‘Tis the season to be incredibly freakin’ busy.
December’s always been a hectic time for me. I tend to start a lot of projects in the fall that are still on my plate at the end of the year, plus I always have a lot of friends to see, and two years ago I got stuck with a ridiculous amount of holiday overtime. On top of all that, there’s a pretty important holiday in there somewhere.
Ever since I was a kid, Christmas has mattered—a lot. My family and I still do big gift exchanges, even when I’m away (I call in via Skype on Christmas morning) and during the holidays I also reach out to friends I don’t see that often, which means writing Christmas cards, mailing gifts, and a plethora of holiday texts. I don’t mind working hard to create special holiday moments for the people I care about, but this tends to take a lot of energy—and when it comes down to the wire, I’m always looking for ways to make December easier.
Amazon’s Saved My Ass Plenty of Times…But There’s Always Another Way
For the past decade or so I’ve relied primarily on Amazon as an easy way to get most or all of my Christmas gifts, especially during hectic years. Back in the day, Amazon’s countdown to Christmas timer was super-helpful in planning when to have things ordered by, and for the past few years some generous friends of mine (thanks Joe and Sara!) added me to their Prime account so I could get free shipping and order at the last-minute if I needed to…or when I just didn’t have my shit togtether.
Being abroad, Amazon also made sending Christmas gifts super-easy: I order, pay a few bucks for gift-wrapping, and have everything delivered en masse for someone to pass out on Christmas morning. Living in Japan has enough challenges as it is, so Amazon was one more way to make things easier.
The problem, though, is that in recent years I’ve found myself turning to Amazon when I could easily buy what I wanted a different way: not only has it been my go-to for online shopping, but I’ve found myself ordering things online that I used to instinctively buy from brick and mortar stores, not just because it was easier, but because I instinctively thought to buy the thing on Amazon from the get-go.
My Christmas shopping fell into that category too—I could have gone in-person shopping to buy almost all of the same things I bought on Amazon, but instead I took the easier route. We all know that back in the States holiday shopping means traffic, crowds, and wasted time when you can’t find what you need, which makes sitting at home in a nice warm room in front of your computer a more attractive option.
I’m Tired of the Amazon Monopoly and Don’t Want to Support Them Anymore
As you’ve no doubt heard already, Amazon’s become even more of a behemoth in recent years as more and more of its competitors suffer or go out of business, which means lost jobs, empty store fronts, and the collapse of local economies. The company also doesn’t pay taxes, thus depriving the government of millions of dollars that it could spend in useful ways (including paying off the national debt). I was also pretty disgusted last year when cities and states were bending over backwards to give Amazon even more tax breaks and benefits so the company would build its new headquarters in their area, showing shameless favoritism for a single, multibillion-dollar company over countless others that aren’t doing as well.
If you haven’t seen it already, I highly recommend this John Oliver expose about Amazon’s warehouse practices, which covers how the company treats its people like machines, overworking them, denying them bathroom breaks, and in general creating pretty miserable work environments. As someone who’s spent a fair bit of time rallying for better working conditions at my various jobs, I found this treatment of profits over people abhorrent.
Finally (and most relevant to me as a writer), Amazon wields far more control over the publishing industry than any one entity should ever have—with writers and other creative folks repeatedly getting the short end of the stick while Amazon makes more and more money. Not cool, guys.
The consequences of Amazon being so big are pretty simple: when consumers have fewer options about where to buy things and repeatedly turn to Amazon, Amazon then gets more power to control prices, dictate market conditions, and control norms in the publishing industry.
Imagine a world where most other physical stores and websites were out of business and 90% of products were bought and sold by a single company: Amazon. Without free market competitors to keep them in check, what’s to stop Amazon from, I don’t know, raising all their prices by 10%, 20%, or 30%? People would have no choice but to pay the new prices, and some folks would be hit hard. (By the way, Uber, another tech giant, has come out and stated their plans to put all other taxi services out of business so they can become a monopoly and do exactly that.)
