Looks like it’s time to cancel prime
this was the last straw? it wasn’t workers peeing in bottles, or businesses being displaced to build warehouses, or tax avoidance, or sweat shop wages for international workers?
Shall we take a closer look at the brands you wear and the phone/computer(s) you own?
It’s far easier to just not use Amazon than it is to not own a phone or computer.
Yes, it sucks there are no good options to buy an “ethical” phone, but phones are basically a necessity. Instead of shopping from Amazon you can shop from tons of other places.
This is the same thing people say to those who shop at Walmart - it’s not always a choice. Amazon has run out digital and brick and mortar shops alike. Sometimes someone needs something in 2-4 days and there is literally no other way to get it.
Another scenario: I know as a parent I try my best but when you have screaming toddlers and no sleep, yeah, I’m just going to buy that third replacement sippy cup off Amazon sometimes lol
A lot of people could go without it but guilt/shame isn’t the way and we should avoid painting with broad strokes.
Yeah, I try to buy stuff from brick and mortar stores. I figure that even if it’s a big box store at least there are actual employees who work there who live in my area.
But I can’t even find the kind of underwear I like at any physical store near me. Even online, Amazon seems to be the only place that stocks it.
The same goes for the style of light jacket that I prefer. I’ve spent months looking everywhere, and the only place I found even an approximation of what I want is Amazon.
I’ve noticed that even in big box stores nowadays the selection is pretty limited. You’ll see a wall of racks full of the same item. I don’t know if it’s supply chain issues or if they’ve just decided that it’s not worth the trouble of trying to stock a variety of items.
I don’t really give a shit which billionaire asshole I give my money to so I focus on ease of search and delivery times and order from whomever is the best.
there are no good options to buy an “ethical” phone
Actually there are. Look up Fairphone and Shiftphone
As someone who recently tried the Fairphone 4 out to replace an absolutely dying OnePlus 5 I’ve had for years as well as the guy who uses open source everything/advocates for the same - It’s not a mainstream option at all yet. If they could decouple the software from the hardware better maybe people would be willing to deal with the bugs but eOS and Lineage, while awesome projects I support, don’t play with many “secure” apps at all due to how Google decided to lock them down and that alone is a deal breaker for anyone working where you need access to say…Outlook. Banking apps can have issues (depending on the bank) which while maybe easy to work around for you and I is a huge pain in the ass for most folks who just want their phone to work. Having to jump through hoops to get the Play store on there in the first place is not going to work for anyone who isn’t fully committed to the de-Googled experience. F-Droid is the first thing I install on a new phone but there’s no way it’s going to be my only portal to apps I need.
They are certainly meeting their own set goals, and the hardware while bulky doesn’t feel cheap or anything, so that’s great. I really love how easy it would be to replace most of the phone if/when broken, and the commitment to fair labor practices and control of the supply chain is tremendously commendable. But for a tool most humans rely on for day to day life, the honest truth is neither project is quite there yet to be adopted in the mainstream.
If it sounds like I’m shitting on either of these companies that isn’t my intent at all. I’m following the progress with FP5 and really look forward to seeing the ideas set here grow if they can.
If it sounds like I’m shitting on either of these companies
It does. The style of your argument makes the situation more complicated. No one said mainstream. From the sound of what you’re saying, monopolistic companies hindering compatibility will keep it that way. Apps will have bugs that need to be worked out, that’s just a given. Stating don’t get it because it’s not viable atm just makes this cyclical since there will be no consumer push to work the kinks out or let people learn about alternatives.
I think his point is it’s a big ask to ask people to deal with buggy/less feature-rich hardware for a product they use - arguably depend on - every day. It’s a valid point bring up.
It’s very easy to not order anything off Amazon
Oh my bad I guess I’m totally wrong. Such a convincing comment here.
You’re not wrong but on the other hand if you only have morals if it’s easy then I’d say your morals ain’t worth shit
Apparently Americans would die if not for uber and amazon.
The number of people who think they’ve ordered food delivery “from” a local restaurant, not realizing it was actually made in an UberEats\DoorDash all-in-one “ghost kitchen” located in a nondescript building nearby, vastly exceeds the number of people who’ve heard the term “ghost kitchen”. One of the most well-known local pizza shop’s deliveries, actually come from ghost kitchens, here.
