A second Open letter to Amazon

Recently I purchased a second Amazon Fire, after my first one and a couple of 8" Android tablets all suffered from cracked screens. It seems to me that my first Fire was able to run any Android App that I wanted to run. But this new Fire 8" tablet will not come close. I can run CamScanner, because that is available from the Amazon App Store. But while I was able to get Mobisle notes to download the .apk file, it will not install. And while it will run Microsoft One Drive, it will not load or run One Note or MS WORD. I am an author and publisher and tee shirt designer (I have not even tried to load any version of the GIMP yet) and I am dead in the water without at least those few programs or apps.... You should sell this solely as a Kindle reader, unless you can tell me how to load Google Play apps into this thing. I bought the 8" Fire Version 7 with 32 gigs of memory, which ought to be adequate to run ANY Android app.

But no. Amazon wants to control every aspect of their customers' lives, it seems. I have no knowledge of who is buying either my published work, OR my tee shirts from  Amazon. I get all of that information from my Shopify store.

Oh, and by the way, I have purchased two shirts from the Merch by Amazon shop, and the image quality is TERRIBLE! I will be buying shirts with the same image from Printful later this month, so I can shoot side-by-side photos and post them to the various sales groups I belong to on Facebook. I believe that the problem originates with the white mask you put behind the image. Either that, or you are raising the contrast and/or brightness of the images. I have a photo of my dog Blackie from the 70s. It was scanned from an 8 x 10 photographic print. You have the image showing white on the dog's back, fading to a reddish brown. Then I have a photo of Bernie Sanders, which is fairly good. It shows the wrinkles in his forehead, for instance, which do not show at all in the tee shirt. It IS possible that I downloaded a thumbnail instead of the full image, but your image is too light and not at all sharp, and bears little resemblance to the original photo. I will be comparing this to the same shirt from Printful. If there is a significant difference in their favor, I will have to suggest to my customers that they not buy anything from Amazon.

And now, I read that you are selling technology that does not work--facial recognition technology--to police departments and private citizens, which could result in police being autodialed because the facial recognition failed to recognize someone, especially women and people of color, and could result in police harassment of those people. Yet more evidence that Amazon wants to meddle in people's private lives. I switched to eBay for most of my purchasing, when you stopped accepting PayPal payments for your merchandise, because it was originated by your competitor. I now use PayPal exclusively for both purchasing, and accepting payments for my merchandise, both at book signings, like the one I will be holding this coming Saturday, and anything sold through my Shopify store. If you won't accept PayPal, then I will not be making many purchases through you. You need to realize that you are just a supplier, and people have the right to buy, or to NOT buy from you, and that they have other sources for the same material. You need to stop thinking that you can control other peoples' lives.

​I am beginning to believe that you have, quite simply, grown too big for your britches....

Sincerely,

John H. Waaser, Owner, Crossroads Publishing of Florida