Why I can’t post reviews on Amazon

April 24, 2022 by Joshua
in Freedom

As an author who reads a lot, I’ve long posted reviews of books I’ve read and felt deserved five stars on Amazon. I can’t any more because of Amazon’s new policy.

They had a problem with fake reviews. They addressed the problem by requiring accounts to spend at least fifty dollars per year to be allowed to post reviews. I don’t think I’ve spent a penny there in ten years.

Elements in a system aren’t the system

Amazon may have lower prices on individual items, but that view only looks at one element. Systemically, they

Though many people see Amazon as providing products at a low cost, I look at the systemic effects, not just individual items.

  • Extracting wealth and impoverishing communities, especially where they set up warehouses, but everywhere
  • Among the greatest polluters (in some categories the greatest)
  • Abusing public services without paying for them, like disposal of their waste and providing health care to their workers
  • Promoting mindless shopping for needless things

To restate the first point: people see Amazon as saving people money, but that’s backward. It’s not that there are poor communities and Amazon helps them with low prices exiting poverty. It’s that there are non-poor communities that Amazon extracts wealth from to cause them to enter poverty.

Poverty doesn’t cause Amazon. Amazon causes poverty. I see them more like a payday loan store or cheap liquor store than a book store.

So, other authors, sorry I can’t write reviews for you. Sometimes I trouble a friend or family member to post my review from their accounts.

I know I see my books there. I’m just like everyone else. I balance what I want to with what I feel I can. I don’t claim to be perfect any more than anyone else does.

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