Amazon Boycott Begins Friday, Includes Whole Foods, Ring, Twitch

Friday or any other day, I am absolutely done with Amazon, Twitch, never wanted a Ring and still getting my partner to stop getting stuff from Wholefoods...

This boycott needs to extend for weeks. We can’t let corporations dictate our ways our life without reminding them they’re nothing without us.

TIL Amazon bought twitch

I dont get why most Amazon protests im hearing from my countrymen are time bound. You're just saying loudly and proudly "i cant live without amazon".
Get a backbone, Americans. You dont need Amazon.
- I haven’t bought anything from Amazon in for fucking ever, I avoid it. It’s not that hard. Avoiding all these shitty warehouse stores is hard, but sometimes it’s the only place that has what I need (no shade to local businesses) I imagine people in rural places have it even harder. Some places the only place you can get groceries is at a Walmart, which is a fucked ho situation to be put in.
- Sigh well stores closed. Sears, party city, Joann's, chunk of malls leaving fewer alternatives. If khols closes I'm screwed for clothes.
  Walmart funds heritage foundations so never going there. Besides everything is locked up and disorganized.
  My maga fil loves TEMU. Like dude....
  
  Thrift stores, Ross, Costco.. You're not without options my friend.
  
  Uniqlo?
- Yeah, kind of defeats the purpose. Especially if you announce ahead of time that it's time bound.
  Why would Amazon change a single thing when they know it's only one day or one week?
  
  This isn't the war, it's just a battle. You escalate as you go.
  First it's a day. Then a week. Next time, longer. Eventually it's a full on boycott.
- I legit can't live without Amazon because it's the cheapest / most affordable place to get a lot of stuff, especially groceries in my high COL area. Not to mentiom variety.
  This 1 week boycott is doable for me. Not sure how 1 week of reduced revenue is going to impact a company flooded with cash reserves, but I'm happy to do my part.
  
  Its a class war and you've already just resigned. You have options. Research them and stop giving up.

To cripple Amazon, you'd need to cripple a lot of the Internet, since they use AWS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Web_Services
- Organizing people to do something is useful on its own.
- Jokes on them, my jobs use Azure and GCP.
  ...as if they're really any better.
  
  Same. Especially as a European, I wish we could avoid critical dependencies on American companies.
- It all sucks anymore anyways. I’m ok with that! We can all self-host lemmy elsewhere.
  
  anymore
  🥲
- A protest will not cripple an organisation. Only get them to pay attention.

The fact that this boycott has a time limit shows just how addicted people are to cheap consumer crap. Amazon's got everyone by the balls, the only way to freedom is by ridding yourself of them permanently.

I don't use those products/services anyway except for amazon a handful of times a year (usually spending slightly over the free shipping minimum each time). I take the approach of minimizing my spending in general. If everyone had spending habits like me, the economy as we know it would collapse overnight.
- Who has time to walk around looking for their needed items only to find that they are OUT OF STOCK, or no longer carry that product because their profit margin was too small.
  If local companies would carry quality products on their shelf, and KEEP THEM IN STOCK, then I would shop local instead of ordering from online retailers.
  Many people forget that "access to products" is very minimal to most. Many times, complete areas of the country are controlled by the same grocery stores, products are blocked from being sold, people must drive 1hr+ to get natural groceries of quality.
  Shipping and delivery is becoming the new grocery store and shopping center.
  
  Excuses, excuses. Things don't change if you don't do anything.
  People live in cities. Cities don't have those issues.
- Welcome to the boycott!

I was going to order some stuff on Amazon. Now I need to stop by home depot. Get this, you get the stuff right away! Like you just grab the stuff and pay for it.
Home depot I was pretty sure was also on that list? I know Lowe's is.
- Yeah, I have a Home Depot less than 5 min from me. But now I just go the extra distance to Canadian Tire for a lot of the supplies that I usually got from Home Depot. It's not as convenient, takes longer, and some of those items may cost a little more, but that doesn't matter to me anymore. I know some items will be American, and that there are no Canadian equivalents, but I'm just trying to avoid US-made products wherever I can.

I've been seeing this headline all week, and didn't think much of it, since I basically never buy from Amazon. But I'd forgotten they own Twitch. And boy, do I use a lot of Twitch. Unfortunately, in the way of money, it's pretty much all subscriptions that are already paid for. None of those are coming up for renewal next week, that I could cancel. I could definitely just not watch anything next week, but the union that organized this says they're looking for drops in sales. Not watching would only contribute to that if I would have been served ads. I'm wondering if I should instead try spread the word of the boycott, in the streams I watch.
I dunno, what do y'all think?
- I've been trying to directly donate rather than subbing as a workaround. Keep my entertainment and support streamers I watch while limiting my support of twitch. With a proxy to avoid ads of course
- It's rough. I think for it to make an impact on the twitch side of things, the streamer would need to be the one to make the stand. Afterall, your subs are already paid for; nothing more you could really do other than avoid the site for a week.

