amazon killed my account the other day because i tried to buy a gift card for my friend while i was traveling abroad. it was legitimate. they refused to reopen the account and suggested i make a new one.

i bought a $500 prepaid amazon gift card for cash and made a new account with a new email.

guess which account also got suspended today.

@sneak Friends don't let friends use Amazon. Getting an account locked and told off by support when there's no real reason it should be closed, should've been a trigger to stop giving them your money.

@doenietzomoeilijk thanks for this helpful reply, it just so happens i love going to the supermarket in person to buy soap during a pandemic, i will change my ways immediately

@sneak @doenietzomoeilijk are there no other online businesses that sell soap? Has Amazon successfully created it's monopoly already?

In the Netherlands there are numerous small and large ecommerce and deliveries that sell and send to your front door and are not Amazon. Not sure if that is unique though.

@berkes @doenietzomoeilijk soap was just the example, the reason i'm on there is for the million other items that are available with free shipping and one click. it's the everything store and most of everything will arrive tomorrow. there is absolutely nothing comparable to it here or there and it's not a matter of monopoly, it's a matter of scale/size/reach. (not saying they didn't use anticompetitive practices to get to this point, but they are now here)

@berkes @doenietzomoeilijk and i refuse to handicap myself in the name of activism, that's a way to become slow and useless.

@sneak @doenietzomoeilijk to summarize: you do business with a company known for being hostile to its users, then complain they are being hostile to their users. But refuse to handicap yourself in name of activism. Instead let that company be hostile to you and handicap you.

And when someone points this out, you show that the company isn't hostile to its users but actually the very best company to do business with? Is that an apt summary of your problem?

@berkes @sneak @doenietzomoeilijk

The "just move away from america if you don't like it" argument.

Or just "change to another oligopolic cell phone carrier bro' argument.

@surfingalot No.For one, because there is no oligopoly here. It's perfectly doable, even in the US, to order stuff online without going through amazon.

It may not be as convenient or as "lazy" (in the good way) but isn't hard either. As pointed out by Sneak himself in the long follow-up-thread.

It's nothing like "living in a country" because you cannot pick-and-choose. But with Amazon/Etsy/Shopify/Ebay/mom-pop-woocommerce/wallmart you can.

@berkes @surfingalot etsy blocks vpns. shopify doesn't carry most things i need. ebay is paypal and blocks all my payment cards because i closed my paypal account. mom-and-pop woocommerce don't carry the things i need. walmart is walmart.

got any other bright ideas?