Today I canceled my Amazon Prime subscription.

Why? · As I wrote in Not an Amazon Problem (and please go read that if you haven’t) I don’t see myself as an enemy of Amazon, particularly. I think the pressures of 21st-century capitalism have put every large company into a place where they really can’t afford to be ethical or the financial sector will rip them to shreds then replace the CEO someone who will maximize shareholder return at all costs, without any of that amateurish “ethics” stuff.

To the extent that Amazon is objectionable, it’s a symptom of those circumstances.

I’m bailing out of Prime not to hurt Amazon, but because it doesn’t make commercial or emotional sense for me just now.

Commercial? · Yes, free next-day delivery is pretty great. In fact, in connection with our recent move, I’ve been ordering small cheap stuff furiously: (USB cables, light switches, closet organizers, a mailbox, a TV mount, WiFi hubs, banana plugs, you name it).

But the moving operations are mostly done, and there are few (any?) things we really need the next day, and we’re fortunate, living in the center of a 15-minute city. So getting my elderly ass out of my chair and going to a store is a good option, for more than one reason.

Second, for a lot of things you want to order, the manufacturer has its own online store these days and a lot of them are actually well-built, perfectly pleasant to use.

Third, Amazon’s prices aren’t notably cheaper than the alternatives.

Emotional? · Amazon is an US corporation and the US is now hostile to Canada, repeatedly threatening to annex us. So I’m routing my shopping dollars away from there generally and to Canadian suppliers specifically. Dumping Prime is an easy way to help that along.

Second, shopping on Amazon for the kinds of small cheap things listed above is more than a little unpleasant. The search-results page is a battle of tooth and claw among low-rent importers. Also it’s just really freaking ugly, hurts my eyes to look at it.

Really? I have no idea what they were.

Finally, one of Prime’s big benefits used to be Prime Video, but no longer. There was just no excuse for greenlighting that execrable Rings of Power show, and I’m not aware of anything else I want to watch.

Amazon is good at lots of things, but has never been known for good taste. I mean, look at that search-results page.

Yep.

Is it easy? · Yep, no complaints. There were only two please-don’t-go begs and neither was offensive.

No hard feelings.