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
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