I always use other companies, but this boycott is stupid. The people who want temporary boycotts are stupid.
No one cares about a few days.
- Temporary boycotts work to get people used to longer, more permanent boycotts.
- Temporary boycots work if they're right before the end of the quarter because it's fucks with their quarterly reports and therefore share value.
  They should do it for 2 weeks right before the end of the fiscal quarter so the rebound isn't reflected in the numbers.

I'm doing my damndest to boycott Amazon outright out of principle. I still have to order work-related items occasionally (small remote town, options are limited for speed of delivery), but other than that they haven't really been getting much out ofe the past few weeks.
- Honestly a lot of small vendors can still get you stuff in two days if they use prioriy mail or UPS.
  
  It really depends, and in my world of electrical parts they want ridiculous shipping prices for a quick turnaround often enough, to the point where it's either cheaper and faster to drive the hour or so to the closest larger city, or just bite the bullet and use Amazon.

for a week
Seriously? Did you set a timerange right from the start? Even if you manage to make ALL their customers to align with you, it wouldn't be a problem for them because they can make prognoses and be prepared. It's like... That's just bad. Grrr.
- All of these organized boycotts should explicitly be indefinite until the behavior of the company in question improves. Then, not only is there no time frame for them to plan to weather out, but they also know you're taking your business to their competitors instead.
  I'm already there. Amazon screwed me over on a rather expensive purchase about a month ago and I'm done with them. They "lost" my package (by their own admission) and still haven't found it, but are steadfastly refusing to refund me until the item makes it back to their warehouse.
  Given that I'm positive one of their delivery contractor people stole it, I know for a fact this will never actually happen. It's been 34 days so far... So I just charged back my credit card.
  
  I'm boycotting Amazon and other US companies as much as I can until the USA backs off from plotting to seize my country and torment (or worse) my trans relatives and friends. No more purchases from US companies; no more subscriptions to US services; no more investments in US funds.
  
  For a lot of these mega corporations an indefinite boycott is just not viable for the vast majority of people.
  But a one week boycott? THAT is reasonable. People in small towns can put off their deliveries for a few days. I know a few twitch streamers who are willing to take the week off or only stream to Youtube because it is a chunk of their revenue but not their livelihoods. And so forth.
  And a small number of dedicated indefinite losses are a lot less impactful than a large number of temporary ones.
- You're right, but the idea is more for people to warm up their organizational muscles in preparation for more effective action. Whether it'll work though, only time (or people smarter than me) will tell.
  
  Smarter people here: it's a bad idea and you're helping the fascists.
- When you consider that a lot of their customers are pretty entrenched in Amazon's services, "Boycott Amazon for a week" is more achievable than, "Boycott Amazon forever."
  Now don't get me wrong, I'd love to see people give up on Amazon forever. But sometimes taking a week off is long enough for people to change their shopping habits.
  Although I suppose the insidious thing about Amazon is that they only offer an annual subscription so I doubt people are cancelling their service for a week.

Going on 4 years with my Amazon boycott, so I guess I'll just... Continue as usual

I am so glad this is happening. I cancelled prime before this for how aweful amazon is for everyone.
- I canceled over This. Cost increase for football.
  I did still have a couple things on subscribe, and just canceled those as well. Seeing as I wouldn't be buying anything during the boycott anyway.

Cancelled prime months ago. I will not shop at whole foods, I do not have any ring devices due to their lack of privacy (they will hand over your ring recordings to the police without a warrant, no questions asked) and I do not watch twitch anymore (twitch is shit now anyway with all the softcore porn)

Buying from Amazon guarantees you pay 30% more for the item you're purchasing than buying it directly from supplier. Use Amazon as a search engine then look for the supplier website and buy from them instead. Amazon's only advantage is 2 day deliveries. Get over that and Amazon becomes obsolete. I can wait 7-10 days for underwear. lol

If anyone needs more reasons to boycott Amazon:
Continuing this pattern, our employers signed a contract called Project Nimbus to sell dangerous technology to the Israeli military and government. This contract was signed the same week that the Israeli military attacked Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – killing nearly 250 people, including more than 60 children. The technology our companies have contracted to build will make the systematic discrimination and displacement carried out by the Israeli military and government even crueler and deadlier for Palestinians.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/12/google-amazon-workers-condemn-project-nimbus-israeli-military-contract
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/23/what-is-project-nimbus-and-why-are-google-workers-protesting-israel-deal

I've already paused my prime membership. Ez to avoid the rest.

How do we feel about watching twitch with ads blocked? I could go without watching for a week, no problem, though technically that would actually help Amazon, although in a infinitesimally small way...

damn forgot they had twitch

Someone needs to create a browser extension to coordinate the masses and alert/intercept web traffic to boycotted products/services.
- Start by not calling people "masses." It's dehumanizing.

I cancelled my account and 2 amazon branded credit cards. I also order all the tech for my company. I've been buying from b&h, best buy, staples a lot more. There are some things I have to get from amazon for work but I've been finding alternatives when possible.

- Just stop using Twitch. Are you that attached to it you'd support the fascists?