Amazon’s Stranglehold over Online Shopping
June 28, 2012 5 Comments
We live inside an economic system which can make it difficult to make moral choices. It would certainly be a better world with better-paid workers and higher quality goods if we all boycotted Walmart, but their dominance means that many poorly-paid workers depend upon Walmart. And that’s if their community still has local stores which can compete in any significant fashion to the corporate behemoths.
Amazon is another complicated case. Amazon’s stranglehold over online shopping, as outlined by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, is precisely why it’s hard to avoid. I use Amazon a lot, because of convenience, price, and the helpfulness of the user reviews. I can and will try to avoid them more often, but it’s tricky because I’m like a lot of people, struggling from paycheck to paycheck. It’s a Catch-22, needing to buy cheap goods because of lack of money, and that lack of money coming in part because we collectively supporting mass sellers of cheap goods.
The laws regarding monopoly laws don’t seem to be enforced any more, and I wonder if they extend to the internet? I also wonder if a non-profit could be started which would allow small stores to collectively compete against the industry giants, whether it’s Amazon or Walmart.
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Reblogged this on NonviolentConflict.
>I also wonder if a non-profit could be started which would allow small stores to collectively compete against the industry giants, whether it’s Amazon or Walmart.
This is a good idea. There’s a model in the coalition of independent bookstores. How successful this has been I don’t know, but I’ve had good experiences with it. Among the benefits of the coalition, it allows a customer in one store to buy a gift certificate that can be used at a coalition-member store in another part of the country.
Is that IndieBound? I know that I’ve given and received gift certificates at independent bookstores through some sort of coalition, which is great, but I’ve never found anything like an online database that would tell me where the book I want is currently in stock at an independent bookseller, or what other reviewers think of it.
I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t used the service for a while, and I don’t remember the name. IndieBound doesn’t sound or look familiar, but its membership looks pretty similar to the service I used, so it might be the same group, maybe rebranded/renamed since I last bought from them.
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