Get bent. You moralizing keyboard pseudo-activitist.
Why aren’t you out right now on a picket line? Why are you wasting time on a forum, instead of helping the homeless? Why aren’t you…
How far are you willing to take your arbitrary purity tests? Instead of supporting someone who is intending to support an action you clearly also support e.g. cancelling Prime, you’re lecturing them why they should have done it sooner. Or why their choice is less moral then yours.
I bet that if Ted Cruz came out tomorrow to be the deciding vote on Medicare For All, and publicly stating his intent to do so, you’d scream about how Dems shouldn’t support any bill that has the support of such a scumbag. Because to you, the purity test is more important than the actual result and impact.
And if you’re not American, then insert whatever relevant politician and issue would be comparable to your county. The point still stands.
This is the best reply to some smug fart-sniffing “oh THAT’s why you etc etc but WHY NOT OTHER THINGS?!” bullshit I’ve ever read.
Have fun purchasing ethical power, food, textiles and electronics unless you’re already rich working at a non fortune-500 company lol.
Fortune 500 employees are some of the worst paid and most exploited. See Amazon, Walmart, etc. Even at the white collar level they get paid shit. The old “work for a Fortune 100” bit hasn’t been relevant since the dot-com boom.
Top level Devs at Amazon get paid 1m a year, plus stock options
Top level devs at Amazon would get paid that anywhere. They aren’t competing for a spot at Amazon, Amazon is competing for them.
That kind of undermines your original comment…?
How? People used to dream of working for a Fortune 100 company because landing one of those coveted jobs was a way to secure a well paying job with a nice pension. Those days are gone. Now you either make yourself priceless so that everyone is competing for your skills, or you work for a small firm that values your existence and sees you as part of the team. In a large company, with very few exceptions, you are just a disposable cog in the machine.
For context, I know a lot of developers that worked for Amazon. They all left. The mythological $1M devs are paid that to make sure the competition doesn’t have them. They aren’t employees, they are IP.
Did you just tell him to learn2code? 😆
Those all impact others. Nobody gives a shit about others. This impacts them, which is the only thing that matters to pretty much everyone. Look out for #1.
Yeah, not sure how it took this to get people to finally cancel.
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“All Of My Awesome Pirated Media To Keep Being Great Quality, Ad-Free, and Forever Accessible”
With Netflix already having ads we are now 75% of the way to “cutting the cord” going back to reinventing cable again.
And that’s why people started sailing the high seas again.
My NAS is my best friend.
I had to upgrade mine probably 2 years ago now. I had nearly maxed out the 12TB I had. Now I have almost 30TB and some breathing room. Granted a lot of that is non-movies/TV but a good chunk of it is.
Arrrrrr! RD be the GOAT.
Ha, I never stopped.
https://youtu.be/Th6PW5VwDFI?si=EvzuXbkiQGoeTW3C
Honestly everytime I have to feel proud for sailing I dance like an idiot while the magnet links are being being pasted on the real debrid
“Again”?
I’ve still been out here since Napster. Welcome back aboard, we kept the torrents warm for you.
I like something I saw on here awhile ago that was something like " streaming services where only successful because they where slightly more convenient that pirating " for a while I mostly used a couple of streaming services despite most of the apps having really bad interfaces . But my Plex server has been growing in size lately while the streaming services are being cancelled.
My breaking point for paying for something that I could otherwise get for free is convenience. Doesn’t even need to be a lot, I just refuse to pay for a product that artificially more of a hassle than the identical product that I can obtain for free.
It’s not so much that I want a superior product, it’s that I refuse to pay money for an inferior alternative.
As someone who doesn’t sail the high seas, I thank you. Sometimes it looks like there won’t be any classic media left without your efforts.
What are the cool kids using these days?
Seedboxes. Download the torrent on someone else’s computer, and then directly download it to yours through an encrypted connection. Sorta like a “money-laundering” for pirated content.
Honestly still just using Qbittorrent with a VPN; it’s a dream now that fibre is pretty ubiquitous. Mine hit 100MB/S yesterday, a 1.4Gb file takes about 10 seconds
Qbit+VPN to grab, radarr/sonarr to catalogue, overseerr to request, and plex/jellyfin to watch.
