1. There Are Many, Many Alternatives Out There
I'm sure that the only reason most people depend upon Amazon is because they're just so gosh-darn convenient. Rather than having to get dressed, put on your shoes and leave the house, they have your every entertainment needs sorted! Seriously, everything you could ever possibly want or need is here, at your fingertips, ready to be delivered straight to your door. Oh, don't worry about delivery charges, sir. If you spend enough, we'll throw those in for free! It's thanks to companies like Amazon that many of our high-streets are increasingly starting to resemble the infertile wastelands of Children of Men. Lots of boarded up shop fronts haunted by the spectral shadows that used to work there. Maybe Amazon
are creating employment opportunities, but how many jobs have they destroyed with their concerted attack on the high street? So how about the next time you want a new CD, game or DVD, rather than simply ordering it on Amazon, you get dressed, put on your shoes and leave the house? Get some exercise! Make a day of it. I don't know, you could have some tea and cake at a charming little café to counter the fact that, in shopping at Game or HMV, you're simply supporting what might well be the lesser of two evils. OK, some people are adverse to the idea of leaving the house or just otherwise unable. Certainly it's good that even the remotest of rural communities now have easy access to most anything they want. Certainly, before the arrival of the internet, residents of one horse towns might have found it impossible to hear any new music beyond that which was played on the radio. But do you know what? Amazon isn't even the sole provider of this online service. There are
many alternatives out there, and I don't mean Play.com. I couldn't, at this moment, help you with DVDs and Games, but there are plenty of places where you can source music online. I've recently started to order my CDs and records from Manchester's
Piccadilly Records, for example. Or
Boomkat, when I want something a little more obscure. They do deliver, and it feels great to be supporting a beloved institution of independence rather than a faceless tax-dodging behemoth. It might be argued that, in a competitive market, these companies are by no means more deserving of my money than anyone else. But remember that this is a personal choice, and I'm much happier to support something as small-scale as an independent record shop or an online provider of the obscure and experimental than a tyrannical giant hellbent on maximising profit and destroying the opposition. Apart from anything else, it's just more
pleasant to use these independent providers. I recently received really quite stunning customer service from Boomkat, for example. Through computer error, my card was billed twice. I asked them to refund the payment, and within half a day, they had. But it didn't stop there. They felt so bad about the error that they also let me
choose any two other items from their illustrious catalogue for free. They absolutely didn't have to do that, and I know for a fact that you'd have to live through two lifetimes before Amazon even considered making such a gesture. And even if they did decide to indulge in exemplary customer service, the employee who made the decision would probably be out of a job within the hour. I know Amazon's easy, and convenient, and brilliant and everything, but think about it. Their whole business model is an exploitative and intrusive attempt to silence all competition whilst swelling their profits to an obscene level hardly any of which is invested back into the communities they so wilfully exploit. Meanwhile, those enterprises out there that really care about what they're doing are disappearing day by day. And that's why I decided to stop using Amazon. My actions won't change a thing. They won't make Amazon any more responsible, nor will they make things any easier for their workforce or for their independent competitors. But
my word, don't I feel better to not be part of the problem anymore? Call me self-righteous, sanctimonious, stupid, naive and ignorant if you must, but imagine how much better the world would be if everyone decided, now and then, that enough was enough?