I’m breaking up with online shopping.

I have learned that one of my biggest life choices was not choosing online shopping but was not being able to online shop. <br><br>I went from “online shopping is the answer to all your prayers” to “I was a victim of capitalism, I didn’t choose to be a slave to a corporate entity, I was chosen”. The worst part is, we don’t even know we’re slaves. When we go online and look at things the algorithm has put in front of us, we think we’re getting things we want, things we need, we’re making choices and we have the freedom. But the truth is we’re variety slaves, slaves to our choices being limited to what the algorithms allow us to see based on what makes the most profit for someone else. Don’t even get me started on things like Amazon’s add on items, which essentially are an entire shopping list of things that are more money instead of the dollar store variety. <br><br>I’m not saying I never shop online anymore. But I think we all need to take a minute and see how much money we’re actually spending, and if that’s really necessary. <br><br>Look at your bank statement, how much money is going towards things like Amazon, fast fashion, things that arrive at your door and that you really didn’t need. <br><br>I have never been a big Amazon shopper, but I find myself justifying it more and more for the sake of convenience. Recently, I opened up a savings account not for saving but for online shopping. I thought it was genius. I’d put money in there that I was comfortable with spending on Amazon. I learned that not only was I not stopping myself from spending money I shouldn’t be spending, I actually justified spending more because I no longer had to think about it. I just had a fund for it. <br><br>I also learned that the algorithm was putting up prices of the same item, multiple times a day and that my “prime savings” was actually just the same price as the items at Walmart. <br><br>I know some of you are saying “oh well just use retailmenot.com”. But let’s think about that for a second. We used to buy things at variety stores, dollar stores, and discount stores and get what we needed. The pricing was usually pretty straightforward. It was the price on the item, and was the price of the item every time you went to get it. Since the price never changed, we didn’t have to worry about not getting it at a discount. Discounts were for sales and special occasions. This was the standard pricing model for the first 200 years of the United States. <br><br>But recently, companies are just raising the prices of certain items so that they can put a discount on it. Its called a pseudo discount, and its an entirely different pricing model where the base price of an item is more expensive and they offer discounts, rewards, coupons, etc. <br><br>So now we have to look not just at the items we want to buy but we have to look at the items for discounts. We have to use other websites in order to find coupon codes that aren’t offered to us by the actual store or website we’re shopping at. And every time we make a purchase, we have to check the prices of the items we buy so that we can get the best discount. <br><br>Even with all the extra work of looking for discounts and coupons, we still don’t get the best price. We don’t get the same price all the time. If you buy an item from Target every week, and they have a sale on it one week, but not the next, that just means they are charging extra for the item every time its not on sale. And even when it is on sale, we don’t really know if the sale price is the same as the base price of the item. Is Target offering 20% off an item that was originally 100% marked up? <br><br>I’m not saying Target is the only company that does that. I’m just a victim of capitalism and I don’t know any better. <br><br>What I am saying is, why do we tolerate this crap? <br><br>At some point, we need to wake up and realize we’re all victims of capitalism, and stop blaming each other for the choices we make while trusting the system to make sure we get the best prices for the things we need and for the things we want. <br><br>I don’t want to think of myself as a victim of capitalism. I don’t want to think of you as a victim of capitalism. But no matter how many times we can afford something, we aren’t truly rich unless we are able to afford the choices we make. That means being able to afford the quality of the items we buy, the convenience, the economy, the environment, the labor, the time we invest in online shopping. <br><br>If we aren’t in control of those things, then we aren’t in control. And if we aren’t in control, that means we’re slaves. <br><br>I don’t want to be a slave. I don’t want you to be a slave. I don’t want anyone to be a slave. <br><br>But this is America. We were built on slavery. And we know how much money we make off of slaves. And we don’t care what it costs us. <br><br>I am ending my toxic relationship with online shopping today. <br><br>I hope you will too. <br><br>Edit: I tried to leave Amazon and they won’t let me. When you try to close your account, it takes you to a page that tries to find out why you’re leaving and offers you a discount or deal to stay. If they spent that much time and money getting you to keep your account, what do you think they will do with your account if you keep it? This was my first time ever trying to close an Amazon account.