Danny Caine - How to Resist Amazon and Why: The Fight for Local Economics, Data Privacy, Fair Labor, Independent Bookstores, and a People-Powered Future!

How to resist amazon and why

t h e f i g h t for L o c a l E c o n omies , D a t a P r i v a c y , Fair Labor ,

I n dependent B oo k stores , a nd a P e o ple- P owered Future

2021 Danny Caine

This edition Microcosm Publishing 2021

eBook ISBN 9781648410086

This is Microcosm #589

Cover by Lindsey Cleworth

Edited by Lydia Rogue

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Microcosm Publishing

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Portland, OR 97227

https://microcosm.pub/htra

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Microcosm Publishing is Portlands most diversified publishing house and distributor with a focus on the colorful, authentic, and empowering. Our books and zines have put your power in your hands since 1996, equipping readers to make positive changes in their lives and in the world around them. Microcosm emphasizes skill-building, showing hidden histories, and fostering creativity through challenging conventional publishing wisdom with books and bookettes about DIY skills, food, bicycling, gender, self-care, and social justice. What was once a distro and record label was started by Joe Biel in his bedroom and has become among the oldest independent publishing houses in Portland, OR. We are a politically moderate, centrist publisher in a world that has inched to the right for the past 80 years.

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Contents

Introduction

Why How to Resist Amazon and Why

Interlude one

A Letter to Jeff Bezos from a Small Bookstore in the Middle

of the Country

Chapter one

ON AMAZON AND THE BOOK INDUSTRY

INTERLUDE TWO

ON BORDERS

CHAPTER TWO

ON AMAZONS JOBS

INTERLUDE THREE

ON WHETHER AMAZON AFFECTS MY WORK AT THE RAVEN

CHAPTER THREE

ON AMAZONS FULFILLMENT PIPELINE

INTERLUDE FOUR

ON RAVENS ALL-TIME BEST SELLER

CHAPTER FOUR

ON AMAZONS RELATIONSHIP TO PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE

INTERLUDE FIVE

ON PARTNERING WITH AUTHORS

CHAPTER FIVE

ON AMAZONS EVERYTHING STORE PROBLEM

INTERLUDE SIX

ON SMALL BUSINESS AND POLITICS

CHAPTER SIX

ON AMAZON AND THE GOVERNMENT

INTERLUDE SEVEN

ON DELIGHTS

CHAPTER SEVEN

HOW TO RESIST AMAZON

Conclusion

APPENDIX

FOR FURTHER READING

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

SOURCES CITED

About the author

Introduction

Why How to Resist Amazon and Why

B ooks. Every task I perform in every workday is somehow related to books. I open boxes full of them. I put them on the shelf. I order them. I return them. I hand them to customers I think will love them. I watch as a team of dedicated booksellers does all of the above alongside me. Every day I unlock the doors of my bookstore The Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas so I can preach the importance of books alongside my team. Every day I go to work and Im reminded that there can be a place for independent bookstores in 21st century America. Im reminded that independent small businesses can carve a space to earn a living and shape their communities. Im reminded that books, and those who sell them, are resilient and beloved.

Many of us in the independent bookstore world would fight to defend the idea of The Book with a capital B. Its hard to even talk about how we feel about The Book without getting grandiose. We believe the right book can change the world. We believe the right book can grow empathy in its reader, and that empathy can blossom into positive change. We believe the right book can forever alter the course of the right readers life. Its all high and mighty, but its true. We believe in these objects and their power, and our work is to help the right books get into the right hands.

Since 1995, weve watched as Amazon has become a bigger and bigger threat to that work.

There has never been a company as big, powerful, and pervasive as Amazon. Amazon is disruptive to the ability of small businesses to stay afloat. Amazon is a continuation of the story begun when Walmart and other megastores began their rapid spread. Amazon is indeed the latest link in a chain of threats to the American retail small business, from shopping malls to chain megastores to online e-commerce giants, each acting in their own pernicious way to destroy the American downtown.

Yet Amazon is more dangerous than Walmart because its so much bigger, and it has its hands in so many more businessesses. Amazon Web Services is a cloud computing system that provides the data infrastructure for much of the Internet, from government servers to Netflix. Its near impossible for anyone to use the Internet without Amazons silent participation. This alone means Amazon has a gigantic impact on everyday life. Beyond that, Amazons massive portfolio of companies and products mean Amazon has a hand in every Ring doorbell, every Whole Foods grocery purchase, every Audible audiobook, every Goodreads review, every article in the Washington Post , every shoe from Zappos, every stream on Twitch, plus many online advertisements and smart speakers and e-readers and TV shows. Amazon has even built its own nationwide delivery network; rather than work with USPS, UPS, and Fedex, Amazon has fashioned its own private version from the ground up, and the results are dangerous.

Amazon executives regularly downplay Amazons size; in a PBS Frontline documentary Amazon CEO of Worldwide Commerce Jeff Wilke claims, Were 1% of the retail sales in the world, about. But what percentage of eBook sales does Amazon control? Of cloud hosting? Of online advertising? Of lobbying? Of groceries? Of online shoe sales? Of online book sales? A single company having a stake in so many different aspects of the market is dangerous. Through its Amazon Marketplace platform, Amazon acts as host for a third-party marketplace and a competitor on that platform. Basically, Amazon is a referee and a player in the same game, and the game is the worlds largest online retail marketplace. Walmart is still a threat to American small businesses, but Walmart never did quite so much . Its possible to argue, even, that Walmart is now trying to catch up to Amazon. Walmart is now just one of many large corporations trying to adapt to the Amazon world by taking pages from Amazons playbook.

Amazons impact is huge. One of the worlds most valuable companies, it has caused havoc in every industry it has touched. My industry, books, happens to be the first industry at which Amazon took aim. Everybody in the book business feels Amazons might. Booksellers feel it the most in this way: it is possible to buy the latest bestseller on Amazon for less than the wholesale price my bookstore pays. Let that sink in. A book that costs me $14 to put on my shelves could be for sale to customers on Amazon for $10. Its stunning: you can buy a book below cost and have it at your door tomorrow with free shipping. That fact alone underlies everything I do at The Raven. Even more, the cheapness of Amazons books serves to diminish the value of all books, regardless of where theyre sold.