What Should We Do About Amazon?

A defense of boycotts as a stepping stone.

Mar 04, 2025

On Feb. 18, 2025, Jerome Allan Young—a 26-year-old Amazon delivery driver—watched the traffic light ahead of him turn green. It was 9:29 p.m. on a Tuesday, and as Young pushed down on the accelerator, he felt a thump. Then he paused for a short few seconds before driving forward again, this time feeling a second thump as his back wheels now hit the obstacle that caused the first thump.

Young paused for a second time as neighbors finally began rushing to help. A woman who had tripped in a crosswalk and gone unnoticed as a result was screaming in pain. The weight of Young’s Amazon delivery truck broke nine of her ribs, among other injuries. Young sped away from the scene.

A Ring camera caught the footage, a surveillance doorbell owned by Amazon, whose other products integrate with Ring like Alexa, the home assistant who can make ordering from Amazon a breeze. All of these tools collect your information—contact information like your name, phone number, payment information, social media accounts, your home network, activity at your home, and more.

Two days after Young drove over that poor woman (Chelsey Douglas is alive, albeit severely hurt. See her GoFundMe here), once the footage had gone viral among Baltimoreans, Young turned himself in. On Feb. 24, it was announced that felony charges against him were dropped, and only two misdemeanor traffic and reckless driving charges remained.

We all know there is something deeply wrong with how Amazon operates. What we need is solidarity on how to address it. Here’s my best attempt at a pulse check in March of 2025 as I try to get a sense of where we go from here.

Three figures hit Jeff Bezos in the head with a big hammer. — *by Evangeline Gallagher*

The Boycott Question: Does It Move the Needle?

The same week of Young’s reckless driving, an image—and an idea—started making the rounds online. “Economic Boycott,” the flyer began, “Don’t buy stuff Friday Feb 28. We have power. No Amazon, Walmart, Target, fast food, gas. OK small business. Use cash.”

I met its sight with skepticism. “Okay, cool, those big companies do suck. But little companies often suck too, and how does this help the workers? What does this do to address capitalism?” Plus, I learned, it was all organized by some weirdo who sure was raking a lot of money in for himself.

Still, I had to acknowledge that the stakes are feeling high right now. If the ask is to save some money for a day, why not give it a shot and see how it feels?

That Friday morning, I made breakfast sandwiches for my partner and me. They made pasta for dinner. We made coffee at home, and had a glass of wine from a Bota Box later that night. We didn’t spend money at any small businesses—there wasn’t anything we needed to buy. After work, I spent some time on an old video game I’d bought but never finished, and later, we watched a movie. It was all very normal, and I can’t say with any confidence that refraining from spending money made me feel particularly hopeful, even though it sure was easy.

Then, I looked to see how other people felt about it. I saw someone in a community forum asking for recommendations on where to buy soap. They’d always relied on Amazon or Target for such a necessity that they weren’t even aware of the local options. (One top recommendation was for a soap shop that’s just a few blocks from where I live and is locally owned.)

I even heard a few people say they canceled their Amazon Prime memberships. While Amazon makes far more money from its web services than its home delivery retail operation, the business line with the warehouses is where labor is getting screwed. Their computer programmers are not the employees creating picket lines; the overnighters who sort packages until their minds go numb are. And despite this anti-labor tyranny, one of the few bipartisan issues post-Trump has been lawmakers swearing fealty to Jeff Bezos, begging him to bring that endless fountain of wealth to their home states. The powerful stick together.

So, even if a single-day boycott doesn’t dismantle Amazon, I think all of that adds up to a scenario where we should hit ‘em where it hurts, everywhere it hurts. We need more than that: Organized strikes, support of socialist parties, unionizing across industries and workplaces. But if a good on-ramp to being politically engaged is as easy as not swiping their credit card for a day, we should support it and be happy when anyone drops Amazon or Walmart from their bookmarks.

And look, I’ll be honest, I just canceled my Amazon Prime membership.

Amazon is Extremely Bad for Consumers

I’m embarrassed to admit this. But the current moment demands some self-reflection and honesty, so let’s cut the bullshit and be truthful about where the dollars in our economy are.

I could give you a thousand variations of cope.

I live in Baltimore City, where packages get stolen frequently, so I used Amazon’s Lockers often. I ignored the dystopian reality of this: That I was fearful of people who have lesser means than I do taking what I have.

I don’t own a car and don’t drive. Actually, I’m learning right now—I just finished the in-class portion of driver’s education (shout out Ms. Susan) at 31 years old. Nonetheless, I’ve long hated what cars represent: Big, ugly monuments to our failed public transit systems, and I know that as a resident of a city that was carved up by highways and shows the scars of its reliable (but long dead) streetcars.

So, I told myself, I was still doing my part in one way by taking public transit even if it meant not doing my part in another way by ordering things I needed from Amazon. I ignored the reality of this: That I was buying shit I didn’t need as a result of using Amazon at all, that this still put cars on the road, that many Amazon drivers rely on public transit too.

