Some Thoughts on the Washington Post Endorsement Kerfluffle and My Continued Use of Amazon Products
Two weeks ago, Jeff Bezos personally stepped in and stopped the Washington Post Editorial Board from endorsing Kamala Harris. That raised some issues for me, and apparently over 200,000 subscribers. I can pretty easily guess why Bezos did it, but I’m not sure how much thought he really put into it.
Bezos probably remembers the spats between the Post and Trump for the last 8 years. He’s also clearly aware that Trump is vindictive as all hell and will use that vindictiveness against anyone who is perceived to be against him. Bezos also runs Blue Origin and already has some contracts with the federal government. Should Trump win, you’d have to figure he’d put the squeeze on Bezos because of his perception of the Post. Cancelling the the endorsement is one way to appease the wannabe dictator.
And it’s funny too because Bezos’ later op-ed justifying his decision completely misses the point.
But this isn’t actually about the decision not to publish an endorsement. The real issue is you stepping in as owner to block the endorsement at the perfect time to show that you capitulated in advance to an authoritarian bully who has attacked your business interests in the past and has indicated he has a plan to exact revenge on all who wronged him.
The principled response to such threats is to continue doing good journalism and not back down. The cowardly shit is to suddenly come up with an excuse for not publishing an endorsement that had already been planned.
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And for what? Do you think that MAGA folks are suddenly going to come rushing to subscribe to the Washington Post now? Do you think this built up your credibility with a crew of folks who have made it clear they only wish to surround themselves with propaganda and bullshit? Is that who you want credibility with? If so, hire a propagandist and fire your journalists.
I can definitely understand why Post subscribers are cancelling. I don’t have a subscription to the Post to cancel, but I do have an Amazon Prime subscription. And while I have in the past wrestled with keeping it, the ease of it has always kept me away from the cancel page.
With how important this election is, to have a billionaire newspaper owner personally step in and interfere with the paper’s editorial board really rubs me the wrong way. As awful as it is, it’s giving me the kick in the ass I need to finally do something.
Let’s look at the services I use or have used in the past.
Amazon Prime Video
My wife and I when we have our movie nights will often go through Amazon Prime Video for movie options. If I get rid of my subscription, we’ll lose access.
Verdict: Eh, who cares, plenty of other streaming services
Amazon Music
I’ve been focusing more on purchasing more of the music I listen to. I still do stream music though. My cell phone plan provides a subscription to Apple Music though, so I don’t even use this. I have in the past purchased MP3s from Amazon. I can switch to Bandcamp or iTunes easily enough.
Verdict: Nope, See ya!
AWS
I used to host my blog on AWS when it was written with Jekyll years ago. Now I don’t use it at all as my blog is hosted on Netlify. If I would ever need a cloud provider, there are plenty of options.
Verdict: Nope. Goodbye.
Kindle
This one is most certainly going to be the hardest for me. I am an avid reader and my eBook reader is the first generation Kindle PaperWhite. I have bought so many Kindle books over the years and I don’t know how many of them are DRM free. If I were to lose access to the books I bought because of DRM, I’d be annoyed, angry even. I could still read them on my phone or iPad via the app, but it would suck to not have all of them in one place.
I’ve been passively looking at what my next eBook reader would be when my Kindle either dies or needs replacing. I don’t particularly want to stick with Kindle given the state of things. My preference right now would be to get a Kobo reader, although I’m not sure which one.
The other thing I’d need to figure out as well was how Kobo works with Libby. Libby is the app I use to borrow eBooks from my library. Libby works seamlessly with my Kindle as I can easily send the book to my Kindle for me to read. It seems like there’s an app for it on Kobo though, so hopefully it will still work.
Verdict: This is probably the hardest switching cost for me, but push comes to shove, I can keep my Kindle around solely for library books.
Amazon Prime Itself
Oh boy. Buying on Amazon is easy. Really fucking easy. It’s way too easy to realize you need something and just open the app or website and place an order. More often than not, it’s at my door within 2 days. But the overwhelming fact of the matter is that most of what I end up needing or wanting is exclusive to Amazon. Amazon just happens to be the easiest source. Ditching Prime, and ditching the free shipping would be a cost, but it might not be a bad one.
Too often I buy something on a whim from Amazon because, hey, free shipping. If all of a sudden that goes away, it would definitely give me the kick in the ass I probably need to start reconsidering some of my purchases. It might even move me to do better price comparison shopping. I’ll freely admit that I don’t always look around to see what other merchants are selling whatever I’m looking for for. I might end up having to pay for shipping, but maybe it’ll mean my money going to “better” storefronts rather than Bezos’ pockets.
Verdict: Might actually be better for me to move away from Amazon.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, cancelling my Prime subscription it probably the best move for me. The only item that still has open questions is my Kindle and the ability for me to maintain access to my books as well as access to my public library. And even with those open questions, cancelling my subscription doesn’t really affect that. In the end I’d save some money and give Bezos the finger, even if it doesn’t move the needle all that much. Sounds like a win to me.
Edit 11/6/2024: It was 200,000 subscribers, not 2,000