[Ojc-announce] Re: [Newspoetry] good time to start boycotting amazon.com

[Milt Epstein]

On Tue, 28 Dec 1999 sigfried at shout.net wrote:

> gillespie william k said:
> > 
> > 
> > Being asked to boycott Amazon.com is like being asked to give up the first
> > amendment. Being able to buy obscene, dissident, and otherwise
> > semi-marketable literature - even through a creepy e-market economy and
> > dubious corporations - is one of the fundamental definitions of a decent
> > society. For me. There can be no desirable society without Kathy Acker
> > - and easy access to her writing - pushing the boundaries of what's
> > writeable. For me. 
> > 
> > So should I shop at barnes and noble dot com or borders dot com?
> > Monopolizers, union busters, independent bookseller slaughterers?
> > 
> > I'd love to support my (one) local independent bookseller - even though I
> > don't like their store very much - except that ordering books through them
> > takes four weeks longer and I don't have a car to drive out there.
> > 
> > Also the taxes go to Savoy, which is only sort-of local.
> > 
> > Opinions? 
> 
> Well, there's fatbrain.com.  I'm sure there are a ton of others also.
> Suggestions for good online book dealers?
[ ... ]

I'm a little late responding, but I think this is useful information:

Even better than online book dealers are online bookstore price
comparison sites.  Two I've used are www.dealpilot.com and
www.addall.com, and they were great!  Enter a book and they'll tell
which online bookstore has the best deal, including S&H costs and how
long it will take to get it.  FWIW, there're lots of online bookstores
that have much better prices than Amazon (I don't know about the issue
William raises, but I imagine many bookstores out there will have such
books).

Milt Epstein
Research Programmer
Software/Systems Development Group
Computing and Communications Services Office (CCSO)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
mepstein at uiuc.edu