Replying to @⁨zarkanian@sh.itjust.works⁩

Mine doesn’t have anything of a particularly personal nature, just obvious stuff from purchase history like:

  • Likely favors Merrell brand for outdoor footwear (I have purchased the same model of Merrell shoe several times)
  • Hikes frequently (a reasonable guess about someone who repeatedly buys hiking boots)
  • Likely has a ThinkPad laptop (I bought trackpoint caps)
  • Likely owns an Olympus camera (I bought a battery for an Olympus camera)

Replying to @⁨ayyy@sh.itjust.works⁩

Nah. I don’t need to know that when I can make my own conferences about where they got this information from.

I have a tile bathroom. Hanging stuff in there is a nightmare. I also have used those adhesive strips to mount things to the back of my TV and to my toolbox.

My brother loses/breaks chargers like it’s going out of style so I buy him on every few months.

The lack of information there is kind of weird given how old the account is. I was expecting a lot of stuff and got basically nil. Granted it’s not like I use the account much, but I’ve had it since college when you could buy used books there.

Replying to @⁨zarkanian@sh.itjust.works⁩

Mine is pretty straightforward, “builds electronics” “has precision tools” “likely has a french press” (I do, I bought it on Amazon), “prioritizes high-speed data transfer”, “Probably has a computer system with internal expansion” (I bought an NVMe SSD from Amazon once), “Likely lives in (the town in my saved shipping address)”

So surveillance. Much sleuthing.

Replying to an earlier post

It’s a lot bigger than just this though, because they buy data broker info, which isn’t included.

I once read a piece in Harper’s Magazine, they bought these data brokers’ bullshit and looked at their own profiles, and they were very wrong on a great many things, wrongly labeling people as gay, (facebook tried showing me gay ads at one point,) and a host of other ill informed conclusions about us.

Keep in mind, the feds, and maybe states now, buy this information to use against us. We should have some rights, but we don’t.

Replying to @⁨bedwyr@piefed.ca⁩

This is probably going to be unpopular on Lemmy, The Nuanceless Platform, but IF the data collection is confined to what they show me here, I’m okay. Because I bought some solder, a pair of calipers, and some computer parts from Amazon, they think I “build electronics.” Amazon has a reason to know this about me as a customer, especially if I can see and even manually delete/change it. As humorous as it may be that they apparently think a customer has a flat ass, that’s relevant information if you buy clothing from them, they’ll steer you away from the bubble butt shorts that you’ll almost certainly return.

The problem is when they want to start installing apps on my phone, new devices in my house, with microphones and radars that are always collecting data about what I do, what I say, where I am. THAT’S the part we need to be dismembering executives over.

Replying to an earlier post

Considering that I haven't purchased anything from Amazon in almost a year (and the few things that I do purchase from there are generally game controllers anyway), Amazon barely knows a thing about me, besides of "Gravitates toward compact, low-cost functional components", "Favors multi-platform and cross-device compatible accessories", and "Plays fighting games with specialized hardware".

Replying to @⁨zarkanian@sh.itjust.works⁩

Mine is pretty meh. Gets a lot right, but thinks I have a dog and I prefer zigbee. I have a cat (that I’ve bought dog accessories for) and prefer Z wave, but usually buy those things elsewhere.

Most of the things it has are directly related to a single purchase that I remember. It thinks I like a certain brand of monitor because I bought two of them for secondary monitors once. They are no-name monitors and I could not care less about the brand. It’s pretty basic shit. I could probably write the algorithm for it.

Replying to @⁨IamMoonPie@lemmy.world⁩

Because Amazon wiped out what Walmart and other big box stores didn’t kill in the first round. Sometimes there’s literally no place else to get what I need, not even order it in to a local store. On top of that, Google search for products is so wrecked that the choices it returns are amazon links, or links to websites that also provide amazon links to the same products. It’s fucked up.

(FWIW I do buy local or direct from businesses other than Amazon when possible, but it’s simply not possible all the time)

Replying to @⁨RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world⁩

Or… and here me out here, maybe just do a little more research and purchase online from companies that AREN’T Amazon.

I get we all want shopping to be easier, but that’s no excuse to fund the facist machine that is Amazon.

I’m going to hold your hand when I say this because I know this will be hard to hear, but it’s not just about you and your “convenience” buddy.

