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'I Tried to Block Amazon From My Life. It Was Impossible.' (gizmodo.com)
Kashmir Hill, a reporter at Gizmodo, spent weeks trying to avoid and block Amazon -- and every service that is owned by Amazon or uses Amazon's web services (AWS). She went to great lengths such as getting her own custom-built VPN. Turns out, it is impossible to keep Amazon off your life. An excerpt from the report: Launched in 2006, AWS has taken over vast swaths of the internet. My VPN winds up blocking over 23 million IP addresses controlled by Amazon, resulting in various unexpected casualties, from Motherboard and Fortune to the U.S. Government Accountability Office's website. (Government agencies love AWS, which is likely why Amazon, soon to be a corporate Cerberus with three "headquarters," chose Arlington, Virginia, in the D.C. suburbs, as one of them.) Many of the smartphone apps I rely on also stop working during the block.
The leasing office might have the Hub by Amazon installed to accept packages on your behalf. Similar to an Amazon Locker, it accepts packages from any carrier and available only to residents. Works quite well for preventing stolen packages.
If she really wanted to be cut off from Amazon, or any company for that matter, its pretty simple. Buy a log cabin in the woods with no power, no internet, cell connectivity, at least 30 miles away from any neighbor. Then Amazon will completely disappear from your life. Of course this presents other problems.
Seriously why are you trying so hard to block one company or anything they touch? Afraid you'll get cooties? You want all the modern amenities there are things you'll just have to accept. I'm not saying to swallow the Kool-Aid and just go with it, just realize that at some point you are doing business with a company you may not agree with. You can minimize your contact, but you can't really prevent it. Well, I guess there is that log cabin option, but I'm betting thats not an option for you either.
Article summary;
1. I block Amazon and Amazon AWS cloud sites
2. I discover how lazy I am - Think about the drudgery of going to a physical store to buy paper towels
3. I discover how much free data I feed Amazon - $3k+ spent yearly on Amazon.com
4. I discover how much I'm addicted to voice activated assistants - echo
5. I discover I buy most video streaming entertainment from Amazon
6. I have Amazon apps on my phone
7. I need a fitness tracker app or smart watch to jog in the park
Simply cut the cord, one by one, to reduce your Amazon footprint. Not hard to do. Go to a physical store, it will reduce what you buy since there is physical work involved in transporting it to your home.
For sanity checking:
a. Count the number of interactions via text message, email, app popup, notifications, beeps, etc per day - say X per day
b. Consider if you got that X interactions all in one avenue - say email each day
c. Ask yourself, would a sane person read and respond to X emails per day? Or read 50 newspapers per day? Or make/receive hundreds of phone calls each day?
Just because it's easier to respond to a digital interaction does not mean you need to have that interaction.
Yeah!
Like when the government drove up the price on all those interstate highways that private individuals built before the big Eisenhower program nationalized them.
Seriously, capitalism doesn't solve all problems. It's usually a significant part of the good solutions, but to pretend it's the only answer is disingenuous at best.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
I live in Wisconsin. There are no toll roads in Wisconsin. Milwaukee finished the Marquette interchange with no tolls installed. They are finishing the Zoo interchange and again no tolls. In Madison, the beltline highway work is moving west with no tolls installed. One part of the Verona road project finished with no tolls second part is finishing up with no tolls. These interchanges/arteries are the have the most traffic in each of their respective cities. In Illinois, most roads are toll free as well unless you are near or in Chicago.
I went to Missouri to see the solar eclipse. On the way through Illinois, I think there were two tolls. No tolls in Missouri. When visiting friends in Tennessee, I encountered no tolls in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio or Tennessee. I've never seen a toll in Iowa, Minnesota, Alabama, Georgia or Florida.
That is a whole lot of highway with only a few tolls in only one of twelve. Of course things may have changed somewhat since my travels but a majority of them have been within a decade. Where do you live?