boxed.com for quite a few bulk items that one might otherwise find at Costco. And compared to Amazon, I have found some competitive pricing at Smart & Final for other items I used to purchase online.
Nothing seems like a 1-1 Amazon replacement but buying stuff from actual online stores has worked out pretty well for me since I research products too much before I buy anyway.
Their music app is actually great, because it automatically shows lyrics for songs while they're playing. You get 2M songs with Amazon Prime, but the full library costs the same as Spotify/Google Play/Apple Music/Tidal/Pandora/etc. You can also scroll through the lyrics, and click the lyrics to seek directly to that part of the song.
Amazons search is TERRIBLE! I'm beginning to think sites that don't just let you download the catalog and search it yourself are probably trying to hide something. Amazon being the prime example of that.
> I'm beginning to think sites that don't just let you download the catalog and search it yourself are probably trying to hide something.
You know what would be a great feature? Letting you prioritize different categories, in relation to each other- on AliExpress, "fist sort by price, then by shipping arrival date" would be incredibly helpful- I'm totally willing to spend a bit more to get stuff here 20 days faster, and searching through everything for that is a PITA.
Same. Also, Target and Walmart free shipping usually ends up being 2 or 3 days for me whereas it seems Amazon now intentionally delays free non-Prime shipping to make Prime more attractive.
Prime shipping has only about a 50% 2-day delivery hit rate for me. Sometimes I order a Prime product and get it in 3-5 days. One time it was about 8 days. In most cases, delivered by the Amazon U-Haul trucks with people who pop out, toss your package against the door, then pop back in.
I had to readjust a few common purchases, but I was far less habituated to them than I thought I was. Having to actually pay attention and look meant I found cheaper options. And I never cared about Video or their other goofy add-ons.
Still handy for pricing data-points when buying elsewhere, though.