I suspect that's partly the problem. From personal experience, I buy less stuff from Amazon that I otherwise would for several reasons:
1. Their prices have been going up. They are often no longer competitive for many items. Movies uses to always be discounted, and now they like to try to charge full price sometimes. Same for toys. Marketplace sellers are often prices HIGHER than Amazon's prices or are selling a used movie for $1 less than Amazon. Why bother.
2. It's almost impossible to find non-crap products in many categories. Lots of Chinese garbage, counterfeit products or they just just don't have what I want. Plus lots of sellers aren't authorized resellers for items, so no warranty. Try searching for furniture or batteries.
3. Their search is increasingly showing what they want you to buy, not what I actually want to buy. Other sites let me drill down to what I want faster, even if they do cost more, I don't want to spend hours finding a product.
The net result is that I've been using eBay and BH Photo more and more. To my office, BH Photo typically delivers next day for free. That's better than Amazon's two day and prices are almost always the same. eBay can certainly be sketchy, but prices are typically lower and they have more items.
That is a risk with Disney, since they have become rather money grubbing of late. I plan on subscribing to their service, but if they play the vault game, I will not continue.
Everyone wants a direct customer relationship. That's the hotness these days, and licensing to Netflix wound't give them that. That's why everyone who tries to work with Apple ends up not doing so, since Apple won't tell them anything about the customer.
I've subscribed to Netflix since they were DVD only. They have enough original content that I keep them. I tried CBS and it sucked. Hulu hans't much better, but that was a while ago. I have Prime, but their UI is so pathetic that I really don't watch anything. I may end up with Disney + or whatever they call it, but that will max me out.
Indeed, my local company will take HDPE wide-mouth jugs, but absolutely nothing else made of HDPE. I'm sure there is a reason for it, but the result is that it makes the entire process seem overly complicated and arbitrary.
Our local grocery store will do paper, but they their paper bags are so thin that they then proceed to put a plastic bag around the paper one. No exaggeration. I didn't even know how to respond when they did that.
Even Amazon has starting using non-recyclable plastic mailers instead of boxes for most stuff I get these days. Less labor, and they take up less space on their trucks.
I live outside of Philadelphia. Our recycling bins have pictures of what is valid with one prominent picture saying no bags. Yet my neighbor continues to place all recycling in shopping bags. Many guests we've had over think any plastic goes in the recycling bin. Takeout food container, sure! Used cup, sure! Straws, sure! Used paper towels, too, since they are paper.
Seems pretty hopeless unless the trash people just stop picking up contaminated recycling bins.There'd be a huge outcry and likely violence if they started fining people, but you can just not pick stuff up. However, due to the changes in China, they had to add a charge for recycling now. Naturally, some people just dropped the recycling and now toss it all in the trash.
But, the incinerators have to be relatively clean, so I'm fine with just burning it at this point. Take the metal and glass, and burn the rest. Seems like we could then "recycle" all plastic.
Facebook has a long history of quoting a fake low amount when something bad happens, then later revising it substantially upward after some of the new dies down. They are morally bankrupt, but people really just don't care.
They were caught doing shady things, and so to avoid the consequences they'll just declare bankruptcy? Hopefully the new judge will be a little skeptical of this.
I have an LG 4K player and I'm very happy with it. Especially how quickly it will start playing after inserting a disc. It's super fast and just works. I picked it up on sale for like $80.
There is no future for GameStop, that's what they meant when they can't find a buyer. The company has been running on fumes for years. There's no value in anything they do. I'm surprised they've held on this long. Late 2017 had articles about them being doomed, and I'm honestly surprised they are still operating.
There's just no way they can pivot to doing anything else useful. The secondary market is effectively gone and if you have to download the game anyway, you might as well just pay for it online.
Going forward, any game publishers sending them inventory will never get paid.
Their search does suck, They include random crap in any search list. I'd believe a lot of that is the fault of their "merchants" but it makes for a poor experience. That leads to the biggest thing I'd like to see, and that is a setting to exclude non-Amazon sellers in all searches. Most merchants that I encounter are selling counterfeit or garbage.
