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‘Has flat buttocks,’ ‘cusses when scared’: Amazon keeps shockingly specific customer profiles
(www.fastcompany.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2026
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Why are so many of you still shopping with Amazon? Genuinely I do not understand it.
Because Amazon wiped out what Walmart and other big box stores didn’t kill in the first round. Sometimes there’s literally no place else to get what I need, not even order it in to a local store. On top of that, Google search for products is so wrecked that the choices it returns are amazon links, or links to websites that also provide amazon links to the same products. It’s fucked up.
(FWIW I do buy local or direct from businesses other than Amazon when possible, but it’s simply not possible all the time)
So what you’re saying is, you shop on Amazon because it’s easy… yeahhh that’s not a good enough excuse.
I'd rather someone occasionally shop at Amazon than be a self righteous muppet.
So what you're saying is you never learned how to read.
Sure bud. I’m not here to drive 9 hours and two states over to pick up something I need, if that’s even an option, just to satisfy whatever BS arbitrary metric you have in your head.
Or… and here me out here, maybe just do a little more research and purchase online from companies that AREN’T Amazon.
I get we all want shopping to be easier, but that’s no excuse to fund the facist machine that is Amazon.
I’m going to hold your hand when I say this because I know this will be hard to hear, but it’s not just about you and your “convenience” buddy.
I’m disabled and can’t drive anywhere, and I somehow manage to figure it out. Sometimes it takes a while, but I can do it.
What could you possibly be shopping for that’s only on Amazon? And if said company is only on Amazon— why would you want to support them anyway?
All I’m saying is, if an idiot like me can do it, so can you.
I have done this, ordered from the company’s website, and still got the stuff shipped from an Amazon warehouse. I think the most recent one was an Otterbox phone case. It’s been a while because I don’t order much stuff shipped to me unless I can’t find what I need locally.
This has also been my experience. If i order something off eBay, there's a decent chance it's going to arrive in an Amazon box, delivered by an Amazon driver. I just had this happen the other day, decided to try an eBay seller and avoid Amazon. Sure enough it ended up being a shipment directly from Amazon through the eBay sellers account.
Ugh! So frustrating! Even when we want to enact change, the galactic monster has its tentacles in everything.
I feel llke you really need to watch the show, The Good Place. After you finish it, come back to your comments and you'll understand why I said this.
nah fuck that, the episode you're talking about is where they lost me.
"There's no ethical consumption under capitalism... therefore we're going to rewrite the rules of the cosmos to give you a pass for it, and now you're not obliged to fight it any more. You can go back to being happy little consumers now, all your guilt is absolved. Fremulon. NBCUniversal, a Comcast company."
I'm not talking about a specific episode—I'm way too ADHD for that—rather the message of the show in general. So knock it off with the strawman argument.
Reread my reply to the other person, and you'll understand the point I'm trying to make. Capitalism makes it impossible to be a perfect person, so until the system changes, do the best you can in the meantime.
I’ve seen the Good Place, but I’m not sure what you’re referencing sorry.
The point I'm making that you are making it seem llke it's a lot easier than it is to do the right thing. Not everyone has the time, money, and mental energy that you have to seek out more wholesome alternatives. Sometimes you just need something, and you need it now with minimal friction.
You are very lucky and privileged that you have the time and patience to put up with the hassle of doing business with a small company. There are way too many scammers and unreliable merchants out there and it's a game of Whack-A-Mole separating the legit small businesses from the bullshitters. I don't know about you, but I don't have to patience to wait up to a year for something that may or may not arrive. Some people like my girlfriend do. I don't.
I get where you're coming from and try my best not to fund the fascist machine, but I'm only human, and sometimes I just want to take the easy route and order something off of Amazon. And there's nothing wrong with that, because I know my heart is in the right place.
Nope on every account. But hey, enjoy your cheap ass Nazi playes from Amazon I guess.
I’m absolutely privileged, but that has nothing to do with my ability to shop any other place than Amazon.
But hey, if you need to keep lying to yourself have it.
Well good for you. I'm glad you're privileged. You can afford to get scammed every once in awhile by a small business. When that happens to me, I can't eat until my next paycheck (and it has happened before). So I go with the cheapest, more reliable option, because that's what I can afford.
