Over the last several years, I made Amazon purchases through the AmazonSmile program, which meant part of the money was donated to a charity of my choice. I changed charities a few times, with the last one being York County Library System. That has been my chosen AmazonSmile charity for the past few years.
On Wednesday, January 18, I received an email that the program is ending in February. I would always get information about how much my chosen charity would receive in a year through the program. It was never that much, but enough to make a difference. Now they will not get that money in the future, and neither will all the other charities partnered with the program.
So many people attack Jeff Bezos because of his wealth. Bezos did not kill this program—the new CEO did. Bezos often donates to causes, especially to fight climate change. If Bezos were still in charge, the program probably would have continued. Amazon claims it will make other investments that will have more of an impact. I find that unlikely since they cut AmazonSmile in an effort to curb expenses.
Reports say that the program had little impact. I highly doubt that. This is just another cost cut from a giant corporation in favor of profits and CEO paychecks. I am glad that I do not shop on Amazon much anymore—their shipping time is atrocious, often taking two weeks to get items. I canceled our Amazon Prime last year when "2-day shipping" became at least a week, not because of delivery services, but because of processing time. We have not missed it one bit.
I have been accused of being one of those “Karens” who wants slave workers to get my order to me immediately. That is not the attitude I have in this situation. It’s fine if it will take longer due to high volume and overworked employees, just don’t offer a subscription with promises you can’t keep. That’s why Domino’s got rid of the 30-minute guarantee, and we never mind waiting a little longer for our delivery if it means happier workers and less delivery driver accidents. I never want to lose Mark or Fredrick, the best Domino’s delivery drivers in the world, to a car accident, especially not Fredrick’s beautiful silver Mustang. (Side note: Fredrick left for a better paying job, and though we miss him, we are glad for him.)
I miss Bezos's Amazon, but, as he said once, every company will eventually fail. It will probably be many years for Amazon—people continue to shop there as if it were still the best option for price and shipping. I started looking elsewhere when much of what I wanted was replaced with cheap imported knockoffs. I now get my tech from Best Buy, my pet supplies from Chewy, and most other items from Target—all of which ship much faster than Amazon. Chewy sometimes has my order delivered the very next day, beating Amazon by usually a week, and without a membership fee.
I still turn to Amazon for some items. It is the only place I know of to buy books—I have never been a fan of Barnes & Noble, and we don’t have one locally anyway. I doubt much of Lebanon, Pennsylvania buys books at all, so it’s not like we will ever get more book stores. I love my Kindle and will continue to buy eBooks, and I will continue to publish through Amazon’s self-publishing service. I am just extremely disappointed that my money will now go entirely toward a large corporation rather than 0.5% going to a charity of my choice.
Yes, 0.5%. That’s too high of a number for Amazon to pay out to animal rescues, educational systems, humanitarian services, and so on. It was not much, but I’m sure it made a difference in some of the smaller charities.
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