I’m disabled and can’t drive anywhere, and I somehow manage to figure it out. Sometimes it takes a while, but I can do it.

What could you possibly be shopping for that’s only on Amazon? And if said company is only on Amazon— why would you want to support them anyway?

All I’m saying is, if an idiot like me can do it, so can you.

Replying to @⁨IamMoonPie@lemmy.world⁩

The point I’m making that you are making it seem llke it’s a lot easier than it is to do the right thing. Not everyone has the time, money, and mental energy that you have to seek out more wholesome alternatives. Sometimes you just need something, and you need it now with minimal friction.

You are very lucky and privileged that you have the time and patience to put up with the hassle of doing business with a small company. There are way too many scammers and unreliable merchants out there and it’s a game of Whack-A-Mole separating the legit small businesses from the bullshitters. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have to patience to wait up to a year for something that may or may not arrive. Some people like my girlfriend do. I don’t.

I get where you’re coming from and try my best not to fund the fascist machine, but I’m only human, and sometimes I just want to take the easy route and order something off of Amazon. And there’s nothing wrong with that, because I know my heart is in the right place.

Replying to @⁨Psythik@lemmy.world⁩

nah fuck that, the episode you’re talking about is where they lost me.

“There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism… therefore we’re going to rewrite the rules of the cosmos to give you a pass for it, and now you’re not obliged to fight it any more. You can go back to being happy little consumers now, all your guilt is absolved. Fremulon. NBCUniversal, a Comcast company.”

Replying to @⁨skisnow@lemmy.ca⁩

I’m not talking about a specific episode—I’m way too ADHD for that—rather the message of the show in general. So knock it off with the strawman argument.

Reread my reply to the other person, and you’ll understand the point I’m trying to make. Capitalism makes it impossible to be a perfect person, so until the system changes, do the best you can in the meantime.

Replying to @⁨skisnow@lemmy.ca⁩

I’m not talking about a specific episode—I’m way too ADHD for that—rather the message of the show in general. So knock it off with the strawman argument.

Reread my reply to the other person, and you’ll understand the point I’m trying to make. Capitalism makes it impossible to be a perfect person, so until the system changes, do the best you can in the meantime.

Replying to @⁨IamMoonPie@lemmy.world⁩

maybe just do a little more research and purchase online from companies that AREN’T Amazon.

I have done this, ordered from the company’s website, and still got the stuff shipped from an Amazon warehouse. I think the most recent one was an Otterbox phone case. It’s been a while because I don’t order much stuff shipped to me unless I can’t find what I need locally.

Replying to @⁨TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world⁩

I live in Finland and have managed to always find an alternative. Ireland gets way more shipping options than Finland. You’re literally just not searching hard enough.

  1. don’t use Google. It always only tries to give regional search options. Use Startpage and change the region.

  2. search in a different country’s language. If searching in Poland for example, search in Polish.

And heck, if you somehow still can’t find what you need from those stores, just look at China - EU shops. Most of Amazon’s shit is from China anyway, so might as well avoid the middleman.

Replying to @⁨Lumisal@lemmy.world⁩

  1. I don’t use Google.

  2. I went to a Polish site and they don’t deliver to Ireland.

You’re literally just not searching hard enough.

That’s fair but now you see why there isn’t a European Amazon? Amazon makes things convenient. They operate on a single language and have good localised pages for many parts of the world. I could have my Firefox browser translate but it’s still done awkwardly. Europe doesn’t offer an alternate Amazon because of multiple languages and different structures because each countries do their own. The closest rival is Wildberries but there is sanction on Russia.

Sorry to be flippant, but again, people who speak on high horse about completely avoiding Amazon speak from their own experience and incorrectly think it’s universal. If it’s that easy to boycott Amazon, it would have already gone bankrupt.

Replying to @⁨TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world⁩

  1. Then why mention Google search in your previous comment?
  2. There’s more countries than Poland. That’s just an example. You could try Spain - they have a big market too, for example.

Or you could do option three I mentioned and you ignored - buying straight from China if out of options. It’s likely the thing you wanted was made there anyway if you can’t find a European courier service to ship it to you.

