http://blog.dantup.me.uk/2007/08/blogging-creating-better-ad-system-with_9334.html

People are being duped into using Amazon and you realize it or not, you are aiding in thos Scott.

It’s really too bad that soooooo many people are just voting on the side they think you would like them to be on, rather than truly understanding the issue on hand.

Very disappointing. The poll results show how easy it is to dupe the American public, even those that ‘think’ they are in the know.

scott as u know i’ve tried to post more information in this thread re: amazon and the related corporate consolidation/partnerships dilemmas in general… i still don’t know why it’s not posting and will have to come back to this conversation cause b/c i am too busy preparing a show for tonight at New College about VIRTUAL MIGRATIONs … u can read about it on my site linked above.

there’s really some serious information you and the LS community should know and continue debating not just about amazon, but the environments thru which technology (via these type of companies) are shaping (or mangling?) our culture.

best,pod

ps. maybe its the links that are obstructing my posts so i will just add , if u search for :

princeton university campus greens amazon

you will begin to understand the underbelly.

This whole thing is getting really old.

Amazon is not the only game in town. If you want to support locally owned independent bookstores, and you want the convenience of online ordering, and you want to save shipping charges by picking the book up at a real store, there are many options, In this day and age, successful independents (and there are plenty) are adapting to change and to customer desires on a regular basis. Plus, they reinvest in their communities in ways that chains and online retailers don’t.

Amazon may still be the first choice of many, but please don’t leave people with the mistaken impression that it is basically the only choice.

Second, Amazon is certainly convenient, but so are the online presences of independents like Books Inc., Kepler’s, Book Passage, The Boosmith…the list goes on. All of these stores offer online ordering and shipping to eitheer your home or office, or to the bookstore for pick-up. And guess what? Everyone uses the same publishers and distributors to order books from, so we get the books from the same places that Amazon does. You don’t think Amazon has a big warehouse with every book in print, do you?

And while some authors may like Amazon’s service, I can promise you that many others are not happy about Amazon’s policy of offering used copies of their titles right next to the new copies. The used copy may make more money for Amazon, but it also cheat sthe author out a royalty, since royalties aren’t paid on used books. Amazon also is known for trying to wrangle better discounts out of small publishers by threatening not to list their titles if they don’t get a better deal than anyone else. Hey, that’s capitalism, right? Actually, not right — there are laws that say companies can’t sell products at significantly different discounts to one supplier over another. So Amazon is soliciting deals that are probably illegal.They also purposely avoid collecting sales tax in California (also illegal, but that’s another subject). That’s a great deal for all you shoppers — almost a 10% savings right off that bat. It has also cost the state literally hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue, so keep that $5 “savings” in mind when you pay more for city services, parking meters, public transportations, and the like.

With all that said, I’m not advocating you give up Amazon or chain store shopping. They serve a purpose and sometimes fill a need. What I am asking folks to consider is the local alternative as well, and hopefully first. As far as going into business with Amazon with your own store, you need to decide what’s best for you. At least you now have some more information.

Personally, my two favorite types of stores are good tobacconists (with walk in humidors) and used bookstores. I patronize both as often as possible. Like most people in today’s fast moving world, my leisure time for such luxuries as perusing rare books is limited. If I need a book, sometimes going on Amazon is the only way to find it. I love Powell’s too and know it well. I have an old friend (a ruthless prankster, no less) who has toiled away in the labyrinthine stacks there for decades. If their book ordering program is as comprehensive, as convenient and as economical as Amazon’s then perhaps using it would be an option.

On another note, comparing Amazon to Halliburton is another silly blow to civillity that online communication seems to encourage. They are part of an inexorable lunge into an unseen future that we can’t know til we’re in it. They’re not Nazis and with the prices they often provide to book buyers, they must be a godsend to some low-income, remotely located readers.

