Amazon Prime is a remarkable success but also dystopian. It has made convenience and speed the norm, habituating consumers to buy more products. Prime’s flywheel effect - where more customers lead to more data and scale which attracts more customers - has fueled Amazon’s dominance. Prime subscribers spend twice as much and Amazon’s value has multiplied 97 times since 2005. While canceling Prime may not hurt Amazon, it can benefit local businesses by gaining a new customer. However, Prime has rewired how people think about what is possible to obtain and how fast, making a Prime-free life unimaginable for many.
I live outside of a tiny country town in Australia, and local shops literally do not carry many of the sorts of items I need or, yes, want.
I work from home and rarely go into town, so paying twice as much and taking a day out of my life just isn’t my bag.
If I can get local and it’s not urgent, I will put together a consolidated list and go in some weekend when I have enough to make it worthwhile.
Sure, it probably makes me the devil, but unless I go move to a cabin in the woods and life a self-sustainable lifestyle, I can’t realistically avoid supporting some amount of evil just by existing under capitalism.
I try to make good choices where I can, and vote for people who, ideally, could effect real change.