Ah, Amazon dot all-is-never-calm. Because it’s true what they say: The more you eat, the hungrier you get. With people, eating begets eating (thus the obesity epidemic). With corporations, jonesing money begets jonesing money (thus, in Amazon’s case, the something-silly profits).
I’ve already complained about Amazon’s insatiable appetite on these pages, especially as seen through its recent acquisition of Goodreads, a place I’ve been hanging out in since shortly after its inception, but I won’t let that stop me.
This week I received an e-mail from Amazon stating that its Prime program was going up $2 a month (apparently their profits had dropped from “ridiculous” to merely “spectacular”).
This on the heels of Goodreads’ “Giveaway” program going pay-to-play, meaning authors like me would have to pony up $119 for the right to post one of my books in the “Giveaway” program.
Ah, no. No on both counts. I’m done with “Giveaways,” both in entering my books from a writer’s perspective and in entering my name to win from a reader’s perspective. I’m also done with Prime.
But enough with using up real estate HERE on the matter. I decided instead to post my argument and raison d’être (French for “raisins forever”) over at my other blog, New England States, where I haven’t posted anything since the Rutherford B. Hayes Administration, seems. Why? Because I’ve been so busy living, breathing, writing, and reading poetry over here.
Amazing, isn’t it? Dot and calm, too.
6 thoughts on “Amazon, Again. Still.”
Amazon isn’t even a company any more, it seems more the way things have become & habit is a very difficult thing to change. Google likewise. The problem is, these companies are founded by men who despite the sweat shops, the low wages & all the criticisms, actually believe their company-cum-the-way-things-have-become, are for the good of all mankind. It is a form of philanthropy unprecedented in history. i imagine what Dickens would have to say about, philanthropists usually got a bad rap in his book, think of Mrs Jellyby in Bleak House neglecting her own children. Jeff Bezos neglecting his troglodyte work force in the cavernous warehouses of his empire.
Well said. And I’ve yet to read BLEAK HOUSE. Given my mood these days (politics “Trump” happiness), the last thing I need is a book with the word “Bleak” in the title….
Not a bleak book though. It is often funny. Well it is everything. A really great novel.
Duly noted. Thanks!
When, I heard about Whole Foods, I just felt enraged. Amazon, you don’t get to own EVERYTHING. I detest empire building and use Amazon much less than I used to. I never really liked Goodreads—it’s a clumsy site—and am hoping that this latest effort to milk writers produces a worthy competitor.
Funny how, the week of the Whole Paycheck acquisition, the news was prices were going down and the price of avocados was used as evidence. Latest: Even avocados have returned to their gargantuan guacamole levels. Bezos doesn’t jump into games to lose a buck, that’s for sure.