As much for myself as much as anybody else, a little reminder not to be tempted to buy things from Amazon, particularly not on the gluttonous carnival of ‘Prime Day’.

I’ve really reduced my usage of Amazon over the years, but still find myself looking at the listings when big ‘bargains’ present themselves. I still have a Kindle, but I’m trying not to buy any new books from Amazon, partially because I want to read more physical books but also because the company appears to be run by bloodsucking ghouls who feed on human misery. But that’s just conjecture. I’m trying to find other ebook vendors, although getting them onto a locked down device is an issue to be sorted out.

In case you need reasons as to why shopping at Amazon is bad, I reluctantly recommend this Guardian article by Corey Doctorow. Honestly, I find a lot of Doctorow’s articles seem to boil down to Me and my friends used to be able to do whatever we want and we should go back to that, without ever addressing issues like how artists get paid for their work online. But whatever. The article does a good job of going through the numerous ways Amazon screws over vendors, customers and workers.