We both know why Amazon is successful. But unless you or I get a couple million euros minimum, we can’t do much about setting up a competitor to Amazon (Also they operate on multiple languages too btw, there’s Amazon.de in German or Amazon.es in Spanish).

Firefox browser at least translates well enough. If it didn’t exist, you’d have a much better reason, but it does.

It’s not that hard to boycott Amazon, but people from 1st world countries have gotten extremely lazy for very particular things. This is one of them. Buying something already takes more effort than not buying something - units you’re someone born with a silver spoon in your mouth I suppose. People in these countries have a more “throw it away” attitude than a “needs to keep working a long time” one. It’s cultural.

Does it take more time to give something without Amazon? Yes. Does it take a lot more time though? Not really. In the end, it really comes down to just not caring enough about fascism/climate/corruption. Because realistically, by choosing Amazon, you’ve already decided that those things matter less than whatever doodad you’re buying, and outside of something that’s from the base layer of the hierarchy of needs, like medicine or food, you don’t have a good reason.

I’ve grown up poor. I’ve gone through times of poverty so extreme I went without food for nearly a week, and other times would walk miles to forage for food in a forest. While in university. The ones in high horses are the ones privileged enough to think needing to buy something from Amazon is a realistic issue.

Replying to @⁨Lumisal@lemmy.world⁩

I never said Google, not sure what you’re trying to read. I use Duckduckgo but I admit it’s getting terrible over the years and I might start using Startpage because I think it’s slightly better.

The Amazon pages have bettee localisation and better translation to many languages, unlike Firefox translation which I still find clumsy.

Does it take more time to give something without Amazon? Yes. Does it take a lot more time though? Not really. In the end, it really comes down to just not caring enough about fascism/climate/corruption.

That’s a fair enough argument.

Replying to @⁨IamMoonPie@lemmy.world⁩

Because it’s almost always superior, if you need things from more than one “niche”. Specialty shops only make sense if you have a big order in that niche, like building a new PC. If you want a hard drive, some TCG card sleeves, some zero cal food products, and wanna top up on boxer shorts, Amazon is just too far ahead.

I have tried other “everything” retailers in Europe, like Otto, but their selection for everything is tiny. Ironically, it’s not tiny well selected, well known european brands. It’s still filled with Chinese shovel ware.

Replying to @⁨BrainBow65@lemmy.world⁩

I don't think is that. They have the data about you and me too, it's just not shown like that (yet, at least).

Making those assumptions based on what you've bought from them is perfectly legal under the gdpr. Maybe you have to check a personalized ads option, or leave it marked, but I think that as long as you tell them in your privacy policy when they agree with it that your using their data for it you're good.

Replying to @⁨zarkanian@sh.itjust.works⁩

The cold weather ebiking stuff is funny and unique, it would be a “no shit” if it realized I live in Minnesota, but because this account predates my move Amazon just doesn’t have a “lives in place” listing for me.

So it’s definitely pulling from Whole Foods sales info too, I noticed their self checkout recognizing me when I used the same credit card they have on file. There’s a Whole Foods across the street from the vape shop I used to go to and they were the only place anywhere nearby that carried a local brewery NA beer that I like, and those purchases have to be the source of the “non-alcoholic specialty food” thing.

Replying to @⁨Rekorse@sh.itjust.works⁩

Honestly I wish I didn’t. I don’t have a google account. Don’t have any Meta accounts. Don’t have accounts for basically anything I’m not functionally REQUIRED to have (banking for example). But Amazon is hard to avoid. I do a lot of buying in person, but in person shopping is just horrible these days. You need to find something specific and you are screwed. I do try to find other places online to get something when I can but a lot of times I just have to fall back to amazon. Maybe part of it is just the area I’m in though. Tons of the more specialty stores here have closed down. We don’t even have an electronics store anymore after Best Buy closed.

Replying to @⁨XiJinpingStanAccount@lemmy.ml⁩

I’ve had the privilege to live in economically robust (relatively speaking lol) environments, which has helped a lot in my mission to avoid them. I’ve been able to do it but I’ve also been lucky. Keep the fire alive, keep searching for alternatives. But damn do I feel for your situation, not even having a basic electronics type store is pretty rough.

