Are You Excluding Amazon From Your Holiday Shopping This Year?
Whether your main concern is decent working conditions and a living wage for workers ; the company’s systematic fraud with American cities in search of HQ2 ; or the simple fact that no person ( let alone a greedy person like Jeff Bezos ) should own $ 163 billion – it looks like almost everyone is mad at Amazon right now.
It’s a little awkward considering we just walked around the corner during the busiest time of the year to order things online. So, we ask the question: what are people actually doing to reduce their dependence on Bezos during the holidays if you want to do it?
Personally, as a Seattle native, I have had a vendetta against the company for years as it systematically raised house prices and attacked the culture of my hometown (my personal HQ1). However, at this point, I have had Amazon Prime and an Amazon credit card for many years now, and I rely very heavily on a company that delivers bulky food like cat food and toilet paper to my apartment at an artificially discounted price. …
Now that they make their way to New York (my personal 2 headquarters) and are about to wreak civil chaos again, I’m trying to change my habits and stop spending so much money on the company I’m complaining about. about all the time. I have n’t ruled them out entirely , of course , but I am looking into other ways of delivering things from companies I hate a little less (like Target and FreshDirect). Especially for the holidays, I made a personal rule not to make any purchases of gifts on the site and issued an admittedly somewhat rude order to my family that I wish no gifts for me would come from Amazon. Sure, that won’t push them out of business or affect Bezos’s net worth, but the little things add up and at least I’ll feel better about my own spending.
So tell us: Is your relationship with Amazon any different this holiday season? Are you turning down any of their services other than this weird printed catalog? And if so, what alternatives have you come up with and do you find them significantly less convenient or more expensive? Let us know in the comments.