Changing attitude towards Amazon (or other company)?

[faithbw]

For years, I was very anti-Amazon. I wouldn't buy books from them unless I really needed the book and there was no where else to purchase it (e.g. an obscure textbook needed for a course). I saw bookstores closing shop and I was angry at Amazon. No one else around really cared one way or the other. I found kindred spirits online but that's it.

Fast forward to the present, I have a Kindle and I've ordered two p-books in the past month from Amazon. So you maybe wondering what changed. Honestly, I can't pinpoint one thing. To be honest, one thing that really got to me was people's apathy or ambivalence about Amazon. Most people I know either don't care about Amazon's relationship with publishers or the demise of big box bookstores or feel ambivalence about it. They rightly point out that the big publishers also have some questionable practices and that chain bookstores didn't have the best relationship with indie bookstores.

Another is my displeasure with my both the local Barnes & Noble and the few indie bookstores in my area. They just don't have good selections and I usually find books that I want without any hassle on Amazon.

Still, I find myself feeling ambivalent about Amazon. I know that employees in their warehouses aren't always treated the best. Amazon has bullied smaller publishers that don't have the same clout and power as a Big 5 publisher. That bothers me. Yet, I find myself enjoying books on my Kindle. So I guess what I'm wondering is if anyone else shares the same mixed feelings about Amazon or any other company?

[DiapDealer]

I try not to feel much of anything about businesses--especially larger ones. The small ones grow to eat the big ones or get eaten themselves. Way it's always been.

"Who's got the best muffins that I don't have to drive a country mile for?"

That's the only type of question I ask myself about businesses these days. As long as they're not drowning puppies, I don't really care. I've only got so much care to go around. I'd rather save it for those in my immediate vicinity.

[crich70]

They also own Mobipocket and books that I bought from there can't be read as is on Kindle which makes me mad yet, but I do enjoy my Kindle. No company is perfect.

[Penforhire]

I have those changed feelings about Sony.

I started with their e-readers way before there was a Kindle. I admired their hardware while always thinking "WTF?" about their software. Even way before that I was a fan of their car audio (head units, speakers, amps), TV's, and game console hardware. When I was younger their Walkman cassette tape player was legendary. I spent a hojillion dollars buying their first car CD player (okay, I think it was $400, but still!).

However, after I switched from the PRS-650 e-reader to a Kindle PW I was/am fully sold on Amazon. My general feeling toward Sony diminished over the years. More recently I really liked what they did with the high-end Vaio Z laptops, even if the price was absurd. Now that is no longer Sony (much as Lenovo is no longer IBM). Aside from the PS4 gaming system I have a "meh" reaction to Sony.

[Wearever]

I am fairly new to Kindle, last couple years I have had the Paperwhite. Now I buy most e- books from Amazon. I also have a Nexus 7, so I can get books with apps from anywhere. Still I like Amazon best. The price and the ease to find books I like. I like that I don't have to stay in their system, I just use an android to get apps. beyond the kindle system. I wish one device could do it all. But we are still not quite there yet, but much better now, then a few years ago.

[cfrizz]

I approach everything with what is important to ME and what I want and how much I want to pay for it. Whoever provides that, that is where I will purchase it.

I don't get wrapped up in any business/business disputes, since most likely all are unethical to a degree.

I'm not trying to or interested in saving the world. I'm just living my life in the way is best for me. Life is much less stressful that way.

[eschwartz]

As a consumer, Amazon is easily the best company to deal with.

As far as their behavior towards publishers, well, they are a business like any other and ruthlessly interested in themselves. Just like the Big 5, and just like B&N for that matter (so what are my options exactly???).

I don't feel sorry for Amazon workers. They signed up for an intensive job like that, and if they changed their minds they are welcome to get a job elsewhere. No one force them to continue working for Amazon. They knew what they were getting into, and yet they decided the money was worth it. Why is that anyone else's concern? And how many of them are actually complaining, or is it just a few attention-getters?

[Jessica Lares]

My mom used to work at Blockbuster for many, many years. Now she's addicted to painkillers and so messed up. I 100% believe that working there did that to her.

She used to go in at 10AM, then come home at 6AM, then go back. That was her work schedule pretty much everyday from 1997 to 2003/4, at a freaking video rental store. They used to spend all night doing inventory every single day. That wasn't a job you'd get part-time either, or as a summer job in the beginning. They wanted you to go train for a month before putting you behind a cashier.

A lot of people didn't last there because it was so stressful. We never had to pay for movie or game rentals all those years, but now my dad singlehandedly has to pay for all the various medications she now takes because of her depression that just got worse and worse over the years. She most likely will never work again because of her problems.

Every company has something to hide. But with enough intimidation and money, they can keep all of that hush hush, and I guarantee you the majority are doing just that. However, there are more people with a "I don't care what happens" attitude these days that a lot of it gets out now.

I don't think a 9 to 5 job of running around packaging stuff in the heat even compares to some of the stuff retail people go through.

Like I said in a previous post, I think that people apply thinking that packaging boxes is going to be a breeze, I can take breaks, I can meet people, I can do things that I wouldn't be able to at most other places, this will be easy money. And when it's not, they get angry, and then they quit and tell everyone about the experience and why they shouldn't shop at Amazon, etc, etc.

You cannot have a nice office job if you can't do the work to begin with. You cannot handle customer service if you're always going to give into customer demands, or are flat out rude.

Likewise, you cannot be a teacher if you don't have the knowledge, the willingness, and aren't mentally and physically able to handle it. A few years back Obama was advocating for people to get teaching degrees, and I absolutely hated it. It isn't a job that just anyone can do, and I'd rather there be shortages instead of unfit educators who will do nothing but create bad experiences for students.

