So I wanted a copy of the board game Carcassonne as it’s a game I’ve played with friends before and loved. For things like this I (like many others) would gravitate towards Amazon.
But after some research I found that my local board game cafe sells copies of the game cheaper than anywhere online. Yesterday I popped by, grabbed a copy and had a nice chat with the owner about the game and their favourite expansions. This was a significantly better experience than buying the game online from a soulless corporation, and my money has gone to an great local company rather than a billionaire. Why did we give up the joy of shopping locally and in-person for convenience?
Similarly I was looking out for a black denim jacket in my size. Instead of going to a big clothing retailer I checked out some charity shops, and I found exactly what I wanted for a fraction of the price with the money going towards charity.
Going forward I’m going to avoid Amazon and any big American companies wherever possible. Hopefully others will do the same :)
the experience is not even comparable. i see a lot of people buying clothes online without much of a fuss but for me it’s difficult to comprehend. like ok you buy without knowing if its your size just because you can send it back and change it? you risk needing send it back and wait days and days just to save a few euros?(and not in all cases) its not even convenient at this point. the thing that keep sites like amazon big is that on some products, especially electronics, their prices are hard to beat for a small business or even a big one that has physical stores. also people dont even bother anymore to go out and see if the product they need is sold by some shops in town, they go straight to amazon or some shit because they automatically assume it will be cheaper and i guess they became addicted to the dopamine of receiving the package you were waiting for. i always tend to cheap out on electronics and the prices of amazon always had an edge over physical store. but since i started buying used or refurbished there is no way i go back. for my chromebook i used mediaworld refurbished and got a good deal. sadly for things like clothes my city lacks in second hands shops so for now im stuck with vinted but its a step at the time i guess. wish we can go back when you used internet just to buy very niche things. (and also learn to buy used more)
Oh yeah for sure - buying clothes online really isn’t fun. I dread to think how much energy and effort is wasted shipping these items back and forth when someone buys something online and then returns it. I think to some extent the modern internet has trained people to leave everything until the last minute and rely on fast shipping. Rather than plan to physically visit a store a few days in advance, things are done online the day beforehand using a vastly inferior system.
It’s worse than that — a lot of returned stuff ends up in landfill because it’s not worth the cost of re-stocking it.
You’re right, also i think it normalised the will to skip human interactions. Yeah i get sometime the retail workers can be a bit annoying but it’s normal and healthy to interact with other human beings and we shouldn’t convice ourselfed that we can lock us behind a screen to avoid it.