How to Resist Amazon and Why
The Fight for Local Economics, Data Privacy, Fair Labor, Independent Bookstores, and a People-Powered Future
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Average rating3.9
When a company's workers are literally dying on the job, when their business model relies on preying on local businesses and even their own vendors, when their CEO is the richest person in the world while their workers make low wages with impossible quotas... wouldn't you want to resist? Danny Caine, owner of Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas has been an outspoken critic of the seemingly unstoppable Goliath of the bookselling world: Amazon. In this book, he lays out the case for shifting our personal money and civic investment away from global corporate behemoths and to small, local, independent businesses. Well-researched and lively, his tale covers the history of big box stores, the big political drama of delivery, and the perils of warehouse work. He shows how Amazon's ruthless discount strategies mean authors, publishers, and even Amazon themselves can lose money on every book sold. And he spells out a clear path to resistance, in a world where consumers are struggling to get by. In-depth research is interspersed with charming personal anecdotes from bookstore life, making this a readable, fascinating, essential book for the 2020s.
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My local bookstore did a promotion giving away the print version of this book on indie bookstore day. I walked down just to get it and say hi.
Fun fact the print is really small, so I tracked down the ebook from the publisher, and bought that. The paperback will be gifted to help spread the word.
I've been leery of Amazon for a while, and seeing how things work as an author only re-inforced my worries.
Danny's words resonated and helped push me further from giving amazon my money.
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader as part of a quick takes post, the point of which is to catch up on my “To Write About” stack—emphasizing pithiness, not thoroughness..
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This is a no-holds barred critique (screed?) against Amazon—their business practices, the way they treat employees, the way they deal with governments, their security products...and just about everything else. It's also a call to arms against the giant.
I have a lot of sympathies for Caine's positions and desires—and agree with most of them. I also follow some of the practices he espouses (not as many as I want, but hey...I'm on a budget).
Still, I'm not sure the megastore is a super-villain—it may resemble one, very closely. As much as we might want it to be.
Read this—blanch at some of it—but take it with a grain of salt.
Probably not actually a 5-star book, but I liked it enough to want to give it 5 on Amazon-owned goodreads. Time to try storygraph, I suppose.
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