Without getting into a rant, let’s just say I really dislike Amazon. I don’t boycott them, (it is nearly impossible) but I look for ways not to send money to them. I don’t want to take up time explaining or arguing that moral stance here.
The problem I have is that many books from authors I want to read are exclusively on Amazon and no place else. So effectively, if I want to read certain books there seems to be no other choice but to pay Amazon and feed that gruesome machinery.
I don’t mind giving money to authors. It makes me very happy to support them.
I guess I’m left with these options:
- Just buy the books from Amazon. (BTW, I will also need to buy a Kindle and something like Calibre or ePubor to be able to read these books in LingQ.)
- Contact authors directly to work out some kind of special deal.
- Do illegal dark web stuff that I won’t post about here. And also find some way to donate/pay the author.
I guess that’s it. Those are the options, right?
Sigh.
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I feel the same way, but as you say, it’s impossible to avoid shopping there sometimes, as they are becoming like the old coal towns’ company store - they are often the only ones that I can find that are selling an item I need, or they’re the cheapest. I wish there were more local bookstores, but Amazon has killed them all, and my library never seems to have what I want, and often the books aren’t available to order from another library in the system.
Amazon even does groceries now. It’s crazy! It seems like one day every store will be Amazon.
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You know, I thought about it further.
And I realized that I would be happier if I just don’t buy books from Amazon. There isn’t any book that is so incredibly special that I must have it.
So I’ll just get books from non-Amazon sources. This means that I’ll read a bunch of stuff that isn’t very good and stop reading midway through the first chapter. (That’s been my experience with stores like Lektu.) But maybe also I discover and support some lesser-known authors along the way.
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The world and his dog wants to buy items cheaply, and Amazon usually scratches that itch. I used to buy books on Amazon, then I discovered that I can buy used books on eBay. Those described as excellent have thus far always been almost like new, maybe one page creased, or a dust cover with wear. I see worse in high street bookshops.
My local bookshop is a chain, I doubt they’re any better than Amazon. And they engage in suppressing books that express opinions they disagree with.
I you have an Amazon account, then you will also be able to log into local Amazon sites like https://www.amazon.de or https://www.amazon.fr to purchase forign books and get them shipped to your country. I consider this as a great advantage. For local book, I always go to my local shop in my village.
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