Microcenter price matches amazon, you could've bought it for the same price at microcenter. Also, you can try ebay, I've been buying more stuff from ebay and the experience is pretty good.
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Amazon most times has name brand stuff that isn't electronics that you can have delivered very quickly. But seriously, any device, anything with an expiration, shoes, anything that might break in transit, off brand plastic crap, and any other of the useless items amazon carries, just buy a name brand directly from the manufacturers website. You will most likely get a tested product, and when something goes wrong you can talk directly to the manufacturer support. Not amazon. Also, purely anecdotal right now, but check your bank account for amazon purchase totals that don't match you order history... I got 3 charges for $24~ in 3 days when I hadn't ordered for a week, and now I have to fight thru automation to get it fixed.
Not just tech, all over the product spectrum. They started by selling books.
A large problem is payment system and accounts. I hate going to a new shop and create a new account, a new password, bla bla bla. I hate it. And wiring with online banking is still a pain the ass, you have to enter some password into your shitty phone keyboard and then wait for an SMS... paypal and amazon payment make shopping convenient.
So part of the problem is banks who have been sleeping on the job for decades. At least here in Europe. You finally can wire money so it arrives immediately from your bank account at a shop! (without having to waste some tax on a payment provider either). But 2 factor authentication is still a pita. Where is my online bank with easy to use FIDO2?
There are now alternative popping up because amazon has become so enshittified (high prices for many smaller items and reviews etc). And of course I'm a fan of aliexpress but shipping from China is stupid too.
We definitely need to avoid a monopoly by a corporation like amazon.
Books have always been a tool for power.
Guess even in our times that's true.
And then amazon, a book seller, bought IMDB and eventually burned down the discussion section - which contained so much "secondary literature" about films. I'll never forgive them for that.
I always forget about that. Makes me sad.
Amazon has very good deals OR very bad ones. I find Microcenter often equal to or even better than Amazon in most tech stuff.
Your experience is exactly why you shouldn't make sweeping judgement on one data point.
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Photo paper isn't really tech. It's a supply.
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It's a low volume niche item.
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People that are buying it are less likely to care about cost (older) or want it right now. So Microcenter feels they can charge more. (IMO)
Have you tried buying from aliexpress? It's the same products as on Amazon, but directly from the supplier. Imagine Amazon, but everything's 50% off.
Source: I'm cheap as heck and buy random trash from them
OP wants to support the US economy more - funnelling money directly to Chinese sellers definitely won't do that and is arguably even worse than supporting Amazon (who at least employ Americans).
“OP wants to pay an American middleman to import the Chinese junk for him”
Walmart online is eating Amazon they don't have a monopoly
Walmart online is pretty good for most things. Not everything. But if I can get it on Walmart I do.... Walmart plus is pretty good. It currently comes with Paramount Plus, which doesn't show ads with my pi-hole (so far, Roku), and compared with Amazon Prime showing ads.....
Anyway fuck Amazon.
It's pretty amazing to me that a company hasanagednto become so reviled that Walmart is the better and more ethical option.
It's like Elon Musk has managed to make Mark Zuckerberg seem like a good person by comparison. Or Trump was so awful that Democrats look back and think "huh, GWB was a decent president"
You’re listing all of the reasons it’s not a monopoly - you can go almost anywhere else and buy the same good.
Therefore, I think Amazon has a literal monopoly in the tech industry right now, you're literally forced to buy from them
You literally weren’t and literally aren’t, so they’re literally not.
They have so aggressively and dominantly taken over the supply chain market that no other tech company can currently compete with them in any aspect at all.
If nobody was in competition with them, they’d be raising their prices.
Boy, do I have some bad news for you...
This article literally proves their point. When Amazon doesn’t need to compete (because other sites are indexing off their prices) they raise their prices. When they do need to compete (like in the examples OP mentioned) they keep their prices low.
“Essentially” is the load-bearing weasel word here that allows this story to blame Amazon for their competitors choosing to offer the same goods at higher prices.
"Competitors choosing" is usually considered to be price fixing, which is anti-competitive and/or monopolistic. Amazon et al aren't the only US companies guilty of this or other anti-competitive behaviors, even if they're a notable example.
I was thinking about this recently after a frustrating trip to a brick and mortar store that was missing the specific item I wanted to purchase which should have been easily available.
Has it always been this bad and we just accepted it until Amazon came around and carried most everything, or have stores significantly reduced the inventory they carry to the point where they have become practically useless except as a showroom? It extends to things I only want to purchase in store. Why do clothing and shoe stores never have my size in stock of the item I want? Clothing has become so poor in quality (even expensive stuff) and I'm hard enough to fit that unless it is an item I already have and need to replace I only want to buy stuff I can try on first.
As much as I'd like to avoid Amazon, the lack of inventory at other retailers really pushes me towards them. Why would I pay more for slow shipping from the East coast because the local store doesn't carry anything when Amazon delivers in 1-2 days for free?
I've also been really struggling recently when trying to buy items that are less than $15. Amazon often charges double what it should cost for the items, but at the same time, local stores don't carry what I'm looking for. I can find it for the right price online, but then the shipping cost makes it more expensive than Amazon.
The American consumers worship of convenience/price above all else is precisely what got us here. Just like how everyone discusses how toxic twitter is........ On Twitter.
In regards to twitter - Of course it's where everyone is, nobody will leave.
In regards to Amazon - Of course everyone else is struggling, nobody will pay $3 more to buy it from them instead of Amazon.
I'm not saying there aren't times it does end up having to be amazon or that you can't be lazy and use amazon occasionally. I have prime myself and do use it on occasion (probably wouldn't if I didn't split it with my ex though.) I AM saying nothing will ever change so long as people REFUSE to even consider their habits for a second.
It's a mix of both. When Amazon came around, stores got less traffic and had to get rid of niche products, and because shelf space was so important, there could only be so many products carried by a store.
the shipping cost makes it more expensive than Amazon.
There is a lesson there folks
That lesson/related lesson:
We cannot accept capitalism’s conception of economic relations as “free and private,” because contracts are not made among economic equals and because they give rise to social structures which undemocratically confer power upon some over others. Such relationships are undemocratic in that the citizens involved have not freely deliberated upon the structure of those institutions and how social roles should be distributed within them (e.g., the relationship between capital and labor in the workplace or men and women in child rearing).