Today, two days after the boycott on March 2nd, 2025, I decided I was tired of my excuses and canceled my Amazon Prime account. And in doing so, I realized just how bad Amazon is for consumers.

Before removing my subscription, I decided I ought to check my wishlist and recent orders to note anything I might need to buy down the line. And looking at that list made me, well, a bit disgusted with myself.

Every hobby-related item would make more sense to purchase elsewhere. Amazon’s selection of board games is bad. Their selection of film for my film camera is bad. Their music equipment is abysmal. Books? Why the fuck would I buy books from Amazon? I know it’s how they got their start, but I live a 5 minute walk away from a bookstore. Dog supplies, grocery items, clothes are better served by local stores or more niche online retailers anyway, and delivery is still an option in many cases.

We can’t even trust what’s on Amazon anymore. Between the endless fake products, fake reviews that cause you to resort to searching “[product name] review reddit,” not to mention those books Amazon got their start on—so many of which are written by AI now. Amazon’s a shit product, and we ought to break our cycle of accepting shit products simply because they’re convienent to us.

I want to acknowledge that while I’m working through my shame and dismissing my personal hesitation as cope, some people do have genuine difficulties cutting the Amazon chain: People with disabilities and the elderly are among those who may struggle to access traditional commerce platforms. It’s appropriate to acknowledge that exception to the rule, but it’s just that.

Truthfully, I’m part of a larger group than I was comfortable admitting. I hold a college degree and work a hybrid white collar office job. Getting cheap shit sent to my home was easy, especially when I told myself that because I can’t afford a home, I wasn’t guilty of anything except surviving.

This contradiction made its home in my brain. On one hand, I supported labor issues in the abstract, I cheered whenever Amazon employees went on strike, I loathed the sight of Jeff Bezos and was entirely unsurprised when he decided to turn the Washington Post into a more pro-Trump outlet. And yet in my other hand was my smartphone, with Amazon’s app glaring at me from the center of my home screen.

So, when I say that Amazon is bad for its consumers, I mean it two-fold. One is that despite its conveniences, it has created a shopping experience that is less pleasant for its customers than traditional retail. This is significant, and we should leverage it to introduce animosity toward Amazon to regular people who may not be politically motivated or aware.

More critical than that, though, is how Amazon trains its consumers to divorce themselves from class consciousness. It’s central to the brand’s identity. Yes, Amazon abuses low-wage workers, and yes, Amazon has incredibly competitive prices and convenience that can make it appeal to those very same low-wage workers. This contradiction is what enables us to remain culpable in Amazon’s pursuit of world domination.

I can no longer ignore the relationship I have with those laborers; I can no longer close my eyes when I’m a direct participant in their exploitation.

A cartoon Amazon Prime box that is dizzy and exhausted. — *by Evangeline Gallagher*

If you’ve somehow gotten to this point of the newsletter without knowing what I mean by “their exploitation,” here is but a quick sampling of Amazon’s labor abuses:

Necessary, But Certainly Not Sufficient

The naysayers remind me a bit of electoral politics-doubters. There’s only one “Tuesday next after the first Monday in November,” and every year, the same people seem to come out of the woodwork on Election Day itself to proclaim that voting doesn’t do all that much, that both parties are complicit in so much evil, that electoral politics isn’t sufficient to change.

And I agree with that, just as I agree on some level with the boycott skeptics. One day and one relatively easy ask (whether casting a ballot or refusing to swipe your credit card) will not change the fundamental problems our country, society, and world face.

My frustration stems from the dismissal of the significance of these methods of civic engagement: Insufficient doesn’t mean not worth doing, and both boycotting and voting serve as good ways to get people engaged and aware. We just need to make sure people go further than that.

Central to strikes is the idea that to show solidarity, one ought not cross the picket line. That doesn’t just mean that other workers shouldn’t undermine the strike efforts by continuing to work; it also means that consumers shouldn’t undermine strike efforts by spending their money there.

People need to learn to feel some discomfort. We should be uncomfortable with our consumption habits, our reliance on Big Tech, our convenience-over-all mentality.

People must also reflect on where they stand within the class hierarchy. We need to think more about our fellow workers, and remember that their material conditions may not be all that great and that none of us are alone in our struggle—even if our struggles don’t look the same.

Consider canceling your Amazon Prime subscription. Reconsider where you spend your money generally and whether your neighbors who might be less fortunate than you—who spent their time working in unsafe conditions to get your orders to your doorstep in two days time—may need more support from you. Reconsider where you get your news and whether they have a vested interest in protecting anti-labor practices, and reconsider whether all the gizmos and gadgets you’ve amassed are acting as a distraction from the human beings around you.

But you should also consider supporting a strike, joining a socialist organization, electing more politicians who care about labor issues.

There is always more work to be done, and sometimes, all it takes to start that work is a baby step to remind yourself that you can do it. Start taking some steps.

The Bread Line

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