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That's probably a violation of the App Store Review Guidelines; you're not allowed to withdraw app functionality unrelated to notifications if a user denies notification access; Apple has various language in various places that hints at 'you can't arbitrarily take away features to compel users to opt-in' being a core intent. If you're an Apple developer, and you're willing to stake that claim with Apple, you can report it while logged in to your developer account.

I'm sure Apple will get right on enforcing that with Amazon.

It’s not a violation if the CEO of Apple is on “having lunches together” terms with the CEO of Amazon.

You're talking about the Amazon app. Technically, the fact that you can add your credit card to pay for things violates the TOS. You never see anyone put up a fight against a giant.

Incorrect; Apple allows apps associated with purchases and rentals of physical objects to add credit cards to pay for things.

In one digital goods example, Kindle books are not “sold”, even though Amazon uses the word “Buy” in the button; if Amazon truly sold you a Kindle book, then they would be required to provide it to you upon terminating your account, as it is your possession in their care, and withholding it upon request would be grounds for a lawsuit. Under such a scenario, Amazon could successfully argue that Kindle purchase should be given the same rights as physical purchases, as they are truly purchases and not just “licenses”. Amazon has chosen not to pursue that scenario to date, as granting each of us full ownership of a copy of a digital good would compel Amazon to act in ways that are hostile to Amazon’s interests.

Shopping at Amazon has become such a blatantly user-hostile experience. More than any company I've dealt with in recent memory, they seem to tolerate just about any unethical behavior - allowing fake product reviews, facilitating sale of counterfeit merchandise, and evidently withholding charitable donations if you don't allow them to pester you via your own device.

It's to the point that shopping at Amazon feels dirty to me. Why support a company that's doing everything it can to transfer your well-being to Jeff Bezos?

Other online retailers (well, only the huge ones) seem to be stepping up their game and getting closer to Amazon's logistics and shipping ability.

It reminds me of how Netflix had more or less a monopoly on big-name video streaming for a ~decade but now every major rights holder seems to have either white-labeled somebody's tech or developed their own and are clawing back their IP to only show on their own platform[0].

Amazon had a long head start in online retail. It's true that they will probably never be surpassed in catalog depth ("the everything store") but I don't delve into the long tail of that depth very much and I'll be happy to move my retail spending elsewhere.

... well, now that I think on it, my only payment method on Amazon is my Amazon Visa, which gives me something like 5% cash back / equates to a 5% discount on everything I buy from Amazon. So any competitor is going to have that headwind to fight against as well.

[0] I wonder if this was a Netflix misstep: could they have prevented this by giving a greater share of the subscription revenue to the groups they licensed content from?

Amazon has also become a dumpster for poor quality products and high prices now a days here in Canada. Few months ago, I bought some bedsheets which claimed to be Egyptian cotton but upon delivery, that wasn't true. I have had this experience with other products too now on Amazon.

Their customer service and returns are still very good but the product quality and online marketing is filled with lies.

In my experience they've always required me to go to a UPS store or retail location (Kohl's, Whole Foods, etc.) to process a return, even when it's a counterfeit product.

Returns I've elected are a great process; being forced to run errands for a $trillion+ company because they've deceived you about the bedsheets they are selling is something else entirely.

There's a point to be made about how it's not possible for Amazon to check every single listing (made by other companies) for authenticity, nor they can use user feedback as a way to check/block those companies as many people use a different return reason than the real one (eg. "I don't like it" becomes "it's counterfeit").

It's unfortunate but you'll have to learn how to navigate the new amazon, and possibly use the mentality that everything CAN be counterfeit on this platform.

I think this is definitely true - and it's enough that I just don't find it worthwhile to use the service anymore. The overhead of doing detective work to determine whether something might be counterfeit, and the too-commonly-realized risk that I'll need to re-pack something and schlep it to UPS makes it utterly not worthwhile.

One will basically never encounter this problem with, e.g., Target, Best Buy, NewEgg, Ikea, Bed, Bath, & Beyond, or other retailers - what makes Amazon preferable to any of those brands, when the diligence you described is required to shop there and not elsewhere?

And yet sometimes I'm basically forced into using them. Twice in recent months an item bought from a retailer is 20-40% cheaper if I buy it from that same retailer but through their amazon account. It infuriates me. I'm trying to avoid amazon as much as possible, but if you charge 20-40% more for the same item when ordered direct from you vs your amazon storefront, I'll give amazon my business every time. I wish retailers would stope doing this. One item was fire starters and the other was a barbell.

Clearly that seller is getting some benefit for selling the product through Amazon, probably close to 20-40% of the value of their product if they didn't. They aren't just using Amazon because it's fun. It provides them some value.

> I'm trying to avoid amazon as much as possible, but if you charge 20-40% more for the same item when ordered direct from you vs your amazon storefront, I'll give amazon my business every time. I wish retailers would stope doing this.

Unless you change "I'll give amazon my business every time" to "I won't accept it" it will continue. It's basic economics in a competitive environment with a lot of buyers and sellers. To you, the cost of the Amazon experience is worth the financial benefit. There are likely other consumers that the Amazon experience is not worth it who buy it from the manufacturer. And likely, on the other side, there are those would use the Amazon experience for a mere 5-10% discount instead of the 20-40%. Those people receive a "consumer surplus" for getting it at 20-40% below value instead of 5-10%. The market has settled at 20-40%.

Big picture, if you don't like it in a competitive environment, buy from the manufacturer and help shift the supply demand curve.

