Boycotting Amazon?

April 17, 2009 in Books | View Comments

Image representing Amazon as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase

I’ve heard murmurings of an Amazon.com boycott circulating the internets. I’m skeptical. For one thing, I’m not sure it’s at all feasible. I, personally, order tons of stuff from Amazon, and not just books either. Morality aside, Amazon has made itself pretty useful to me.

In any case, I don’t think an Amazon boycott is going to be a widespread phenomenon. The American Booksellers Association came out with a statement about the whole debacle earlier this week. Apparently, the law forbids an organized group boycott, so they’re stepping back and encouraging booksellers to do what they feel is right.

Personally, I’m a little torn. I don’t agree with what Amazon has done, but they’ve supposedly corrected the “error” now. It could be that I’m just trying to justify my unwillingness to find less convenient vendors… I wouldn’t put it past me.

What do you think? Are you going to boycott? Do you think anyone will, or should? Do you think it would make any impact at all? Would it hurt authors more than help them?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

No related posts.

  • I'm waiting for an official public statement from Amazon (as opposed to the widespread distribution of emails they sent to individuals) before I pass judgment, but I might not buy from them until I hear one. I will need to buy some books in the near future, but I'm currently leaning towards traipsing down to B&N. I love the notion of supporting independent booksellers but there's just not one convenient to our part of town. (The Regulator is the only one I know of and I'm just not going to go that far out of my way, which I suppose shows my moral flexibility.)
  • I'm posting a list of independent booksellers in the area on Monday, but I think The Regulator is probably still the closest. All the authors in my romance writers chapter love Quail Ridge on Wade Ave in Raleigh, which is only about 20 or 25 minutes from our part of town.
  • But it involves driving in Raleigh. Yuck.
  • Just a tiny little bit of Wade Ave. Barely Raleigh at all, really. It's almost right as you get off the freeway.
  • I'd believe the glitch answer a lot better if a) there wasn't official emails from amazon customer service saying certain products were being banned b) some items had lost their listing back in Feb.

    Now, I'm torn about the whole thing. I didn't like Amazon's strong arm tactics on POD books and now this mess. But they are the cheapest place to get a lot of items and I don't have to get off my b*tt to buy anything when a couple of clicks will do. I used to buy from Buy.com but then Amazon got serious about the competition, dropped prices and buy.com's were no longer the cheapest. In face they are more expensive now.

    So I have gone back to buying from the evil big company and in my naivety hope that Amazon corporate will see the light and be the nice company we all want them to be while I save a ton of money. :)
  • This whole thing just seems... silly. There are no facts known about what happened besides what Amazon has admitted happened and what internet hysteria decided happened. A boycott? Please. I'm all about Amazon Prime. :)
  • Fair enough, I say. It's true, we don't really know anything for sure. Maybe it was just a "ham-fisted clerical error," like they say. I really hope it was... I have to kind of doubt that though.

    But, yeah, like I said, a boycott doesn't really seem like a good idea.

  • Yes, I’m STILL blogging about #amazonfail. I know, I’m lame. The party’s over. Get over it. Stop beating the dead horse. http://bit.ly/VYFLa


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

blog comments powered by Disqus