Replying to @⁨Equinox1289@sh.itjust.works⁩

I’ve used Newegg but never heard of B&H what is that? Newegg is good for PC parts but not really for other things. Like RV electronics for example. Altho you can find some of that on other sites too. I do try to diversify when I can and not support the monopoly. One of the main issues I’ve found is just shipping. Even if you can find something somewhere else sometimes it’ll take a month to get there, or it’s out of stock, or something like that. Especially more recently. I even had something happen one time where I tried to buy from LattePanda on their site and my bank BLOCKED the transaction and wouldn’t let me buy from them directly because they were an “untrusted” vendor lol. But I was allowed to buy the exact same thing 2nd hand from Amazon.

Replying to @⁨Rekorse@sh.itjust.works⁩

I have one collecting dust. I could delete it but it never gets used and they’ll profile me anyway. Last purchase was in February 2020. I’ve always hated amazon because of where I grew up and other reasons, but seeing how warehouse workers were treated during the pandemic was the tipping point for me. Convenience is like a drug, and going cold turkey was pretty fucking hard honestly. But it’s become easier over time. I will never give another red fucking cent to Borzo.

Replying to @⁨Rekorse@sh.itjust.works⁩

I’ve never felt any need to have an Amazon account, there you go. Never bought anything for them or even found anything that I wanted to buy from them.

It helps that they were so late to market in NZ that they still aren’t really that commonly used here. There’s better local alternatives which cost less

I do use AWS for work though (but we’re gradually shifting off them, there’s way cheaper alternatives these days)

Replying to @⁨zarkanian@sh.itjust.works⁩

Hahahaha… now I’m kind of sad I deleted my account after Amazon kept trying to scam me by offering me free Amazon prime. They would give me a month free, then like 10 days, then only like 3 days, hoping I would forget and have to be charged for it. When they finally caught me out, I just told them to fuck off and deleted my account. Never liked their other predatory practices, like how they would plagiarise and sell existing products for dirt cheap and label them Amazon Basics… And then when companies would go out of business. They would bring up the prices. I guess you don’t get that wealthy without stepping on a lot of people.

Replying to @⁨zarkanian@sh.itjust.works⁩

The one that got me was “probably has a husband who doesn’t like lotion”

I always figured Amazon knew the most about me because what you buy probably says more about you than what you search. Like Google may think I’m a raving lunatic but Amazon knows I am a householder and what I use. So I was honestly pretty relieved most of it was very general except that oddball example above.

Replying to @⁨cardboardboxfort@lemmy.world⁩

Ah good. He was in goods with the secret police that’s two thousand or so years old that’s described in the New Testament at an eighth grade reading level, that is a good thing, and I am glad. For additional clarification, I want to make sure that you have understood that I have called out the farce of the police state that is using my still-living and very real bud Jeff’s reputation as a scaffold for thems child hooker things and trafficking and the like, but y’know, we all know how engrossed you are in that nine-figure industry as you are, cardboardboxfort. We see your search history over here in Quantico, or wherever tf you think I am.

Replying to @⁨zarkanian@sh.itjust.works⁩

Heh. Just logged in to my Amazon account (which I seldom use) and it’s got nothing on me… which is JUST how I like it! Guess ticking all the privacy and security settings and using ad-blockers and a super edited hosts file (Dan Pollock’s - for decades now…) and using throwaway email accounts for all of this shit is working!

Niiiice.

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Replying to @⁨zarkanian@sh.itjust.works⁩

I just checked mine. It says “probably has a dog”, “probably has workshop”, “probably has outdoor space”, prefers organic, and I have 6 hobbies. Gardening, backpacking, mountaineering, swimming, professional jewelry making and painting lol. I’m adhd. I’m not a mountaineer I just had to buy ice axes and microspikes last minute for a backpacking trip because the snow didn’t melt before our permit date. I mean we did scale mountains in the snow so I guess im a mountaineer now. I try to buy as little as possible from Amazon.

Replying to @⁨zarkanian@sh.itjust.works⁩

Mine seemed to have pulled knowledge based on things I’ve mentioned in reviews. Otherwise it just seems to be pretty mundane for things like order history…yep, someone with a dog profile picture and who occasionally orders dog products may in fact, have a dog. The thing it gets tripped up on is things ordered for my kids or relatives from my account (but aren’t necessarily gifts or shipped elsewhere)