Same here. Every time I seem my packaging going out AMZL, I cringe. They are incredibly inept. Although they did better for this holiday season that I was expecting, given all the errors leading up to it. It was a comedy of errors:
1. Delivered to a "mail room" at my business, when we don't have one, or to some other fictional destination. 2. Lost in transit. (Happens once a quarter to me, at least.) Sometimes they show up, which is funny. They typically say "just keep it" since they had already refunded my money. 3. Damaged, often times because they tossed a heavy item in with a fragile one and didn't put in any padding. 4. Sent the wrong item or wrong number of items, e.g. a movie set that came with the last movie in the series, but not the other 6. 5. Arrived several days late. One delivery person said, when asked, "it wouldn't fit in the truck." It was 7 days late "prime". 6. Trying to deliver a package to a business at 8pm. We are open 24/7 so they just lie and say we weren't open, but that's just poor planning. 7. I have their vans on camera driving by the building, seeing that they'd have to get out of the van, and keep going. They note that the "business was closed" since they'd have to use the intercom and they likely are already way behind. 8. Items that never technically shipped, but ended up being delivered. This one confuses me the most.
Too prone to error. A time of flight calculation would work. Of you are outside of, say, 10 feet, you can't unlock the car. Apple does this when unlocking a Mac with an Apple Watch. I'm sure it's not trivial, but it's certainly possible.
I think it's more that trucks and SUVs are protected by tariffs, so the Japanese brands make them in the US competing with the other US brands. But they can do it cheaper without all the legacy stuff. Cars aren't protected, so it's cheaper to import and US brands can't compete. Sure they tried making them in Mexico, but quality dropped and people stopped buying them.
Many non-American brands make vehicles in the US, e.g. Honda, BMW, Toyota, etc. For SUVs they can get around some tariffs by doing so, plus it costs more to ship huge SUVs across the Pacific. I just got an Acura SUV that was made in Ohio.
If I had mod points, I'd mod you up. I also have a system that uses SMS text to send alert notifications to volunteer firefighters. If a carrier decides to block what I send, there is literally no point of contact to resolve the issue.
We send texts for our business and have had the same problem. We had like 500 clients call Verizon and complain. We finally got a point of contact back then to unblock us. That's about the only way. Other than using some short code service, which they don't block for spam.
I have FiOS as well, and I'm not sure they are better. Their DVRs are pathetic, although I haven't tried the new ones. They charge $24/mo for a basic DVR. That's highway robbery. $5/mo for my old router that was advertised as "free" when I got it. No thanks. I had to return it, too, or they'd charge me for my "free router." I had a free for life DVR, too, but that ended. Apparently "for life" means "until we get tired of it."
They charge $5/mo for CableCards and set the copy once bit on many channels so you can't use anything other than TiVo for recording many channels. I'd leave them, but Comcast only offers "up to" 10 mbps upload speed on their internet, which is useless for my needs (vs 50 for FiOS.)
Their web site is super slow and ends up with "internal server error" messages all the time. I'm amazed they are still around. They clearly aren't investing in their service.
I'm sure Facebook wants kids from all ages, genders and races to become mindless drones that give away their privacy for precious little in return.
Soon, we'll be hearing stiff like this, "Teacher, your pupils have not been actively engaging with Facebook sufficiently to ensure timely deliveries of educational supplies. Please encourage your children to not be left behind."
If the collateral is wiped out so is the loan; the insurance benefits the bank, which is why the bank forces you to pay for it.
That's not how it works. If you have a mortgage, then the lender will be listed as a "loss payee". They will get their money FIRST before you get a single dime. Then you will likely need to take out another loan to build a replacement house.
But many people don't get actual replacement cost plans with code upgrades. So they won't pay you the difference to upgrade the house to existing building codes which is required to actually build a new house. These costs can be substantial if your locality decides that your area floods a lot and you need to put in a mound to build upon.
Standard homeowners insurance policies don't include war/terrorism, earthquakes, and flooding. There's separate insurances for some of those.
There is a problem here - normal users don't understand how URLs work and many malicious sites continually attempt to trick them into believing they're on a site they're not.
I think, more to the point, is that Socialism, Communism and dictatorships have been all shown to be WORSE for the environment. Either you fall into the Tragedy of the Commons or the leaders just don't care about the environment because it really won't affect THEM (just the masses, and who cares about them.)
Capitalism cares about earning money. If the fines and consequences of environmental pollution and resource depletion are sufficient, then Capitalism will work within those constraints and be more effective and preserving the environment while ensuring a better overall standard of living.
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect that's partly the problem. From personal experience, I buy less stuff from Amazon that I otherwise would for several reasons:
1. Their prices have been going up. They are often no longer competitive for many items. Movies uses to always be discounted, and now they like to try to charge full price sometimes. Same for toys. Marketplace sellers are often prices HIGHER than Amazon's prices or are selling a used movie for $1 less than Amazon. Why bother.