> Clearly that seller is getting some benefit for selling the product through Amazon, probably close to 20-40% of the value of their product if they didn't.

Or the small pool of people who refuse to use amazon are willing to pay 40% extra out of principle, and the seller is happy to exploit this behaviour while it lasts.

Somewhat of an aside, I'm pretty sure at least one of the items was on amazon at that price in error. The manufacturer/retailer charged a large shipping cost (40lbs) when ordered through their website while on amazon the shipping was free. The item still shipped from the seller (not Amazon and not prime), so I saw it as likely either an oversight or an error because what I paid could hardly cover the shipping costs of such an item.

On iOS, such marketing notifications is supposed to be against the developer guidelines but I regularly see Uber, Ubereats and other high profile companies break those rules without any repercussions.

Even Apple has broken that guideline[1]. They have since changed the rule and those are now allowed if the user agrees[2].

For Uber, disable those in Settings > Privacy > Notifications > Discounts and News.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/18/18229492/apple-music-push...

[2]: https://9to5mac.com/2020/03/04/apple-now-allows-push-notific...

Ah didn’t know Apple changed the guidelines.

Is uninstalling the app and using the website in a browser an option? This is what I prefer to do.

Yes.

Why not just set aside some money yourself and donate to a charity of your choosing without tying it to how you spend your money on Amazon? Making your donations directly will help you better see how your money will be used. For example, Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) tells you basically how contributions are used when you donate to them:

https://www.gems-girls.org/donate-now

Maybe he does both. I certainly do. I choose to use Smile because I can give 0.5% of my Amazon purchases to my chosen charity with no extra charge to myself. I also give a regular monthly donation; I know that the smile donations help them a lot.

I don't have the Amazon app though; I just use the website.

Amazon is setting aside some money that people are paying them specifically to donate to charity if people choose. The donations are coming from your charges

I recently uninstalled Lyft for a similar reason. It wouldn’t stop sending me marketing push notifications, which couldn’t be disabled in the app. Since notifications are pretty integral to the core function of Lyft, I couldn’t turn them all off. So I uninstalled the app.

So Amazon gives you 3 options, two of which result in a charity of your choice getting money in exchange for a minor inconvenience to you, and the third of which is to not participate in the charity program. And this makes them the bad guy?

Why not just donate the money directly to charity and not have Amazon notifications?

With Amazon Smile's charity thing, the money donated is not from my pocket. I am pretty happy with the idea of being able to give some of Amazon's money to EFF.

Simply don't use the Amazon App, and there are no notifications.

Where does Amazon get the money from?

From Amazon's pocket. It's probably some sort of a tax scheme, though.

If it makes you feel any better, it's a publicly traded company. Legally, everything it does must generate shareholder value.

Smile is really just a way to get additional value from donations large companies have to make anyway for lobbying and tax purposes.

They would've happened anyway, but you get to direct it. Maybe they can sell the data it generates to identify areas or people more likely to donate to charity, and sell that data to fund raising companies.

And maybe (new use case!) they can use it to reduce opt-outs of notifications, which carry associated value.

I can envision the notification product owner reaching out to the smile team with this new opportunity. "Hey, you have this cool feature, I really think it could help here!"

>Legally, everything it does must generate shareholder value.

What's the basis for this claim?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

From TFA:

> A business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders. The powers of the directors are to be employed for that end. The discretion of directors is to be exercised in the choice of means to attain that end, and does not extend to a change in the end itself, to the reduction of profits, or to the non-distribution of profits among stockholders in order to devote them to other purposes...

That doesn't exactly support the position that everything a publicly traded company does must generate shareholder value. The judgement reads closer to, "You can't run your publicly-traded company like a charity."

Yes, I knew that when I posted this the reply was coming. I'm not parent commenter so I won't defend _everything_ part. But it is clear that decisions must be made with the intent to benefit shareholders (or as you pointed out, at least not intentionally as charity (unless that could be construed as benefiting shareholders)).

It's clear there is a lot of ambiguity involved. I believe this is covered in the wikipedia article but I haven't read the full thing in a long time.

Thanks for answering! I don't feel like arguing with the funny armchair lawyers leaked from Reddit who have never heard of fiduciary duty.

I'm an armchair lawyer too, and, yes, it's a bit more nuanced, but not really meaningfully so. If a board member found out about Smile, they'd be legally obligated to put reasonable efforts into ensuring it's in the best interest of the company.

Might not apply in all jurisdictions or corporate structures (probably most, but happy to learn where it doesn't!), applies to companies not shareholders (sometimes different), and I am still not a lawyer.

Would love to find out where I'm wrong, but as far as I can tell from what the citations of other non-lawyer "I did my own research" posts, it's not going to happen here.

Corporate Law 101.

That is not corporate law 101. I see how a layman could construe it that way, particularly when motivated to argue.

However, it is perfectly fine for corporations to allow you to disable notifications without charging you for it.

The general thrust of that value does not mean the corporation has to find a way to profit from every interaction

None.

Since I am determined to crush this stupid meme, here is a longish thread discussing the relevant case law: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393674

The gist of it is that management must act in the best interests of the company generally, but has exceptional latitude in deciding what those are: you don’t need to squeeze every penny from customers if there’s some nebulous but plausible reason why doing so may eventually be good for the company and its shareholders. Dodge is a tough case because Ford explicitly disavowed any business reason for his actions, but instead framed it as his own philanthropic interest and not, say, a reinvestment in the company or an attempt to grow the customer base.

The Supreme Court has ruled in opposition to this perspective [1]:

“Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.”

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

Typo in the URL, should be: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...