Amazon’s now-legendary “Prime Day” is July 8-11. Much like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, this means sales on lots of items on Amazon’s vast marketplace, and as such many people flock to the giant’s website to get sweet deals on everything from computers to small kitchen appliances and more. While many of us are feeling the financial crunch more than ever, I urge you, dear reader, to resist the allure. I don’t typically have strong opinions about where people chose to shop or how they decide to spend their heard-earned money, but in this post I hope to lay out a convincing case for why Amazon is full-stop evil, no caveats, and is undeserving of your money on a moral and ethical level no matter what your values are. Amazon needs to be stopped, and legislation will not do so. Only its loyal consumers – who keep the beast alive – can do that by taking their money elsewhere. No matter your political or personal beliefs, I’m certain Amazon violates them in one way or another, and you should vote with your dollar by buying from other places whenever possible. Here’s why.
Not owned by Amazon, but there’s a big but.
Their source of income is from Amazon affiliates link. Whenever you follow the price of a product, if you click on the links on their websites or in their emails, they will earn a commission from Amazon.
Amazon recently started vetting their affiliates more. I’m 100% sure that camelcamelcamel now shows data in a way that doesn’t hurt Amazon (e.g. they won’t show sudden drops in prices, i.e. pricing mistakes) or even themselves (commissions are a percentage of the price paid by the user).