I was using torrents for years before I started messing with Usenet. Now I’ve got it set up it’s easy to grab pretty much anything and at higher quality than before.
if it was still just netflix, and everybody didn’t have their own streaming service, that would be different.
but when you add up netflix, prime, disney, paramount, peacock, max, and whatever else, the wallet definitely says it’s just like cable.
do one at a time and rotate, maybe have one you ‘always’ have. you can’t watch 10 different services at once anyway.
Or just download what you want and say “fuck ‘em”
Some of us never stopped sailing the high seas matey. Yarrrrr!
@OldWoodFrame @ZeroCool yeah I will never, Comcast/Xfinity are total scum bags and I would pay extra to never give them money ever again. Unfortunately I am forced to use them for Internet, there’s no way I’m paying for their cable TV programming.
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We have shrinkflation and now adflation.
$2.99/mo. + $14.99/mo. Prime subscription = $17.98 totes.
🤮
Price gouging and corporate greed basically.
Ahoy 🏴☠️
Arrr me matey
The corporate enshittification of once decent products and services continues unabated. Amazons decision to charge for UPS store returns even if the products they delivered were defective was almost enough for me to cancel Prime, but this seals the deal. When Amazon Prime commercials begin my Prime membership and most of my Amazon purchases end.
The internet has gotten 3x shittier in the last 12 months.
There’s a reason for it, people don’t push back enough. We all need to push back more than we have been.
They’re noticing the pushback so far, but they’re thinking they can break through it and come out victorious on the other side.
Do you really want to pay a monthly fee to be forced to watch commercials?
The whole point of commercials was that you didn’t have to pay otherwise to watch the show.
Apparently this is how cable started, and then they did the same thing lol
That was in back before the Internet though.
The internet was invented in the 60s
I know, I was there. But I’m talking about when it was used by the larger general public, which was in the 90’s. Before that, it was people dialing up on modems to BBS’.
I’ve cancelled everything in my life that requires a monthly payment (asides vehicle and rent).
It’s not that I can’t afford it, it’s that I’m fucking sick of it.
It’s not that I can’t afford it, it’s that I’m fucking sick of it.
And that’s how they win, it’s what they count on. It’s a death by a thousand cuts for us and more profits for them.
Don’t give up now, you won’t just fail yourself, you’ll fail everyone, if you do.
Eternal September is real. It’s sad
Eternal September is real.
Partly, this is because “the free market will solve it” is just a neoliberal lie. Sometimes, there’s simply no other choice as corporations race each other to the bottom.
So this streaming service might have gotten shitty, espensive or unethical, but you can move to another right? Oh no, looks like they’re shitty and unethical too, just slightly differently.
Then in six months time, they’ve each absorbed one another’s shitty, greedy practises anyway, ensuring consumers are fully exploited with nowhere else to go.
But the true power of neoliberalism lies in its giant book of premade excuses, so neoliberals (or neoliberals in disguise) will of course read from the next page:
“Oh that’s just because there isn’t enough competition. We just need to deregulate heavily and allow companies to do whatever the streaming equivalent of dumping toxic by-products in the river is!”
But of course, that won’t ever come true either. The companies that already exist will grow more profitable polluting the river and new entries into the market will be either stamped out, bought and stripped for parts or enshittified by the same greed over time.
Following the flowchart taught at exclusive, expensive schools the world over, the next excuse is to blame the consumers.
“Oh if people really cared, they’d simply stop buying things entirely. But they don’t, because these companies continue to bring in record profits. So secretly, consumers actually love their chocolate being picked by child slaves”.
While they do fight back with boycotts, public outcry and (in this case) things like password sharing and piracy, it’s nothing companies can’t crush if it looks like it might actually dent their profits.
At some point, consumers need to pick their misery and the choices are bleak but obvious.
They can accept the minor misery of advertising, even as they pay a subscription, just like the corporation knew they would.
They can escalate their own misery further by boycotting the entire platform or industry.
But the moral high ground doesn’t make spending your few hours of personal time each day staring at the wall suddenly as entertaining as whatever content you’re no longer watching.
Also, the company doesn’t care. That was part of their calculations and they’re still making even more money.
Or finally, they could maximise their misery and actually do something, like busting out the guillotines or becoming a politician that opposes neoliberalism yet is somehow allowed power.
