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Comment by okmokmz | Hacker News Reader

I've had prime for years, and I think I'm going to let it lapse this year and try to stop using amazon altogether

As someone currently doing this: I miss nothing. Walmart offers free 2-day shipping on most goods I would typically order from Amazon, and often cheaper. Best Buy has whatever tech thing I want, I get it same-day, and price-matched at Amazon, and I know it isn't counterfeit. Most book publishers (my original reason for using Amazon) have long ditched the platform and directed me towards ordering direct from them which usually nets me reduced price/shipping. Apple music is better than Amazon Music. Audible is separate anyways, having Prime didn't help me out much there. Netflix is better than Amazon streaming, and so on.

The biggest benefit so far? I am generally ordering less stuff overall. I felt like I had to order x amount of stuff to make my prime membership "worth it", but it was never "worth it". It just resulted in me spending more money with Amazon, even if I had better alternatives around me.

> Walmart offers free 2-day shipping on most goods I would typically order from Amazon,

Yeah because WalMart is just a bastion of ethics. Why not support local businesses? I guess you have to ask what you goal is in quitting Amazon - if it's "sticking it to the man", buying stuff from WalMart is probably even worse, ethically.

Walmart is a local business in most places.

If by local you mean funnel their money back to corporate headquarters, while simultaneously driving up social welfare costs through shit wages and even more shit healthcare benefits, then yes, it's a local business.

But that's not what anyone means by local.

If you pull out a big enough "ethics" magnifying glass, you will find ethical flaws in every corporation. One can make the argument, depending on where on the "woke sliding scale" you may lie, that shopping at Walmart is better for the environment than Amazon: they already have a streamlined, efficient supply chain and logistics operation. Amazon relies on a myriad of logistical networks, with many inefficiencies still yet to be solved. But again, not the reason I am shopping/not shopping there.

It has nothing to do with sticking it to anyone. Amazon doesn't have the same value proposition as it once did. I realized I was using it just to use it, among other reasons.

Yeah, I definitely order less without Prime than when I have Prime. Part of this is that $25 free shipping minimum: I'll hesitate to order cheap things if I have to pay for shipping, so I wait until I have an order that's at least $25, and sometimes then end up never ordering them at all.

And I also use a fair bit of Walmart and Best Buy ordering now. Both do ship to store as well, though Walmart's is annoyingly lackluster because in-store pickup closes early in the day.

If you're from Europe and want to buy stuff in USA - Amazon is very friendly, Walmart just ignore your non-American credit card.

My Prime membership has actually lapsed today when I have had it since it launched. Since then it has increased by $50, 2 day prime option seems to be unavailable for items not warehoused locally, and my shipping has changed to gig economy delivery which results in unpredictable delivery times and lost packages.

In addition Amazon has become why I stopped shopping at eBay. Unreliable products from China or outright fakes. Ironically I go to eBay now when I want some genuine tool or part as I can get it used from a US liquidator. Combine that with that I don't really care about Prime videos or "Prime exclusive offers" (which are really fake discounted Chinese goods for the most part)

I just bought a ton of outdoor gear and consistently found other websites such as Backcountry, Moosejaw and REI to be significantly cheaper. Was usually 2-3 day shipping which isn't much worse than Prime's 2 day.

Prime's 2-day shipping often took more than two days for me anyway. And there's nothing more than an apology "sorry, your package is taking longer than expected" when that happens.

I'm considering doing the same. I have an Amazon Prime Visa Rewards card that will go from being 5% cashback to 3% on purchases at Amazon and Whole Foods, and I'll lose the ability to use the Twitch Prime subscription or use Amazon Video, but I don't think I will miss them.

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