Somebody in the comments from something I read on Reddit said “it’s like having a web services provider…. but with a gift shop!”
Is there any truth in this?
Somebody in the comments from something I read on Reddit said “it’s like having a web services provider…. but with a gift shop!”
Is there any truth in this?
Comments
We don’t need to boycot and stab ourselves in the foot.
We need to help workers to unionize.
That’s win win. Rather than lose lose.
AWS are only part of it. Amazon are a huge company that owns many other smaller companies which many people do not know about. They own Twitch and the Ring doorbell company. They also obviously have Amazon Prime streaming, and they own and operate MGM Studios. Jeff Bezos personally owns the Washington Post newspaper.
AWS is obviously the most safe from consumer backlash, since they almost exclusively provide services to companies and major organisations rather than consumers. With that said, even without AWS, the Amazon company is diversified enough that they can survive any reasonable kind of boycott.
AWS is where most of their profit comes from, if that’s what you mean. The margin on the retail side is pretty low. What it did do was accumulate a huge amount of assets they could borrow against to build AWS.
It’s a bit of an exaggeration but not completely wrong. AWS was <20% of total company revenues in 2024 but more than half the total operating profit iirc. It’s more accurate to say somehow boycotting AWS would be way more effective than boycotting Amazon.
Some people think boycotting Amazon works, but I don’t buy it.
Boycotting Amazon is not just about “hurting” Amazon, but about substituting it with better alternatives.
Reduce Amazon’s influence.
Support good companies.
Sort of. You can still boycott companies.
But it is absolutely true that the vast majority of Amazon’s business comes from AWS. The webstore pales in comparison.
You can’t really get away from AWS. In fact, you’re using it right now. I’ve used it from the other end, and it’s just too good. Getting higher load? Add more memory and CPU on the fly. Got a lot higher load? It’s easy to expand the number of application or database servers if you have architected for that. Sure, you pay for that, but you can also easily shrink it back down when the load goes down. And you can do all of that without contacting customer service, just through their interface.
AWS is not the villain. Amazon retail is part of a problem we have, And that is online retail shopping for the most part. We threw away entire segments of localized working class people in many sectors of employment for cheap plastic shiny things we can buy online through centralized distribution systems with flying drones to replace people. So, no retail stores, no rent from those stores for property owners, no workers in the stores, no trucking to deliver goods, no energy production for those things, food production feeding the workers it just goes on and on…. But you paid a dollar less for the crocs… look, specialty items I’m ok with online, but anything you could get at Sears???? No… oh they’re gone too…..
Pretty much. They stopped focusing on the store when the cloud side started out-earning it.
Using Amazon is a real pain.
Just try searching for the cheapest pc with a 4090 in it. It will take hours.
Boycotting them will save your mental health.
Honestly, AWS/Amazon should be broken up.
2 Separate individual companies that do not share profits.
Boycotting anything won’t hurt anything, period. Boycotting was invented to channel you away from any meaningful change. Notice how Tesla didn’t start tanking till people started with the vandalism and arson.
You won’t kill Amazon the company by boycotting the retail site, true.
But you could kill their retail operations, which would be huge for letting smaller businesses compete again. Giving Amazon’s anti-competitive practices less teeth is good.
75% of Amazon sales are from independent sellers running their businesses. Boycotting Amazon does nothing to Amazon. It just shoots all of those independent sellers, most of whom are struggling under the tariffs.
Redirect your energy towards something you can do to help group one without killing group 2
You don’t boycott Amazon, Meta or apple to hurt them financially, we’re literally nothings. You boycott them for you.
Who uses AWS….businesses. They will be forced to cut back on spending
The Amazon store front, Prime, Alexa make very thin margins or even lose money. I looked this up not long ago. Amazon store front makes piles revenue but very little profit. AWS makes less overall revenue but far more profit. AWS is the cash cow.
Look around for that AWS Data Center near you and look at the Google Earth View.
Those places are massive and power hungry.
The building minus the computers is paid off in less than 6 months of operation.
Amazon is a major Quantum computing player. They will be here to stay and they will be very profitable.
Well, for the last month or two, I’ve seen new Amazon ads, that focus on how many jobs they provide, how well employees are treated, and how many independent sellers use Amazon for their small businesses. I never saw ads like this before the post-inaguration shitshow!
I think Amazon has been feeling a change.
Personally I’ve been going out of my way to search for products outside of Amazon in an attempt to help smaller companies. Don’t really care if it doesn’t make a dent to Amazon, it’s the principle for me.
In the modern USA, due to mass capitalism, large corporations interfering with and spreading anti-union information, and folks having to take what ever source of income they can boycotts simply don’t work. They only hurt the low to low/mid income hourly wage income folks.
Boycotts don’t work in America because the fat cats at the top pass the boycott fallout on to the hourly wage folks by reducing annual pay raises and cutting weekly hours while still expecting 40 hours of work in 20 hours a week of work.
To boycott Amazon you’d have to boycott dozens of companies. You’d be surprised at what all they own.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Amazon
They bought tons of IP addresses from MIT a few years ago for AWS. Undisclosed amount of money that they have made back ten fold I’m sure.
I highly recommend reading this book if you want some insight into Amazon services and business practices.