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A review by bargainsleuth
Bezonomics: How Amazon Is Changing Our Lives and What the World's Best Companies Are Learning from It by Brian Dumaine
4.0
For this and other reviews, visit www.bargain-sleuth.com.
I’ve been with Amazon almost since their beginning. Since they first opened as an online bookstore, why wouldn’t I be? I just looked at how many orders I’ve placed on Amazon this year, both digital and hard goods, and it is embarrassingly high. An early adopter of Amazon Prime, we have the Chase Amazon Prime Rewards Card which gives us 5% back on all Amazon purchases. Last year we received more than $800 cash back and are on track to get even more this year! With a family of six, I don’t mind buying groceries in bulk through their Subscribe & Save program or through Pantry, saving me a Costco or Sam’s Club membership as well. My husband was out of work for 10 months, and we were on food stamps. Amazon began accepting food stamps a few months into the pandemic, so I was able to purchase my usual grocery orders with Amazon using our EBT card, adding to our increased order count.
I also love streaming movies and TV shows off Amazon Prime Video. You all know how much I love my Kindle, and my two younger daughters also have Kindles. I stream videos on my Kindle Fire every night. We also have three Fire Sticks for our TVs so we can stream Netflix, Disney+, Sunday mass, and the Green Bay Packers channel.
That doesn’t mean I don’t shop locally, I try to do as much of that as possible, too, especially independent bookstores and specialty stores for my kids’ gifts, like the locally-owned Gnome Games or Game Capital, which sell Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh and tons of other games and cards. I favor the Wisconsin-owned grocery stores and frequently order take-out from locally-owned restaurants. Especially now, during the pandemic, I’ve turned to Amazon again and again because I live in a house with someone who is high risk in two categories: age and health issues.
However, I do believe Amazon is getting too big. Now, my Amazon packages might be delivered by the USPS, or they might be dropped off from an Amazon delivery truck, something new to our area in the past few weeks. I’m a big fan of President Theodore Roosevelt and how he busted up several big businesses because they were monopolies, but quite frankly, I can’t see how a president or Congress could break up a company like Amazon that has gotten that big globally.
The whole Alexa/Echo Artificial Intelligence things scares me. The stories in the book were enough to turn me away from any AI in the near future: the boss whose home conversations were sent to his co-workers, the man who received a large file of someone’s conversations. Someone he didn’t know. But he gave the file to some journalists, and through those Alexa sound files, they were able to track the original owner down as well as know many of his habits, and we’re not just talking about shopping here.
If you’re not into tech and don’t know much about the Amazon business model of “the flywheel” then you should read this. Bezonomics: How Amazon Is Changing Our Lives, and What the World’s Best Companies Are Learning from It offers a look at what sort of company Amazon is, both the good and the bad, and how it affects us as consumers.
The book also looks at companies who are doing things differently from Amazon and how they are surviving and thriving. Bezonomics also tells the cautionary tales of companies that tried to go up against Amazon and lost, like Diapers.com, driven out of business because Amazon undercut them with their prices. I had kids in diapers at the time, and I remember the fabulous deals Amazon was giving me, why would I shop anywhere else for diapers? (Diapers.com was ultimately bought by Amazon) I also used Drugstore.com a lot, and they were so successful, Amazon bought them out, then shuttered the business.
I recommend this book for any supporters or detractors of the retail behemoth. It’s eye-opening to say the least.
I’ve been with Amazon almost since their beginning. Since they first opened as an online bookstore, why wouldn’t I be? I just looked at how many orders I’ve placed on Amazon this year, both digital and hard goods, and it is embarrassingly high. An early adopter of Amazon Prime, we have the Chase Amazon Prime Rewards Card which gives us 5% back on all Amazon purchases. Last year we received more than $800 cash back and are on track to get even more this year! With a family of six, I don’t mind buying groceries in bulk through their Subscribe & Save program or through Pantry, saving me a Costco or Sam’s Club membership as well. My husband was out of work for 10 months, and we were on food stamps. Amazon began accepting food stamps a few months into the pandemic, so I was able to purchase my usual grocery orders with Amazon using our EBT card, adding to our increased order count.
I also love streaming movies and TV shows off Amazon Prime Video. You all know how much I love my Kindle, and my two younger daughters also have Kindles. I stream videos on my Kindle Fire every night. We also have three Fire Sticks for our TVs so we can stream Netflix, Disney+, Sunday mass, and the Green Bay Packers channel.
That doesn’t mean I don’t shop locally, I try to do as much of that as possible, too, especially independent bookstores and specialty stores for my kids’ gifts, like the locally-owned Gnome Games or Game Capital, which sell Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh and tons of other games and cards. I favor the Wisconsin-owned grocery stores and frequently order take-out from locally-owned restaurants. Especially now, during the pandemic, I’ve turned to Amazon again and again because I live in a house with someone who is high risk in two categories: age and health issues.
However, I do believe Amazon is getting too big. Now, my Amazon packages might be delivered by the USPS, or they might be dropped off from an Amazon delivery truck, something new to our area in the past few weeks. I’m a big fan of President Theodore Roosevelt and how he busted up several big businesses because they were monopolies, but quite frankly, I can’t see how a president or Congress could break up a company like Amazon that has gotten that big globally.
The whole Alexa/Echo Artificial Intelligence things scares me. The stories in the book were enough to turn me away from any AI in the near future: the boss whose home conversations were sent to his co-workers, the man who received a large file of someone’s conversations. Someone he didn’t know. But he gave the file to some journalists, and through those Alexa sound files, they were able to track the original owner down as well as know many of his habits, and we’re not just talking about shopping here.
If you’re not into tech and don’t know much about the Amazon business model of “the flywheel” then you should read this. Bezonomics: How Amazon Is Changing Our Lives, and What the World’s Best Companies Are Learning from It offers a look at what sort of company Amazon is, both the good and the bad, and how it affects us as consumers.
The book also looks at companies who are doing things differently from Amazon and how they are surviving and thriving. Bezonomics also tells the cautionary tales of companies that tried to go up against Amazon and lost, like Diapers.com, driven out of business because Amazon undercut them with their prices. I had kids in diapers at the time, and I remember the fabulous deals Amazon was giving me, why would I shop anywhere else for diapers? (Diapers.com was ultimately bought by Amazon) I also used Drugstore.com a lot, and they were so successful, Amazon bought them out, then shuttered the business.
I recommend this book for any supporters or detractors of the retail behemoth. It’s eye-opening to say the least.