2. It's almost impossible to find non-crap products in many categories. Lots of Chinese garbage, counterfeit products or they just just don't have what I want. Plus lots of sellers aren't authorized resellers for items, so no warranty. Try searching for furniture or batteries.
3. Their search is increasingly showing what they want you to buy, not what I actually want to buy. Other sites let me drill down to what I want faster, even if they do cost more, I don't want to spend hours finding a product.
The net result is that I've been using eBay and BH Photo more and more. To my office, BH Photo typically delivers next day for free. That's better than Amazon's two day and prices are almost always the same. eBay can certainly be sketchy, but prices are typically lower and they have more items.
That is a risk with Disney, since they have become rather money grubbing of late. I plan on subscribing to their service, but if they play the vault game, I will not continue.
Everyone wants a direct customer relationship. That's the hotness these days, and licensing to Netflix wound't give them that. That's why everyone who tries to work with Apple ends up not doing so, since Apple won't tell them anything about the customer.
I've subscribed to Netflix since they were DVD only. They have enough original content that I keep them. I tried CBS and it sucked. Hulu hans't much better, but that was a while ago. I have Prime, but their UI is so pathetic that I really don't watch anything. I may end up with Disney + or whatever they call it, but that will max me out.
Indeed, my local company will take HDPE wide-mouth jugs, but absolutely nothing else made of HDPE. I'm sure there is a reason for it, but the result is that it makes the entire process seem overly complicated and arbitrary.
Our local grocery store will do paper, but they their paper bags are so thin that they then proceed to put a plastic bag around the paper one. No exaggeration. I didn't even know how to respond when they did that.
Even Amazon has starting using non-recyclable plastic mailers instead of boxes for most stuff I get these days. Less labor, and they take up less space on their trucks.
I live outside of Philadelphia. Our recycling bins have pictures of what is valid with one prominent picture saying no bags. Yet my neighbor continues to place all recycling in shopping bags. Many guests we've had over think any plastic goes in the recycling bin. Takeout food container, sure! Used cup, sure! Straws, sure! Used paper towels, too, since they are paper.
Seems pretty hopeless unless the trash people just stop picking up contaminated recycling bins.There'd be a huge outcry and likely violence if they started fining people, but you can just not pick stuff up. However, due to the changes in China, they had to add a charge for recycling now. Naturally, some people just dropped the recycling and now toss it all in the trash.
But, the incinerators have to be relatively clean, so I'm fine with just burning it at this point. Take the metal and glass, and burn the rest. Seems like we could then "recycle" all plastic.
Facebook has a long history of quoting a fake low amount when something bad happens, then later revising it substantially upward after some of the new dies down. They are morally bankrupt, but people really just don't care.
They were caught doing shady things, and so to avoid the consequences they'll just declare bankruptcy? Hopefully the new judge will be a little skeptical of this.
Interesting. I never read the comics, but Samuel L. Jackson is perfect for that role. I really liked his character in everything he's played it.
And, to say on topic, I'll likely either see or purchase Captain Marvel. It looks interesting to me.
I have an LG 4K player and I'm very happy with it. Especially how quickly it will start playing after inserting a disc. It's super fast and just works. I picked it up on sale for like $80.
There is no future for GameStop, that's what they meant when they can't find a buyer. The company has been running on fumes for years. There's no value in anything they do. I'm surprised they've held on this long. Late 2017 had articles about them being doomed, and I'm honestly surprised they are still operating.
There's just no way they can pivot to doing anything else useful. The secondary market is effectively gone and if you have to download the game anyway, you might as well just pay for it online.
Going forward, any game publishers sending them inventory will never get paid.
No, normal people just cancel the service and get their money back.
Maybe, but check around. Most people like to express their outrage and virtue signal their way to a brighter tomorrow.
Their search does suck, They include random crap in any search list. I'd believe a lot of that is the fault of their "merchants" but it makes for a poor experience. That leads to the biggest thing I'd like to see, and that is a setting to exclude non-Amazon sellers in all searches. Most merchants that I encounter are selling counterfeit or garbage.
They don't mean two days in a row.
That's likely true. I ordered a prime item on Thursday. Two day delivery was set for Wednesday.
Same here. Every time I seem my packaging going out AMZL, I cringe. They are incredibly inept. Although they did better for this holiday season that I was expecting, given all the errors leading up to it. It was a comedy of errors:
1. Delivered to a "mail room" at my business, when we don't have one, or to some other fictional destination.
2. Lost in transit. (Happens once a quarter to me, at least.) Sometimes they show up, which is funny. They typically say "just keep it" since they had already refunded my money.