Amazon created jobs, and those jobs are feeding people and their families who otherwise would probably have a hard time finding another job that would. Amazon could easily come up with robots that could do all this for them, but do you want yet another company relying on machines to do work that is easily done by humans?

It has always been too expensive to have your own shop here. I have never shopped independently for that reason, the majority of places here are franchises and even some of those don't last very long.

[Hrafn]

I was a big fan of Amazon when they first opened up. It was a godsend to somebody living (at the time) in an area without a decent bookshop. Orders dropped off after I moved to large cities that could support specialised bookstores, then increased again after I moved to a smaller city.

At about the same time I was getting into DVDs, and was developing a considerable antipathy towards region-coding and thus DRM.

Then a combination of antipathy over Amazon's anti-competitive use of its 'One Click' software patent, and the discovery that (if I waited a few months) I could buy second-hand/remaindered books online for less than Amazon's prices, drove me elsewhere.

Then ebooks came along. I was first introduced to them by Baen's CDs in their hardcovers and read them, first as PDFs, then as epubs on FBReader, on my desktop. It therefore made sense to me, when I decided to try a hardware eReader, to buy one that had FBReader and supported epubs -- a Pocketbook, as it turns out. So I've never bought into the Amazon ebook ecosystem, and have little desire to experience its DRM first-hand.

I still buy computer hardware off Amazon (the SSD and CPU heatsink for my latest system are on their way even as we speak) and the occasional other odds and ends that I cannot pick up locally (or more cheaply through eBay).

I do however recognise Amazon's place in making ebooks ubiquitous and funding, through their ecosystem, innovation in ebook technology. This makes them (tangentially) useful to me. The Big Five publishers? Not so much -- they are largely superfluous as far as I'm concerned. Though I do have use for smaller and more innovative publishers like Baen and Tor (acknowledging that the latter is now part of Holtzbrinck).

[exachillus]

Amazon should run our governments. I prefer Amazon to any government and Bezos can be a much nicer president than the last couple ones. Amazon is much more efficient and almost glitch free. However it comes with strings attached, too big too overwhelming.

I am guessing that in 20 years half of the world will be working for Amazon and the other half will be buying from Amazon.

The only thing that Amazon suck at is their search engine. It truly sucks.

[crossi]

I was initially mildly favorable towards the big 6 (now 5) publishers. I didn't much think of them but they did publish books I liked. Then they started publishing books in trade paperback format before the MM paperback release in a blatant money grab. A horrible format, all the inconveniences of size and weight of a hardback but as cheaply made as a paperback but at twice the price. Now I had to wait twice as long to get the MM paperback format I prefered. My opinion of the publishers dropped considerably. Then the Agency conspiracy that sharply raised my book prices and more or less killed off some smaller ebook stores. At that point I became actively hostile towards the big publishers. Then I heard details about the standard contracts they force on authors, essentially gaining eternal rights to their books at really crappy royalties as well as harmful to authors clauses such as non-compete clauses and others. My opinion now of the big 5 couldn't get much lower. They tried to screw the customers with higher prices, screw Amazon by trying to interfer with and harm their business and screw the authors with rights grabs. At this point I cheer anything that takes power away from them.

[Hrafn]

Originally Posted by exachillus

I am guessing that in 20 years half of the world will be working for Amazon and the other half will be buying from Amazon.

In 20 years I expect Amazon to be far more bureaucratic, and far less nimble than it is now. I also would be unsurprised to see it, in its turn, being upstarted by some new company riding the wave of some new and unanticipated technological disruption (as MS did to IBM with the advent of the personal computer, and as Google and Google did to MS with the advent of the Internet).

[JohnRR]

I will buy books from Amazon when they offer the lowest prices to me. This applies to other things that I buy. The lowest price wins. The world is ruled by rich people and many of them can and is willing to do anything to earn more money. I don't think I can do anything to change that.

[jscarbo]

Although I love to do business with small local businesses whenever possible, Amazon is an exception. I've been a customer since its founding in the mid-90's and have always had great service and prices from them. They describe themselves as being a customer-centric business and I've certainly found this to be true of my experiences with them.

I was an early adopter of ebook readers, beginning with Palm Pilot, Gemstar and Franklin Bookman in the early 90's, as well as Microsoft Reader Lit books on my PC's. Even though B&N and Sony began to popularize e-readers before Amazon introduced the Kindle, I give full credit to Amazon for the revolution in e-readers and e-books.

I'm a big fan of their Kindle and Kindle books and wish them continued success. They've earned my business and my loyalty and I can't see that changing.

[ProfCrash]

I have never had a problem with Amazon for me it is Apple.

Mind you, I own several IPod's, an IPad and an Air Book but man it was hard to buy them. It took me six months to buy the IPad and tried my hardest to buy a Galaxy instead.

For me, Apple is great because it works and it works well. That is why I have so many Apple products but the company itself and its image grates. I do think that their products are too expensive. I own them because they work but it takes me many a year to replace what I have because of the cost and even then I feel like I am taking it in the rear. I fully understand that the market can bear the price that they demand so that it is not too expensive but I just look at the price tag and grimace.

The other thing that bothers me about Apple is the cult of Apple. I don't get it. It is a company that builds a quality product but do you really need to upgrade your phone every year? Do you really need to bash people who prefer another system?

Intellectually I understand that every company has the fanboys (Sony, Nook, Kindle, Apple have all had their die hard fanboys on this site) and that those people are passionate about the product because of how well it works for them. Heck, there are people here who probably think I am an Amazon fangirl.

Intellectually I understand that the company is profitable and doing well and that the market can bear the price and restrictions that come with the products.

But for some reason, the Apple brand just drives me crazy.

And I still own a bunch of Apple products and will buy more but it just feels wrong...