alt Hacker NewsFWIW, my suspicion is that people motivated by "Amazon is full-stop evil and an enemy of Civil Rights, Human Rights, Workers, Small Businesses, and Democracy"[1] would be even less motivated to shop at the temple of Sam Walton.
But even so, I just checked and of the last 12 items in my Amazon purchase history, Walmart.com loses on every one of them before shipping is included. They're not really in the game absent externalities like location or specific product.
[1] Not hyperbole: those are the sections in the linked article!
I have my own grievances with Amazon, not least that 2 day shipping became 5 day shipping without warning during the pandemic although I know they had infrastructure in my area because for years I saw their delivery van going around on Sunday. I felt it was really unfair because if I have to wait 5 days for something to arrive I am inclined to go get it at Target or another store in town if I can.
Since then I’ve taken them up on offers of a free month of Prime or a week for $2 which is attractive if it gets me free shipping on a purchase. Now I get the same service as everyone else but if they wanted to be a loyal customer hey should have treated me as if they wanted to impress me as an earlier.
Notably Walmart has a + service which is a little cheaper than Prime but doesn’t have the video and other benefits that I’m indifferent too. I agree with the direction of that guy’s critiques of Amazon but not the magnitude but I’m a strange case in that I’m an amateur political scientist who works as a software dev with real political scientists that I have to be deferential to.