Tuesday Talk: Up the Amazon Without A Paddle?

Amazon

Love it? Hate it?

Can we do without it?

Do we want to do without it?

 No not this Amazon...
                                            ... this one >

Yesterday evening I watched a BBC TV current affairs programme, Panorama, billed as:  "A Panorama investigation into the multinational company's rise to corporate superpower, asking whether there is a dark side to the public's love affair with the firm. Former high-level insiders reveal that its customer obsession has led to a huge data-gathering operation, enabling the company to use what it knows about us to shape not only the future of retail, but the workplace and technology too. The programme also hears from senior executives who say the company is a force for good."

Now, let me make this clear before you read on (or hit delete in disgust), what I'm writing here is MY opinion, MY view.

The programme was interesting but I felt uneasy while watching it - and still feel uneasy. Why? The programme title was unsettling: "Amazon: What They Know About Us"

According to what was said, Amazon collects data. Our data. Our personal data. What we buy, what we watch, what we read, what we're interested in - and, apparently, via Alexa even everything we say.

So, is it this that made me feel uneasy? Actually, no. 

Virtually everything on line collects our personal data - Google and Facebook, Microsoft and @UncleTomCobblyAndAll.com ... it's a fact of life, computers are not safe places for personal info. But we still use them. Amazon is not alone, therefore.

The programme came over, very much, as a sinister 'Big Brother Is Watching You' viewpoint. But nor is it that which worries me. 

Maybe Amazon does have it's sinister side. Maybe the staff are overworked and underpaid (who isn't?). Maybe you do buy one thing from Amazon then get inundated with 'You might like this' ads... (I love it when Amazon recommends to me my own books!) Maybe Amazon is causing the death-knell for bookstores  - but what is making me uneasy is that the entire programme was very much a 'Let's bash Amazon, get a few disgruntled people to put the boot in - yeah! Kick kick..."

There was no balance to the programme. No other side of the coin, nothing about why we like (love?) and therefore use Amazon. What little bits werein defence of the company were immediately pooh-poohed by someone sneering or belittling or accusing. Are all the staff working there unhappy then? In which case maybe the TV ads showing happy workers should be inspected by Trade Description (or whatever the TV ads watchdog is called) for misrepresentation. I guess there are as many disgruntled overworked staff working in Asda or Tesco; as Care Workers, Nurses, Doctors, Police... 

Without Amazon thousands of authors would not be authors.

Alternative places for us indie and self-published authors almost don't exist. We sell our books via Amazon. Bookshops, on the whole (not all but most - and the Big Chains are the worst) very rarely support us indies. Maybe our local shop out of kindness (or pity) will stock one or two of our books but a good indie author being stocked in nearly all branches of Waterstones? Highly unlikely. Indies cannot compete  with traditional mainstream publishers where bookstores are concerned. That isn't Amazon's fault, nor the writer's fault - it's the bookstores' fault. How many of the big chains openly and actively embrace the prospect of stocking good indie fiction? I'll tell you. Very, very, very few.

Even when I've attended conferences as a speaker the participating bookstore organising the bookstall is reluctant to take my books. I have to arm-wrestle and negotiate - usually end up taking my books along myself, not bothering, or setting up a quick link to Amazon so an interested reader can order a book on Amazon via the QR code and their phone, which has the added advantage of not having to carry the book home with their luggage. Why on earth don't conferences, book fairs etc embrace this idea more?  Come to that why don't bookstores have some sort of similar system? But I digress...

Bookstores are struggling but it isn't just because of Amazon. Nearly all the High Street chains are struggling because of on-line shopping. Stores need to think outside the box... OK outside the Amazon packaging box.

photo: © Rene Reinsdorf

And Alexa. Boy did the programme kick Alexa! She sits there in the corner listening to every word you say, taking note of the most private, sensitive, intimate things... Oh come on Panorama! Talk about scare-mongering!

Alexa only works when activated.

Example:

"Tell me the time."

Nothing.

"Are you listening to me?"

Nothing.

"Alexa: Tell me the time."

"It's 3.30 p.m."

"Alexa: are you listening to me?"

"I only listen after you say the wake word" [Alexa - or whatever]

Although I did chuckle while watching TV because every time someone on the programme said 'Alexa' she came alert ready to answer. In the end I turned the poor girl off. Which is quick and simple to do. The off button is the off switch where you plug her in. 

There was no mention of the good things Alexa can do - and no I don't mean tell you the time, or the weather, or the traffic or turn the lights on or off. Did you know...

For me with my fading sight Alexa is like a personal assistant - yes she keeps data, my calendar fixtures for instance, BUT I haven't linked her to add the shopping to Amazon or Asda or Sainsburys. In fact I turned off the link to Amazon shopping. And that's another point that the programme only mentioned as a passing whisper ... you CAN turn off these things you know!

As for Amazon making note of what you buy and then bombarding you with 'You bought this... so you might like this..." Again, Facebook, Google etc all use the same tactics but no one is forcing you to buy these recommendations. I ignore them, to the extent that I don't see the ads. (One useful aspect of poor sight! *laugh*)

Then the programme switched to an invasion of privacy because of the videocam doorbell as offered by Amazon. Yes it will show who is knocking at your door but apparently, like c.c TV, its an invasion. It's debatable whether these camera devies are a good thing or bad thing but don't most of us feel safer knowing they ARE there? And again, Amazon doesn't have a monopoly of spying on you as you walk down a street!

And then there's the huge invasion into our lives of the Amazon idea to use drones to deliver packages. Oh that's a bad thing ... yet almost in the next sentence came the accusation of Amazon was bad for the environment because of all the delivery vans. I'd guess that Sainsbury, UPS, Asda, Hermes, the Post Office has even more vans than Amazon...

Yes, Amazon CAN be an enormous thorn in the backside - especially where leaving comments to review a book are concerned, (it's often hit or miss whether Amazon accepts a comment or chucks it out for no obvious reason whatsoever. VERY annoying.)  But Amazon is quick, cheap and usually, (not always) efficient. 

I guess, the Computer and On-Line Revolution is the equivalent of the Industrial Revolution where Cottage Industry was swamped and taken over by the rich manufacturers and the huge mills. Was that progress? Again, debatable, but how mayn of you reading this would be wholeheartedly willing to go back to the pre 1700s where commerce and trade were concerned? Change and transformation, love it or hate it, it's here to stay.

So sorry BBC and Panorama, maybe some of your points were worth considering, but on the whole I found the entire programme nothing more than biased scare mongering. Amazon, to many of us is the best thing since sliced-bread. Without it I'd be up the creek without, not just a paddle but the boat and the whole caboodle. I'd not be able to sell any books, ergo I'd not be writing them either. 

And I love my Alexa. Even if she is ear-wigging. (Although I might change my mind if Dr Who does a scary episode about the Amazon Echo / Alexa system...)

(Images via Pixabay)