So anyway, people are tired. The fight never ends and some people have fought it for 50 years already. Encourage them to take the third option by all means, but don’t shame them for taking the first option.
They might already be miserable enough.
[very verbose initial response]
Honestly don’t mean this as an insult, but you might want to consider being more concise, so that your point comes across better.
So anyway, people are tired. The fight never ends and some people have fought it for 50 years already. Encourage them to take the third option by all means, but don’t shame them for taking the first option.
I’m not purposely trying to shame people, but I’ll definitely get on their cases if they don’t push back and let this crap continue.
It’s called consumer advocacy, and it shouldn’t be shamed away and not done. Those who are causing the problems in society would benefit the most if this happened.
If we all work together, it’s been proven that it does turn things around.
They might already be miserable enough.
It’s not my fault they’re that way, it’s the fault of the people making society horrible so they can selfishly make more money for themselves, which must be fought against.
The ones making Society horrible definitely win when no one pushes back.
Honestly don’t mean this as an insult, but you might want to consider being more concise, so that your point comes across better.
I’m cool with ranting. I enjoy the act of writing, blogs are long dead and it’s important to articulate why so many things in the world are fucking shit.
If we all work together, it’s been proven that it does turn things around
When?
The ones making Society horrible definitely win when no one pushes back.
They also win when people do push back, because thats how the game has been rigged. The extent of the public’s power is making them win slightly less.
The only way to stop companies doing unethical things is strict regulations, ruthlessly enforced. The only times “consumer advocacy” ever works is when the government steps in, which is why the ultra wealthy go to so much effort to ensure they never do.
One good person in politics, with power, is worth a million people boycotting.
If we all work together, it’s been proven that it does turn things around
When?
Unions.
They also win when people do push back, because thats how the game has been rigged.
Strawman.
The only way to stop companies doing unethical things is strict regulations, ruthlessly enforced.
Its the most important way, but not the only way.
One good person in politics, with power, is worth a million people boycotting.
Definately agree with this. But its not a zero sum gain, an either/or. Both can happen, and increase the odds of success.
Covid kindness is over. Buckle up buckaroos.
the money is drying up, gotta find new ways to monetise
It wouldn’t matter if they were drowning in money, if you told them they could have a few pennies more from each customer, they’ll do it. It’s how greed works.
Was already going to cancel when my renewal was up, now i’ll cancel even harder.
Come sail the high seas.
This is bad for everyone. I’m still a Prime Member for shopping etc., but thats really got to be reconsidered now too.
Finally! I’ve been waiting for a good enough reason to cancel Prime
you don’t need a reason to cancel a sub, if you don’t like it, just do it.
I’m addicted to the shipping
More I see stuff like this the more I believe that these services really aren’t making any money and its all smokescreen.
Though this could also just be investors trying to drive up profits instead.
The latter really wouldn’t surprise me. A service could be making four times the investment in profit and many investors will still push to get a few more cents out of it at any cost.
It was awhile ago but I read that a lot of streaming services don’t make a profit and I can understand the logic. With ads, there is a direct link between a show and it’s profits. The more people watch a show, the more people see the ads, the more a company can charge for ads on that show. Without ads it becomes difficult. It doesn’t matter if 100 people watch or a million, the profits are the same.
I feel it’s inevitable that streaming services are going to go back to ads. It’s the better business model.
But streaming shows are already full of product placement and not-so-subtle dialogue plugs.
Eh, I only use prime video because it doesn’t cost extra, I don’t really need it. Back to piracy it will be, I guess.
Don’t worry, it will be presented like this:
“To continue offering you high quality original programming like X and Y, we have to raise our price for Amazon Prime. But don’t worry, we’re now adding a lower cost ad-based alternative called Amazon Subprime.”
So, as usual, most people will be fine with it and put the plastic bag back over their head.
And… we are back to cable again.
But with no DVRs to fast forward through ads. (Yes, I know that was a “recent” cable thing, but still.)
☠️?
We should have canceled when Prime got rid of UPS pick up for free. Only reason I used it. Now there is zero benefit to Prime with this new stupid ad tier. You don’t even get free grocery delivery.
So basically we’re pretty much back to paying for a TV package.