3. Damaged, often times because they tossed a heavy item in with a fragile one and didn't put in any padding.
4. Sent the wrong item or wrong number of items, e.g. a movie set that came with the last movie in the series, but not the other 6.
5. Arrived several days late. One delivery person said, when asked, "it wouldn't fit in the truck." It was 7 days late "prime".
6. Trying to deliver a package to a business at 8pm. We are open 24/7 so they just lie and say we weren't open, but that's just poor planning.
7. I have their vans on camera driving by the building, seeing that they'd have to get out of the van, and keep going. They note that the "business was closed" since they'd have to use the intercom and they likely are already way behind.
8. Items that never technically shipped, but ended up being delivered. This one confuses me the most.
Never problems with UPS or USPS, at least.
Too prone to error. A time of flight calculation would work. Of you are outside of, say, 10 feet, you can't unlock the car. Apple does this when unlocking a Mac with an Apple Watch. I'm sure it's not trivial, but it's certainly possible.
I think it's more that trucks and SUVs are protected by tariffs, so the Japanese brands make them in the US competing with the other US brands. But they can do it cheaper without all the legacy stuff. Cars aren't protected, so it's cheaper to import and US brands can't compete. Sure they tried making them in Mexico, but quality dropped and people stopped buying them.
Many non-American brands make vehicles in the US, e.g. Honda, BMW, Toyota, etc. For SUVs they can get around some tariffs by doing so, plus it costs more to ship huge SUVs across the Pacific. I just got an Acura SUV that was made in Ohio.
If I had mod points, I'd mod you up. I also have a system that uses SMS text to send alert notifications to volunteer firefighters. If a carrier decides to block what I send, there is literally no point of contact to resolve the issue.
We send texts for our business and have had the same problem. We had like 500 clients call Verizon and complain. We finally got a point of contact back then to unblock us. That's about the only way. Other than using some short code service, which they don't block for spam.
I have FiOS as well, and I'm not sure they are better. Their DVRs are pathetic, although I haven't tried the new ones. They charge $24/mo for a basic DVR. That's highway robbery. $5/mo for my old router that was advertised as "free" when I got it. No thanks. I had to return it, too, or they'd charge me for my "free router." I had a free for life DVR, too, but that ended. Apparently "for life" means "until we get tired of it."
They charge $5/mo for CableCards and set the copy once bit on many channels so you can't use anything other than TiVo for recording many channels. I'd leave them, but Comcast only offers "up to" 10 mbps upload speed on their internet, which is useless for my needs (vs 50 for FiOS.)
Their web site is super slow and ends up with "internal server error" messages all the time. I'm amazed they are still around. They clearly aren't investing in their service.
I'm sure Facebook wants kids from all ages, genders and races to become mindless drones that give away their privacy for precious little in return.
Soon, we'll be hearing stiff like this, "Teacher, your pupils have not been actively engaging with Facebook sufficiently to ensure timely deliveries of educational supplies. Please encourage your children to not be left behind."
did google learn nothing from yahoo?
That no matter how much you screw up, someone idiot will still pay you?
owe $200,000 paying for a house I no longer have
If the collateral is wiped out so is the loan; the insurance benefits the bank, which is why the bank forces you to pay for it.
That's not how it works. If you have a mortgage, then the lender will be listed as a "loss payee". They will get their money FIRST before you get a single dime. Then you will likely need to take out another loan to build a replacement house.
But many people don't get actual replacement cost plans with code upgrades. So they won't pay you the difference to upgrade the house to existing building codes which is required to actually build a new house. These costs can be substantial if your locality decides that your area floods a lot and you need to put in a mound to build upon.
Standard homeowners insurance policies don't include war/terrorism, earthquakes, and flooding. There's separate insurances for some of those.
There is a problem here - normal users don't understand how URLs work and many malicious sites continually attempt to trick them into believing they're on a site they're not.
True, and this change helps how?
I think, more to the point, is that Socialism, Communism and dictatorships have been all shown to be WORSE for the environment. Either you fall into the Tragedy of the Commons or the leaders just don't care about the environment because it really won't affect THEM (just the masses, and who cares about them.)
Capitalism cares about earning money. If the fines and consequences of environmental pollution and resource depletion are sufficient, then Capitalism will work within those constraints and be more effective and preserving the environment while ensuring a better overall standard of living.