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Comment by leorocky | Hacker News Reader

> I will never do business with Amazon again.

Every other day it's someone saying they'll never use Facebook again, they'll never use Amazon again, they've quit Dropbox, they'll never use Google again. People in HN are quitting startups, quitting established companies, forswearing this and that, and getting angry at all kinds of shit day in and day out, and to be honest, I'm not sure it's ever made any bit of difference ever.

Even GoDaddy is still alive and strong and not one of these other companies has a founder go and shoot elephants and post about it on their official blog with pictures, after supporting SOPA and demeaning women on national television. Boycotting does nothing, and crying about it even less.

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Trivializing someone's experiences by dismissing them as crying might not be the way to go. It doesn't seem like you're arguing against anything at all. Comments like the one you responded to are some of the most important, because (a) they're from direct experience, (b) people rarely talk about the topic, (c) they're thorough and substantive and present their opinion well.

The last thing the world needs is to mock people for speaking up.

I'm not mocking the person and I appreciate his post, I am simply fed up with having to keep track of all the things I am supposed to be boycotting right now though. I do apologize if what I said came across as mocking. I'm just saying boycotting does nothing. Voting with your purse is about as effective at getting what you want as voting at the polls.

Their comment might have more teeth than it appears. It's a datapoint to potential Amazon competitors about how they might coax away some of Amazon's clientele. While an Amazon competitor is unlikely to pop up, it's not completely impossible, either. The recipe is for Amazon to make mistakes and for those mistakes to be scrutinized by the public. In the internet age, people's low tolerance for injustice and inconvenience equals a business opportunity.

"Boycotting does nothing"

Actually for-real boycotting and similar types of actions like calls for coordinated divestiture do often cause changes, sometimes very big ones; but a few people posting on some internet forums is by no means a real boycott.

Personally I also have a number of issues with Amazon but none of them are serious enough to overcome the fact that they do retail sales on the Internet about a billion times better than anyone else (only Newegg comes close, and only in the narrow band of computers/electronics).

Other times it's about boycotting, but this comment isn't. It's about "doing business", and it is a very relevant warning to other entrepreneurs who need to choose if they should bet on Amazon as a distribution platform.

What about Paypal? I've heard complaints against them time and time again, and alternatives have popped up in competition because they sucked too much. Stripe, Square?

I use PayPal every day nearly. I like Stripe, Square not so much. I don't know, the people that seem to complain about PayPal are people who take donations but aren't registered non-profits and even if PayPal was evil, I doubt any of these boycotts have made a difference.

Stripe exists because they have a really awesome API and they make refunds super easy without penalties.

Square exists because Jack Dorsey is able to drum up a lot of VC money and engineering talent from followers of his personality cult. Not a lot of profitable business though, apparently.

Many regular people are comfortable with Paypal, specifically using it instead of giving out their credit cards (almost half, in my experience). Can't say I blame the motivation, given that I've had to report fraud 4 times on my 3 credit cards in the last 6 months. Knock on wood, Paypal has gotten better, anecdotally.

Yeah just like that whole Dropbox x Condoleezza Rice thing went.

I closed my Dropbox account in response to the Condoleezza Rice thing, but it was an easy action to take since I hardly ever used it anymore anyway (because Google Drive works much better for me).

Well he didn't say it would make a difference, he just said he isn't dealing with Amazon.

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