I think I'm headed the same way you went.

It's crazy how these 2 platforms seemed to have switched places. Several years ago, Amazon would have been the place to do for scam-free purchasing, and eBay was the shady site that you had to do your due diligence on before buying.

More and more it's the opposite. I have to wrangle with searches and filters on Amazon to try and avoid the "fake" brands and knockoff goods. eBay is easier and often cheaper to boot.

I think it's because eBay, since it's founding, has had a scam problem that it's been actively trying to address. They aren't perfect, but they have certainly been putting in multiple measures to increase trust.

Amazon, on the other hand, has nearly done the opposite. They don't do anything about scammers and have created an environment where even when you buy something directly from amazon you might get a knock off. You can't trust anything there.

Everyone knows the amazon reviews are garbage, even amazon. Yet they keep them because having 1000 garbage reviews looks better than having 10 legitimate reviews (and many of them negative).

Amazon has optimized for moving any and everything.

Target physical stores still build profiles of shoppers using non-disclosed facial recognition? "theft prevention"

One of the alternatives is to just close stores bc of excessive theft, like Walgreens and CVS are doing in the Bay Area.

I'm not saying Target's implementation is justified, but surely there's a middle ground for scaling anti-theft ops and using technology responsibly?

San Francisco closings hit the national news a few months ago -- what's the state of it now? Any reopenings?

Do they not deserve to know who is coming into their store? Do I have a right to anonymity if I'm on private property?

There is an understanding between shopper and shop owner about what is happening on said property. The shopper normally does not expect that the shop owner would instantly know your entire biography + family lineage just by stepping onto the property.

How can he get that from just a photo?

From firms like this[1].

[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dmkyq/heres-the-file-clearv...

You collect cell phone IMEIs and sell it to a data broker that aggregates multiple sources to pinpoint strong associations that lead back to a shopper's home. In return you get demographic data on your customers.

Yes, you do have a right to expectation of privacy. A verbal contract is still required for filming you. Open ended contracts aren't valid as well.

We don't live in ancapistan.

> verbal contract is still required for filming you

I mean that's obviously not true. Otherwise they wouldn't have security cameras.

Those are typically written contracts - as in the sign with a camera when entering buildings.

sure - posted plainly to the public. "caveat emptor" While we are at it, where are those records kept? Who sells them, to whom? What happens when there are factual errors in a private profile on members of the public? What other restrictions are placed on members of the public due to undisclosed records? What political affiliations do the owners of TARGET have, and do they use their company assets for political purposes, or private law-enforcement activities? Politics and law-enforcement are regulated acitivities, for historically important reasons, right?

I also don't have Prime, and buy from eBay where possible, but a substantial fraction of the time, the things I buy turn up in Amazon boxes. I think there are eBay sellers who have Prime, list items at slightly less than Amazon's price including shipping, then use their free shipping to drop-ship items to customers. They collect slightly less than Amazon's shipping fee in gross margin, and only have the Prime free as overhead.

I also dropped my Prime - had it from the very beginning.

Amazing how Amazon wants to push me back into prime, heavy handed or subtile.

What's the point of prime?

Seems like the free shipping and 2nd day shipping is all but a thing of the past.

Prime Video, Audible and deals.

A bunch of brands officially sell through Amazon and super fast shipping.

If you're in a metropolis - you get a lot of benefits, including 1 hour groceries.

Also free full resolution photo back ups.

(Prime video, but in Germany I feel there is only uninteressing films there)

It's interesting how without prime they tell me it takes one week to be sent (or some days), but then always after ordering correcting shipping date down, most often to the same as prime (which makes sense, holding back my order would only create costs to them).

Prime Video is worth the cost alone. Cheaper than Netflix.

Why'd you say free and 2-day shipping is a thing of the past? All my shipping from Amazon is free, and 2 day is the slowest it arrives usually. Mostly I get things next day, sometimes within 12 hours

I wanted to do that. But EBay has decided my account was hacked (I haven't done anything in 5 years and suddenly want to sell something - I understand the red flag). This can only be resolved by calling them at a phone number they will not give me.

Oh that's a very good point though. Ebay support is great for refunds but absolutely useless w.r.t any account specific problem. I couldn't buy anything for 2 years a while ago and they would never explain why.

Turns out my old PayPal account had a minor issue, and that meant I couldn't use ebay even if I didn't even have my PayPal account linked to ebay anymore and I was using a new credit card. I had to figure that out by myself, ebay was completely useless and unhelpful.

We did the same thing back a few years ago, and were able to move about 95% of online shopping on Amazon Prime onto other platforms or local BnMs.

There's still a few items that are really hard to find elsewhere though, but that was Amazon's core value prop originally with rare books.

What is the reason to boycott Amazon, but where Google is ok?

Honestly I can’t say that one’s corporate ethics and practices are superior to the other. It was just a matter of trying to limit my footprint. Google’s got me locked into gSuite for now because I’m haven’t been up to the level of effort to move my domains, docs, etc. I’m on a journey towards free software and devices, but Apple and Google still have broad access to me, my wallet, and my behaviors. I’m fully divested from Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft (except for a mostly idle Xbox). I use almost entirely free software on my desktop. My ISP and cell provider are mega corps. Libre Office, NextCloud, and other tools have come a long way. I had an adventure with a Pinephone, but it didn’t meet my needs at the time. Email hosting has remained an elusive issue for finding an alternative to gsuite. I’ve paid them for years and not had issues.

All of this is to say I’m trying various ways to limit my participation with dubious companies but I’ve had to pick my battles for myself and my family as we all do. Not using Prime has been a relatively convenient and painless change that I was able to do.

I invested heavily for years in getting various AWS certs. Leaving it behind for my personal cloud computing wasn’t easy to do, but my side projects and day job have recently lined up around GCP so I’ve been putting energy there.

I’m not convinced my choices are going to make much of a difference, but I would make them again at this point.

Thanks for the explanation. While it may not make much difference I think there are other personal benefits to your approach. Big company stuff is less personal, harder to get support for etc. (Apple excepted). Open source of course has the advantage of not changing (Looking at... JIRA!) on your or cancelling (be it a famed Google shutdown, or a startup not getting their next round). If the OSS software does change just keep to the old version or fork.