Just Nah Good. (amazon.co.uk)

Member Name: Peakly

Product:	amazon.co.uk
Date:	20/05/03 (94 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: grashgsfhg, rhdfhfdshafdsh, fdhdfhdfh

Disadvantages: rhdvncgnj, reytejtyk, hkhkgjlg

RAGE! Yes, rage and nothing else. I fully intend this opinion to be one-sided and lacking in all the conventions of website review. If you want to know how pretty the pages are, or how easy Amazon.co.uk is to navigate, then spend the time you would reading this opinion actually looking at the website. Click the bar at the top of your explorer window, type ‘www.amazon.co.uk’ and hit return. It’s free.

Cheap? Yes, reasonable. Considering how much easier it is to surf the net from a comfortable chair then it is to pace the streets looking for a bargain (or, if you live in a place anything like the town from which I write, sod off to nearest city), it is no surprise that Amazon has become a popular website. It is also true that Amazon offers a wide selection of products from its main areas – i.e. books, videos and music CDs. Sites such as ‘cd-wow’ or others my more learned associates could point out, do, however, offer the same for better value. Cheap? Yes, reasonable.

Now to the rage. My A-level history assignment called upon me to answer a question of my choosing about a period of history of my choosing. Like a true teenager, like all teenagers should, I chose Che. Alas, I encountered a problem, one which threatened to make my topic impossible to cover. There are no books on Che. Not on my watch, at least. Until I explored the vaults of Amazon.co.uk, which offered me a wonderful selection of books on my hero – exactly the kind I needed for my big assignment (assignment… is that an American term? Let’s say ‘essay’ for measure, or ‘homework’) because, as every student knows, coursework without quotations from people who have written books is no coursework at all, at least not coursework worthy of a passing grade.

A few clicks later, with my Father’s credit card in my grubby paws, everything was in place. A modest ‘7-10 days’ was m
y promised wait. With that, I would be guaranteed enough time left to actually write the thing.

A month later, the wrong books arrived. This morning, a full fortnight after handing in my completed coursework, half of the right ones have arrived. I’m too bitter to even thumb their pages.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is my one-sided assessment of amazon.co.uk – they stink. They promise, then don’t deliver. They lie and get away with it. Why? Because they exist only within the cosy confides of the world wide web. There is no shop assistant to bark at, no manager to demand to see. I love the internet. I love that it lets me rant at you, I love that is provides me with access to as much pornography and free music as I desire, but anyone who believes that it has evolved beyond a means of communication, personal expression, information or titillation and into a practical way to shop and live out our life’s is waiting for a train that won’t arrive until they’re buried or too old to type properly. Go to your local book shop, or your nearest HMV, and buy your material items there.

Photocopying machines still take up half a room, telephones are still held in our hands (not genetically crafted to our ear-lopes) and the internet is still a frivolous and largely ineffective thing. Amazon will be remembered much as that first ever TV advert for toothpaste – a shite example of something that has since been immeasurably improved upon. Back in 2003, the internet sucked.

Summary: