Hm if he has 1.8 million subscribers, I wonder how small is " small amount of revenue from his affiliate links" for him.

> "This account makes me a few hundert dollars a month"

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcohq313q00&t=268s

He says in the video an approximate amount, I don't remember exactly the number, but he said that his energy bill is 4x the amount he gets from the affiliate program.

Apparently he also said its a few hundred per month. So his energy bill is over $800?

He operates a business, so that's not surprising.

So, he already managed to re-incorporate his ex NYC repair business in Texas?

Yes, https://rossmanngroup.com/

> Come to our store (Austin, TX) or mail your device to us and we will fix your problem!

It's in the video. Several hundred dollars per month.

Not a lot of money compared to what he makes off his youtube channel, or off his for Macbook repair business with six employees.

He's mad that he got banned for an obviously fake reason, not because of the money.

And stupid on Amazon's part, did they think this will make him shut up about Amazon? Or cause more bad publicity

Isn't it just retaliation for sake of retaliation? The company won't be financially affected either way. I wouldn't be surprised at all if some fragile ego called this in.

> The company won't be financially affected either way.

Until the FTC or his Representative start to cost them real money.

If anything I'd expect the federal government to give them a pat on the head.

Even if it was clearly against the law, the most they'd probably get is a letter in the mail from the government that says "Pretty please, with sugar on top, could you write us a letter telling us at least that you will try to break the law less?" The US treats lawbreaking megacorps with kid gloves.

I hope so, but I doubt anything of the sort will happen.

Exactly, Louis Rossmann has gotten heavily into lobbying for right to repair recently, and this could tilt him towards other targets on that level as well.

For example, if companies want to have anything more than a simple (unmoderated) review system there might be certain safe harbours they lose.

It will deter other people from criticizing them though.

Maybe he considers his subscribers as family :^) Man, I’m really happy I have cancelled my prime and have non-amazon options for online shopping.

May I ask for your alternatives? It could be useful for me too.

Sorry, they are pretty specific to Turkey so they probably won’t be much help to you. I use this price aggregator/comparor website called Akakce (tl. White coin) that links to tens of different independent/corporate ecommerce websites.

For the USA I've found that Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and Best Buy together satisfy much of my "need that free shipping on cheaply made shit" desire.

You do still have to watch out for marketplace items on some of them. And if it really IS direct-from-China why not go to eBay or Alibaba?

Quite often when ordering cheap Chinese junk that I can wait a month for, I do use eBay and AliExpress. I'm generally pretty happy. I save quite a bit of money, and the experience is no worse than Amazon 99% of the time.

AliExpress does manage to have a search feature that is massively worse than Amazon's, if you can believe that possible.

I have more trust for eBay then Amazon at this point.

However, I think the last purchase I made through Amazon was super specific (particular model of washing machine agitator motor) and unlikely to be glump-binned. So perhaps that's the approach.

* * *

It's easy for me to drive by the big stores, so I usually have them deliver to the store which guarantees no delivery fees and is often faster. YMMV

I cancelled Prime and got Walmart+. They have all the same cheap crap Amazon does plus grocery delivery.

If an American company (sorry if being US-centric), check the manufacturer's website. For example, I needed a replacement lid for a KitchenAid food processor. On Amazon it was being sold for around $14-15. At KitchenAid it was $5 and free shipping. Amazon deleted my review for mentioning this.

I don't doubt Amazon did this for retaliatory reasons but the wording of the email he received is no doubt a result of the employee tasked with shutting down his account only having a handful of "reason templates" to choose from.

I don’t think this really matters. It’s still the email they sent out and should be held accountable for.

I don't disagree. I just think Amazon's "reason" is essentially irrelevant.

The reason is they don't want to do business with someone that shittalks them. Amazon has its faults, but this is a reasonable business practice.

Sure but the T&Cs are written such that even the .1% makes him subject to termination and that's kind of the point.

If you write the rules (or laws) such that everyone is breaking them but then chose when and how to enforce those laws you can selectively enforce them against specific people or specific kinds of people. You're terminating him for a totally legitimate not-at-all-dystopian reason when obviously the real motivation is something else entirely. You just weren't looking to see if anyone else committed the crime.

>If you write the rules (or laws) such that everyone is breaking them but then chose when and how to enforce those laws you can selectively enforce them against specific people or specific kinds of people.

This! I've been saying this for so long and I'm glad to see more people saying it.

It’s certainly not a new idea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_the_man_and_I_will_g...

>Sure but the T&Cs are written such that even the .1% makes him subject to termination and that's kind of the point.

In response to this type of behavior over time, we internet "power users" have developed a superpower, something we do better than almost anyone else

We hold a grudge forever,

and, we happen to be good about telling others

This routes around their damage

"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."