Says the person with a stunted ability to introspect on how their material conditions define the way they are able to interact with the world
Easy to speak from a high horse when you live in a place where there are better alternatives to Amazon. I live in Europe and either I go to the alternative but doesn't deliver to Ireland, or the site has very limited selection.
I live in Finland and have managed to always find an alternative. Ireland gets way more shipping options than Finland. You're literally just not searching hard enough.
don't use Google. It always only tries to give regional search options. Use Startpage and change the region.
search in a different country's language. If searching in Poland for example, search in Polish.
And heck, if you somehow still can't find what you need from those stores, just look at China - EU shops. Most of Amazon's shit is from China anyway, so might as well avoid the middleman.
I don't use Google.
I went to a Polish site and they don't deliver to Ireland.
That's fair but now you see why there isn't a European Amazon? Amazon makes things convenient. They operate on a single language and have good localised pages for many parts of the world. I could have my Firefox browser translate but it's still done awkwardly. Europe doesn't offer an alternate Amazon because of multiple languages and different structures because each countries do their own. The closest rival is Wildberries but there is sanction on Russia.
Sorry to be flippant, but again, people who speak on high horse about completely avoiding Amazon speak from their own experience and incorrectly think it's universal. If it's that easy to boycott Amazon, it would have already gone bankrupt.
Or you could do option three I mentioned and you ignored - buying straight from China if out of options. It's likely the thing you wanted was made there anyway if you can't find a European courier service to ship it to you.
We both know why Amazon is successful. But unless you or I get a couple million euros minimum, we can't do much about setting up a competitor to Amazon (Also they operate on multiple languages too btw, there's Amazon.de in German or Amazon.es in Spanish).
Firefox browser at least translates well enough. If it didn't exist, you'd have a much better reason, but it does.
It's not that hard to boycott Amazon, but people from 1st world countries have gotten extremely lazy for very particular things. This is one of them. Buying something already takes more effort than not buying something - units you're someone born with a silver spoon in your mouth I suppose. People in these countries have a more "throw it away" attitude than a "needs to keep working a long time" one. It's cultural.
Does it take more time to give something without Amazon? Yes. Does it take a lot more time though? Not really. In the end, it really comes down to just not caring enough about fascism/climate/corruption. Because realistically, by choosing Amazon, you've already decided that those things matter less than whatever doodad you're buying, and outside of something that's from the base layer of the hierarchy of needs, like medicine or food, you don't have a good reason.
I've grown up poor. I've gone through times of poverty so extreme I went without food for nearly a week, and other times would walk miles to forage for food in a forest. While in university. The ones in high horses are the ones privileged enough to think needing to buy something from Amazon is a realistic issue.
I never said Google, not sure what you're trying to read. I use Duckduckgo but I admit it's getting terrible over the years and I might start using Startpage because I think it's slightly better.
The Amazon pages have bettee localisation and better translation to many languages, unlike Firefox translation which I still find clumsy.
That's a fair enough argument.
My mistake, I thought you were the other commentator
I only buy things from Amazon I can't get anywhere else, like the deodorant I use. Unfortunately they've become a monopoly in many respects
Why do you think people buy from a monopoly?
I don't have a book store or appliance repair shop in my town.
No local book store sucks. I'm sorry to hear that.
I try to avoid as much as possible (I will literally spend hours looking for alternative stores instead of buying with one click on Amazon) but sometimes there's literally no other place to get something from. I order something once every couple of years.
i notice certain products isnt sold instore, and only on amazon, not even costco has it. like a specific sensitivity toothpaste that isnt harsh on your mouth is sold on amazon.
we dont have that many instores that offer the same value, plus alot of brands sell on amaozn exclusively. plus the only big box stores arnt charging alot more per item/per count.
Because it's almost always superior, if you need things from more than one "niche". Specialty shops only make sense if you have a big order in that niche, like building a new PC. If you want a hard drive, some TCG card sleeves, some zero cal food products, and wanna top up on boxer shorts, Amazon is just too far ahead.
I have tried other "everything" retailers in Europe, like Otto, but their selection for everything is tiny. Ironically, it's not tiny well selected, well known european brands. It's still filled with Chinese shovel ware.
Superior soap so I buy Auschwitz soaps /s
You are so lost.