How would your finances look if all of your expenses suddenly went up by 30%? What if you were a young person looking to publish a book, start a business, release an album, or create some kind of cool start-up, and literally your only option for making that happen was to crawl to Amazon and accept whatever terms they thought was fair?
I don’t like the idea of Jeff Bezos, Amazon, or any one company having that much power, and neither should you.
That’s Why I’ve Been Choosing Other Options, Including for Christmas
The more I heard about Amazon’s business practices the less I liked, so my natural impulse was to start choosing other options—of which there are many.
The first thing I stopped was buying digital movies or music from Amazon, since you can always find what you want to watch or listen to somewhere else. I ordered from Amazon.jp a few times when I first came to Japan but don’t really do that anymore either—Japan has a lot of brick and mortar stores even in small towns like mine, so it’s pretty easy to find all but the most ridiculous specialty items with just a quick bike or train ride. (Besides, missing package deliveries in Japan is mendokusai…) Even when I was back in the States in August and wanted to bring some books back with me, I bought what I could off other websites before turning to Amazon.
You already know where this is going from the post title, but here it is anyway: This year I made a big leap and won’t be using Amazon at all this Christmas. Instead, I bought some cool, unique, can-only-find-this-kind-of-thing-in-Japan gifts for my family and a handful of friends back home that I packed and mailed last week. Instead of a generic Amazon gift bag and receipt, I wanted to give people a taste of something cool they couldn’t get back home, and add more flavor to their holiday, and I feel really good knowing I could do that without giving more money to a company whose practices I despise.
Buying and sending a lot of gifts home didn’t take that much time at all (two shopping trips, plus a few hours of wrapping and a trip to the post office), but it was expensive: I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but it definitely ate through most of my flex money for the month ;-)
If you’re in a position to not use Amazon this Christmas, or to use Amazon less than you normally would, I hope you consider doing so. If you’re buying gifts online, try a different website or two: a while ago I discovered Powell’s books, an independent brick-and-mortar bookstore in Oregon that has a really impressive online selection, so I feel better knowing that my money’s going to an actual, independent business that cares more about books and the people who write them. For everything else, there’s always another online option: eBay for used stuff, Newegg for electronics, and a million other retailers that come up when you Google the thing you’re looking for.
I won’t lie: ordering off other websites or shopping at independent brick-and-mortar stores will probably cost you more money than buying off Amazon, especially if you have access to Prime. If you absolutely need to save money by buying from Amazon, I fully support you in that decision, but a lot of other people out there (including me) have enough flexibility with their income that we can afford to make moral decisions about where our money goes. It’s not always about saving a buck, it’s about putting our money toward businesses we support and keeping it away from the ones we don’t.
If, however, you’re too busy this season and feel like you need the convenience of Amazon to make your holiday a reality, I hope you consider the other things in your life that are making you busy, whether it’s your job, your hobbies, or spending too much time on social media. If you can use your existing time more efficiently and take steps to eliminate things that take up more of your time, it’s amazing how much time you can salvage for things that matter—including better shopping habits.
If you’re willing but not able to reduce the role Amazon plays in your life right now, I hope you consider doing so in the future when you have more money, more time, or more options to get the things you need. It’s also not about boycotting Amazon entirely—I, for instance, still buy Amazon eBooks for my Kindle, but I seek other options whenever possible and only turn to Amazon when I hit a brick wall. Even a little bit matters.
And with that in mind, I wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and Happy New Year—I’ll be back in January with more weekly posts, since I figured I could use a year-end break from blogging to focus on other projects ;-)
Here’s hoping you also have a productive end of the year—your time matters, so use it well!
If you’re already following me on social media, it makes a great Christmas gift…
But I Also Have a Day Job on Facebook
My Instagram where I post cool pics from Japan
For a great place to buy used books, try mtwyouth.org . More Than Words is a Boston-based organization helping at risk youth by providing jobs and valuable life skills. They have 2 brick-and-mortar stores as well as a pretty impressive online inventory of books that ship within 24 hours. I feel like it’s a pretty worthy replacement for Amazon :)