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"NPR...reported that 'more than 1,600 digital subscriptions had been cancelled less than four hours after the news broke.'

It was a reasonable impulse. But if Bezos is indeed why the Post is no longer endorsing candidates, and if people are worried about his outsize influence on our society, they should not be canceling their newspaper subscriptions. They should be canceling their Amazon Prime subscriptions."

theatlantic.com/culture/archiv…

#1A #FirstAmendment #FreePress #journalism #boycott #USpol


Cancel Amazon Prime, Not ‘The Washington Post’

The subscription money enriching Jeff Bezos could instead be spent on the journalism crucial to preserving democracy.
Ellen Cushing (The Atlantic)
#journalism #uspol #FirstAmendment #1A #boycott #freepress

reshared this

in reply to Bích-Mây Nguyễn :verified:

bigTanuki
bigTanuki
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Amazon needs to go on the chopping block. We need an alternatives now. We need a Federating system for independent shops with a centralized shopping cart. If someone starts a fundraiser to even just look in to how to develop this I will gladly pitch in. We need to at least get the conversation going.
in reply to bigTanuki

Álvaro Herrera
Álvaro Herrera
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@bigTanuki I think that's a great idea, but in order for this to work, you need support from the (American?) legal system: currently Amazon has contracts in place to ensure it has the lowest prices in the market, and you can't beat it unless such contracts are deemed illegal, protecting consumers. @pluralistic has written about this.
@Cory Doctorow @bigTanuki
in reply to Álvaro Herrera

bigTanuki
bigTanuki
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@alvherre @pluralistic Would greatly appreciate a link to the writing by @pluralistic if you have it at hand.

Not sure if this is about lower prices. Amazon’s low prices are archived by extracting surplus value at scale. I am willing to pay more, and I feel others are willing to pay a fair price if we could buy from actual store owners (with names and faces).
I feel that what makes Amazon so sticky is the ability to find almost anything and add it to the same shopping cart.
I do not need next day delivery.
I do not need rockbottom pricing.
But the ability for federated online stores to have a shared shopping cart would potentially create an entry point for more physical stores and online stores to start joining the pool.
Some place where pimonori, t-shirt companies, bookstores and toy stores can all plug-into for discovery and for sales, in the same way I can access different blogs, academic researchers and some news sources on mastodon.
I am no genius… but there has to be a better way, and I am sure many agree that Amazon is not the answer.

@Cory Doctorow @Álvaro Herrera
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