Amazon's Beautiful Failure

The following is my personal response to the Amazon XBOX incident. If you don't know what it's about, Amazon sold 1000 360's for $100, and people are upset they didn't get one. http://www.amazon.com/gp/holiday/cv/...834119-5960869 That's the link to the site. Anyhow, I got tired of the whining and decided to say something. Of course, I can never get it done in a few words, so I popped this out. If you were involved in this deal at all, please take my words into account. If you weren't, now you can see my take on events.

Oh, and the post before mine said that people were complaining about not getting one. Realized that the first sentence doesn't make sense unless you know that.




No, what they're upset about is that they didn't get a "fair chance," as far as I can tell from reading their posts. It's not such a problem that Amazon is open and upfront about their policies, it's that there was a massive rush for the fantastic deal provided by said company. Wait, what? The problem was with OTHER PEOPLE trying to do the EXACT SAME THING as lots of OTHER PEOPLE? So, like, human beings caused the problem? No! It was the fact that the numbers of people couldn't be handled by Amazon's servers! 'K, so Amazon's at fault now. But, wait, don't they make tons of cash? And didn't having their servers go down cause them to lose money? Why? Because they were providing a great deal, as I said above. But, apparently, some people are claiming that the deal didn't really exist. I can't say either way; I was closed out and didn't get one. If the deal, didn't exist, then what's the problem? Nobody got cheated out of anything! You have the power of the American consumer that's renowned for its strength: choice. That choice is what you applied when you decided to go to Amazon.com and try to get a video game system for much less than its MSRP. That choice in lots of people caused the server load, caused lots of people not to get an XBOX 360, caused lots of crankiness. There can be only one logical solution: sue Amazon! Yeah! I used my choice along with lots of other people, and I'm angry that I chose poorly!

Ok, seriously. There's one very obvious course of action, following this incident. I lied; there's three. Murder, suicide, or never using the internet again. Let me explain before people accuse me of being horrid and such. Murder lowers the amount of competition; it's easier to get one of those one thousand units if you kill other people who'll be trying to get one. Suicide and never using the 'net again really have the same goal; you'll never have problems with Amazon or any other site's sales if you don't see them. That's the mentality with not getting online again. The suicide goes a step further, taking the stance that real life stores have great sales and their doors are just too small to fit everyone through and that would cause problems. Stupid laws of physics, not letting two bodies occupy the same space. Of course, you could just groom your greed and then this wouldn't be a problem. It's two hundred dollars off a three hundred dollar item. That's two thirds off. If you wanted to spend one hundred dollars on a Christmas present for somebody, this could have been handy, but it's not the be all, end all present. There are many other choices. How about buying the new PS2 Silver, for only thirty dollars more? A Nintendo DS for, again, thirty dollars more? Books to expand one's mind! Marijuana to do the same! Five classic movies! One, maybe two depending on price, series of TV shows! Music is always a good choice, and then when you get a 360 you can put it on the hard drive and listen to it playing Gears of War. Since you didn't get the deal now, just wait a while until another price drop.

pa‧tience  /ˈpeɪʃəns/ -noun
1.the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.
2.an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay: to have patience with a slow learner.

Patience, if you're religious, is one of the seven cardinal virtues. Funny how it opposes wrath, of which much has been seen on this board. I'm not really religious, just thought that you might appreciate this. By you, I mean people who are so upset with Amazon at the moment. Sorry if there was any mistake there.

I'd like to add one more thing, then I'll shut up and let you back to your lawyering. I've seen it said that Amazon should have handled this better. None of the suggestions would have done anything to alleviate this. If everyone put their names in a hat and Amazon pulled out 1000 for the almighty deal, there would STILL be people claiming that it was a gyp and such. If Amazon had set it up with 100 systems at 1 hour intervals or something, that would have just caused 10 times the whining. The only way they could have done it better would be if they didn't do it all.

All this thinking has worked me into a frenzy! I'll go calm down by reading Pearls Before Swine. Have fun, y'all!