A Prime Day note from Lauren Gellatly — Institute for Local Self-Reliance and partner in the Small Business Rising coalition:
We’ve been at this David vs. Goliath battle for YEARS, along with 40 other groups representing 250,000+ small businesses from each corner and holler of this country. Why? Because Amazon is crushing small businesses and local economies, enabled by decades of policy decisions benefiting BIG BUSINESS over people and fairness.
Our ask: a level playing field and a chance to compete so we can serve our communities. If we had fair policies and robust antitrust enforcement, we’re confident we’d thrive and out-compete the big guys. We need policymakers to step up and take action.
In 2021, we asked Congress to take action on Big Tech’s monopoly power — particularly Amazon’s stranglehold over the retail economy through abusive tactics. Despite a damning report from the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020, subsequent legislation, and years of advocacy, nothing changed.
We’re keeping an eye on the newly formed House Monopoly Busters Caucus to see if they can move the needle in Congress. We’ve got high hopes for the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Amazon for monopoly harms. But that trial doesn’t start until February 2027.
So, in the meantime, we’re breaking up with Amazon and urging policymakers to break up Amazon. The only way this is going to work is if Amazon’s different lines of business — retail platform, shipping logistics, cloud computing, etc. — are broken up by Congress or the courts.
It felt right to ask a robot to pen a break up letter for Amazon on Prime Day. So, please enjoy this AI-generated letter with our changes noted in red. And here’s your guide to finding alternatives with local, independent businesses from our real, human researcher, Kennedy Smith. Feel free to repost this break up letter or pen your own.
In solidarity,
Lauren
AI-Generated Amazon Break Up Letter (with our changes)
Dear Amazon,
We need to talk.
Yes, on Prime Day. I know, the timing is brutal — but honestly, there’s no better day to say this: I’m breaking up with you.
At first, it was fun. Convenient. You always knew what I wanted (sometimes before I did — which was adorable… until it got dystopian). I fell hard — for the free shipping, the movie nights, the late-night “oops I bought a treadmill” impulse buys.
But over time, I started to see the real you. The parts hidden behind the one-click façade.
You say you’re all about customer obsession, but your obsession with monopoly power is showing. You’ve crushed small businesses, bullied suppliers, and copied your own sellers’ products like a shady ex who copies your playlist and claims they “discovered indie rock.”
Your warehouses are everywhere, but your taxes are nowhere. Your delivery drivers pee in bottles, your workers are tracked like apps, and local businesses — you remember them, right? They’re vanishing faster than a deal on AirPods.
You didn’t build a platform — you built an unregulated private-sector tax monster and an empire. And empires don’t last.
So here’s the deal: I still believe in two-day shipping, two-day shipping is nice, but I believe more in fair competition, thriving local economies, and a future where no one company controls half the internet and your toothbrush.
We don’t just need to break up. We need to break YOU up — for the good of workers, communities, small businesses, and, let’s be real, the planet. The Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against your monopoly power is a great start.
So goodbye, Amazon. I’m off to shop small, buy local, build the tax base in my own community, and support real innovation — not monopolized imitation.
Keep Alexa. She always listened too much anyway created a creepy surveillance state in our home, recorded our kids, and datamined every conversation for corporate profit.
Consciously Un-Primed,
A Fed-Up Former Customer
