Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and what we can do about it
Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and what we can do about it
I haven’t noticed… But also I have not used amazon in 5 years because Jeff Bezos sucks
Honest question: what do you use instead? I’ve been trying to reduce my reliance on Amazon but often find that other stores are either a lot more expensive or so shady that I wouldn’t trust them to actually send what I ordered.
Fortunately I’ve found some good stores for board games and home electronics / gaming / multimedia but often, when I just need some random thing like replacement pads for my headphones, it’s hard to find a good source that isn’t either Amazon or Ali Express.
So first of all - I am in the EU and I live in a big city.
The most important step is to question your own consume. Often I don’t need a specific thing, or I do not need it within 3 days. But let’s assume I really want that thing.
It is hard to tell what I use instead, because there is no direct replacement for Amazon, but many smaller vendors instead, like how a market is supposed to work, if not controlled by US megacorps.
In general, for all the small tech stuff, in 95% of the cases the vendor on Amazon is also on eBay. Sometimes it costs some bucks more, but I am willing to pay that because subsidies due to people pissing in bottles needs to be compensated.
For computer stuff there is always some shop, I just use geizhals to find the cheapest option (which often is not Amazon). Mind factory comes to my mind.
For clothes I go to town, or order them in their online shops if I know exactly what size I need.
Books, I order them online in my local book store, and then I get get them the next day there.
Let me know what product interests you and I try to answer… But in general I am trying to limit my consumption and ask myself 3 times if I really need something.
The major problems for me are small accessories for electronics like SD cards, cables and so on. I could go to Müller or MediaMarkt but especially for those smaller items, they often only have stuff from HAMA which is insultingly expensive for the quality they offer. Specialized online stores like Reichelt may have a cheaper option but when my 5€ cable comes with 6€ of shipping costs on top, I’m back to square one. The optimal solution would be to wait until there are multiple things that I need to spread the shipping costs over multiple products but when something breaks and I need a replacement, that’s often not an option.
Another point are niche ingredients for international cooking that I can’t get at any of the local Asian or Middle-Eastern supermarkets.
So yeah, ebay, probably…
MediaMarkt is ripoff. So yep, eBay. Bought several SD cards and cables there this year. I can really recommend taking a look. It’s a bit of extra effort and sometimes maybe a couple of bucks more, but that’s a price I am willing to pay for ditching amazon.
As an example, the last time I bought an SD card it was 6,95€ for a San disk 32 Gb ultra
I haven’t bought anything from Amazon since last November and I live in a small city. I’m also not shopping at Target or Walmart which also severely reduces options.
For that weird one-off stuff I’ve been using eBay. I hadn’t used eBay for probably 2 decades and in my mind it was still an online auction house, but a friend convinced me to give it a chance. He sells on eBay and assured me when there is a dispute they always side with the buyer and most things can just be bought outright. And a lot of the stuff in brand new.
I’ve also bought a couple things direct from the manufacturer that I normally would have previously gone to Amazon for. It’s more expensive but not so much so that it bugs me more than giving the money to Bezos would.
Actually eBay is quiet shitty as auction house nowadays. It is a lot if effort setting all the filters and they reset every time you do a new search. Fixed price and global shipment is standard, you really need to watch closely to not buy a product from China. I find eBay very inconvenient for what I used it in 2010 for.
I haven’t used it for any auctions since coming back to it after 20 years, just “buy now”. And yes, you have to be carful you’re not buying from China. I found the same issue with Amazon, particularly when buying less mainstream things.
I’m open to suggestions but in my particular situation, it’s the best option I’ve found.
It is the best alternative, no doubt.