Times change. For me, the loss of the nearly twenty-five reperatory movie houses that adorned Market St., Mission St, and Frisco’s varied neighborhoods in the 70’s and 80’s was a deeply sad blow. I almost lived in some of those magical dark rooms: the Richelieu Theater on Geary played only B&W Noir films, The York on 24th St.- triple bills of Hitchcock, Polanski and others, The El Rey on Ocean – now a giant evangelical church & my favorite: The Embassy on Market, next door to the equally wonderful Strand Theater. The Embassy opened at ten in the morning and for $1 you could stay til past midnight. Many people did. You were handed 4 lottery type tickets along with your entrance ticket -these you hung onto til later. Their programming was the best. It was by title and assumed genre. That or it was completely random. A typical bill would be “Snake Fist Fighter” (early Jackie Chan) with “Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia” and “Love Story!” I would sit in the balcony smoking cigars and watching the amazing bills along with a big contingent of the cities unseen shopping cart populace. At 8PM they’d bring out the big wheel onstage and spin it, a few lucky wino’s would win $2-20 or so bucks. I won $4 dollars once. It was fabulous.
My point? All those wonderful places are gone due to changes in technology. It’s a shame, but inevitable.

Some independent bookstores (mostly in large metropolitan areas & college towns) will survive with the support of those who of us who need them. The overhead for operating such a business is considerably less than running a decrepit old theater with reperatory fare. I love these places: Borderland’s on Valencia is my favorite; Green Apple, Dog Eared, Black Oak, the remaining Cody’s, Shakespeare, etc. Patronize them all. In the mean time, if promoting books by Hal Robins, Charles Gatewood, Re/Search etc, on Amazon exposes these writers and publishers to worlds of new readers, them it can’t be entirely a bad thing.

Chad, and what is Powell’s doing in return for people like Scott and I and others who choose to promote artists online? Are they paying Scott a referral fee? Are they paying me a referral fee? Are they in any way supporting the online efforts that might suggest them as an option? Is it that local small blogs and websites are not important enough for them or is it that they’d prefer to keep all of the profit themselves.

And what about things that are not sold at Powells? Is it up to the blogger to try to create a hodgepodge of places to build a store that won’t pay him referral fees?

I have no problem with Powells, but if they want to build the infrastructure for an online store with referral fees then I’m sure they’d be considered.

Trust me on this one, if more of us drive business to the local bookstores instead of amazon, we can hold onto the few we have left even longer!

And if the local bookstore can build a competitive referral program for people like Scott and other small community bloggers then we can also hold onto the few samll internet site operators we have even longer. But to expect Scott to refer this traffic and that there is no responsibility for the small independent stores to in turn support his operation is not right.

Amazon built a product that works, that pays a fair referral fee, that is comprehensive and complete and offers the small blogger or site a way to help sustain their long term viability. When something else is more compelling let me know.

PPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

I agree with everything D.S. Black said, only in a slightly less elegant format. As Mr. Black has invoked Godwin’s Law I hereby declare myself out of this discussion.

Re Simone…would love to hear from Stewart Brand on this.

I also think you are probably correct that local bookstores clear more money than Scott does on his amazon store. Was that in question here? If they didn’t, they likely would be closed. Trust me on this one, if more of us drive business to the local bookstores instead of amazon, we can hold onto the few we have left even longer!

This fractious and even Jacobin discussion has I think unfairly maligned Scott and his business for offering convenient one-stop shopping using a consolidator (Amazon) as middleman.

Conscientious and principled shoppers can still order direct, and may be provided links with which to do so. Purists retort that any traffic through Amazon is at the expense of local business…and that certainly is true.

BUYERS BEWARE for your consumer choices do have consequences. How many shoppers are able to face, unflinching, the Naked Lunch that is at the end of their money-fork? Too few! Is it LS’s job to compel them to make the “right” choice? Obviously that is in part what this debate is about.

If sales that otherwise would not occur are effected via the Amzaon virtual storefront, then I don’t see why Scott should be faulted for offering it. If a better mousetrap is built by someone who is demonstrably more in or of this community, then I trust they will get fair consideration for their service.

As a meme-scholar, this exchange has enlightened me on one point: Halliburton has become the new Hitler variant in Godwin’s Law. (Anyone care to update the entry in Wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin’s_Law )

One argument for buying local that nobody’s made yet here is that locally produced goods have a lower carbon impact. It would be great if we could find ways to make our economy more local, as this would lower carbon emissions. I’m in favor of that.

But I’m a realist too. It would also be great if http://sfloma.org/ had an affiliate program so that people who send business to local merchants, like Scott, could get a commission for that. All the bellyaching about why we *should* buy locally will go nowhere if there’s not a strong incentive for people to do it.