With the addition of ads for paying users, is there anything subscribers can do to protest? I hate ads with a passion.

Maybe separate all shipping items to cost them more? I’m not seeing many options other than cancellation

  • Ziggurat@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    324·
    3 months ago

    Don’t use amazon !

    The money you spent in a billionaire owned shop is less money for family owned shop in your community. Not only it transfer tons of wealth to billionaire, but having a nice neighbourhood bookstore, and other small business nearby is a real improvement to your local community and everyone benefits from it.

    • dfyx@lemmy.helios42.de
      17·
      3 months ago

      The sad thing is that at least here in Germany they are becoming the only option for more and more products. Most of the things I ordered in the last few years I couldn’t have gotten locally. Often my only other option is a different soulless and ethically questionable online retailer that asks a 30% higher price, uses the worst delivery service in the country and is just as much of a threat to family owned stores.

      This mainly applies to movies on DVD and BluRay but I even had to order some semi-exotic cooking ingredients from Amazon because nobody in my medium sized city has them in stock.

      • Yrt@feddit.de
        8·
        3 months ago

        I just wanted to buy safety pins. I couldn’t find any. Looked at the supermarket, dm even mall like stuff like Galaria Kaufhof, nothing. The only place at that time I could buy some was amazon or as you said, another soulless online retailer with the worst shipping companies.

    • InquisitiveApathy@lemm.eeEnglish
      81·
      3 months ago

      I go to great lengths to not use Amazon but in the US, unless you live in a large urban area Amazon and Walmart have systematically run most smaller, neighborhood retailers out of business already. If I wanted to go to a bookstore that wasn’t a Barnes and Noble, I would need to drive about an hour and a half.

      • dfyx@lemmy.helios42.de
        8·
        3 months ago

        No, I wouldn’t support someone’s family. I would support a large national or international chain. Where I live, family-owned stores have disappeared way over a decade ago. I’ll gladly spend a bit more to support a small store but if I have the choice between three different soulless and faceless corporations, I’ll put my own financial interests first. There’s exactly two things that I can still buy from independent stores: vinyl records and board games. In the game store I’m a regular to the point where the owners greet me by name and offer me a drink as soon as I walk through the door.

          • dfyx@lemmy.helios42.de
            4·
            3 months ago

            I think you misunderstood. I didn’t mean that I wouldn’t want to support family-owned businesses.

            I would LOVE to support small businesses. But there are almost none left where I live and the few that are still there are so important to me that I‘m basically friends with the owners.

            The only real choice I have left for most things is between Amazon, the German Amazon equivalent Otto and a few big chains like Müller, Kaufland and MediaMarkt-Saturn. Neither of them are small businesses by any definition. Between those and only those I pick the cheapest because in those cases my wallet matters more than which rich asshole I dislike the most.

            And no, that’s not because I ruined small businesses. For the longest time I’ve made an effort to buy as much from small businesses as I could. But that option is gone.