Like Walmart, only with supercomputers and drones: At Amazon.com "cheap" comes at a very hefty price

[seabeckind]

15. I shop at Amazon

because it gives me easy access to products I am otherwise unable to find anywhere in the retail outlets.

The retail outlets stock and push the products that give them the most return, not necessarily the products that best meet my personal needs. Just a couple of days ago I went into a Staples looking for a particular product type to solve a problem. I had already checked the other places we get the everyday household products but they didn't carry anything like that. Turns out Staples -- which supposedly is the category of product I needed -- didn't either. I ended up with a haf-assed solution from a hardware store that I had to modify to make work.

Another example: in wiring my surround sound system I needed connectors which I could not easily find anywhere in the retail outlets. It was hit and miss.

Another example: Lighting fixtures. Tho I could use the special ordering process at one of the big box stores, the cost of doing a on-off was prohibitive. Using one of the specialty lighting stores was worse because their products were the result of contracts with certain suppliers.

I don't shop at walmart cause their products are shit. Lowest quality at the highest price.

As far as I'm concerned Amazon has found a particular niche and does it well. If their labor relations aren't proper, fix that problem. Eliminating them because of the labor relations just forces a worse problem because our choices become worse.