Amazon is once again throwing a two-day sale this October, just like they did back in July. I took advantage of the July sale to pick up a very discounted Apple Watch 7 in red. I justified that purchase because (1) I had a Watch 3 that was on the verge of no longer getting watchOS updates, (2) it had extensive new features that I’ve since used to help track my health and sleep, with notable improvements to both, and (3) it was Apple and I’d already checked a number of stores comparison window shopping. (By-the-way, the health support is genuinely useful for retired elderly people such as myself.)

That doesn’t mean I’m a fan of Amazon. Far from it. I have absolutely no intention of shopping for anything from Amazon in October.

Let me go down a list of what I find reprehensible about Amazon that’s motivating me to avoid shopping there. This list was actually pulled from an Ars Technica post ( https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/best-amazon-prime-day-deals-2022/ ), in which all of these negative little issues were buried as a string of hard-to-read links in the body of an article that spends nearly all the text talking up all the wonderful items soon to be on sale.

1. Amazon admits its drivers sometimes have to pee in bottles — https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/04/amazon-admits-its-drivers-sometimes-have-to-pee-in-bottles/
2. Amazon fires at least 3 employees who criticized workplace conditions — https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/04/amazon-fires-at-least-3-employees-who-criticized-workplace-conditions/
3. Amazon’s anti-union conduct made free election “impossible,” NLRB officer finds — https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/amazons-anti-union-conduct-made-free-election-impossible-nlrb-officer-finds/
4. Amazon ends widely mocked scheme that turned workers into Twitter “ambassadors” — https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/01/amazon-ends-widely-mocked-scheme-that-turned-workers-into-twitter-ambassadors/
5. Amazon will use cameras and AI to monitor delivery drivers — https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/02/amazon-aims-to-improve-safety-by-monitoring-drivers-with-cameras-and-ai/
6. Amazon is using algorithms with little human intervention to fire Flex workers — https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/06/amazon-is-firing-flex-workers-using-algorithms-with-little-human-intervention/
7. Leaked pics from Amazon Ring show potential new surveillance features — https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/04/ring-cameras-may-someday-scan-license-plates-and-faces-leak-shows/
8. After helping decimate department stores, Amazon plans to open its own — https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/after-helping-decimate-department-stores-amazon-plans-to-open-its-own/
9. US cracks down on “Fulfilled by Amazon,” citing sale of 400,000+ hazardous items — https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/amazon-shipped-flammable-kids-sleepwear-and-hair-dryers-that-can-electrocute-you/
10. AG says he forced Amazon to shut down “unlawful price-fixing” program — https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/01/ag-says-he-forced-amazon-to-shut-down-unlawful-price-fixing-program/
11. Amazon lied about using seller data, lawmakers say, urging DOJ investigation — https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/us-lawmakers-seek-criminal-probe-of-amazon-for-lying-about-use-of-seller-data/
12. Amazon blocks LGBT products in UAE, says it “must comply with local laws” — https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/06/amazon-blocks-lgbt-products-in-uae-says-it-must-comply-with-local-laws/
13. Price gouging and defective products rampant on Amazon, reports find — https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/amazon-products-marked-up-more-than-1000-during-pandemic-report-finds/
14. Thinking about selling your Echo Dot—or any IoT device? Read this first — https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/passwords-in-amazon-echo-dots-live-on-even-after-you-factory-reset-them/
15. Alexa suggests 10-year-old put a penny on partially exposed plug — https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/alexa-tells-10-year-old-to-try-a-shocking-tiktok-challenge/

Those fifteen stories are not even the tip of the iceberg, but you gotta start somewhere. Note that the first six are about Amazon warehouse employee abuse, the most egregious abuse to be sure. The rest are Amazon customer abuse, especially that last story where Alexa was repeating a TikTok crazy challenge. As for price gouging on Amazon, I can speak to that. If an item is popular and suddenly goes on short supply, the price shoots up dramatically across all of Amazon. For example I have six cats and two dogs, and I’ve seen animal supplies from all the major suppliers suddenly rocket up over ten times (or more) when they hit a supply issue. That’s why I buy all of my animal supplies from Chewy, because Chewy is always honest with its pricing. When an item is out of stock at Chewy, meaning they can’t get any and thus can’t sell you any, then Chewy marks it as out-of-stock. When the item is back in stock it comes back at a regular price. I can live with that, finding ways to substitute. I now have far more trust in Chewy (and other stores) than in Amazon.

My trust in Amazon is gone and will never come back. Because I no longer trust Amazon I will shop at Amazon only when I can’t find an item anywhere else.

For reasons that I can’t fully fathom, but which include some degree of schadenfreude on my part, I stumbled into the DeepRacer page on Amazon. It’s now selling for $349, which is $50 off the original price of $399. That’s a hefty chunk of change for me either way, especially when I put in an initial order back in December 2018 for a mere $250.

Here’s a link to DeepRacer just in case you might actually be interested: https://www.amazon.com/AWS-DeepRacer-Fully-autonomous-developers/dp/B07JMHRKQG/ref=sr_1_1

Sometime in late 2019 Amazon finally shipped it out, which had to have been sometime in October or November, because I waited until September of 2019 before I just canceled my order. Based on user comments, it’s a good thing I did. It ain’t very pretty. Let’s take a peek!

(1 star) The product is pretty primitive in terms of readiness for commercial launch

The product was delayed three times almost a year later after the order was placed. The product remains pretty primitive in terms of extra length wires, difficult to access switches, foggy displays. There is no development environment setup for the racer on AWS. Neither were there in the cloud a simulator of the racer hardware as claimed in the advertisement. Also I can not find a procedure to down load the software into the racer again as claimed.

The return window was closed when I decide to return it about 4 months after I received it although I had only a chance to work on it for a few days due to holidays and travels.

The product needs quite a bit of development before it is ready for commercial launch.

(1 star) Get DeepRacer finally but it doesn’t work

I got the DeepRacer today finally after waiting for about one year. Cannot wait to open the box and take a look. All the parts are included as the online video describes. There is a very obvious scratch on the shell. See attached photo. Seems like the packaging needs to be improved.
After charging the batteries, followed the online videos to assembly the car and connect it to WIFI successfully. But always got error “Vehicle battery not connected” when trying to calibrate it. Tried to disconnect/connect the battery and switch on/off it for a few times, but no luck. Don’t know what is wrong with it.

Really disappointed after waiting for such a long time and getting a not-working product.

(1 star) Does not work. Red error light and no way to get past it.

I have a deep racer car and all I get is the red light light. It won’t boot and can’t get it to go into the bios. I have tried multiple keyboards and created a bootable usb drive to reset it and still just a red light.

(2 star) Delayed and damaged

Car has 2 big holes in the front where it has cracked and broken. V disappointing after waiting so long for it to arrive

(2 star) Not reliable

Delivery was delayed 3-4 times, and resulted in a year of waiting.
The goods:
– The setup is straight forward with the online manual and instruction videos.
– Car has suspension and seem durable.
– System runs on Ubuntu 16.04. Easy accessible and configurable.
The bad:
– Motion battery runs out after 10 minutes.
– Camera feed is flaky. Sometime it doesn’t work, and requires restart. Happens about 40%.
– No software simulation. Hard to debug, and hard to understand the issue from the software standpoint.

I think I’ll stop here. You can read a lot more by following the link to the product. If I were an executive at Amazon I’d be deeply embarrassed over how this entire product has launched and shipped. But this is Amazon after all, so they really don’t care.

They don’t have to, they’re Amazon.