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There's no escaping Amazon in your life

caption: Parents take photos of Amazon's biospheres from the Day 1 building during Amazon's bring your parents to work day on Friday, September 15, 2017, in Seattle.
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Parents take photos of Amazon's biospheres from the Day 1 building during Amazon's bring your parents to work day on Friday, September 15, 2017, in Seattle.
KUOW Photo/Megan Farmer

People might think they can wean themselves off Amazon. But they can’t, not really.

Because even if you don’t have a Prime account and never set foot in a Whole Foods, Amazon’s most profitable business is not selling you stuff. It’s powering the internet.

So you would have to say goodbye to Netflix, Hulu, government websites – even Amazon’s online shopping competitors use Amazon’s infrastructure to ship their products to you.

Amazon web services is the biggest public cloud in the world. Which raises all sorts of questions about how much market power it can amass.

In this episode of Prime(d), we’ll explore whether it’s possible to live a modern life without Amazon. We’ll meet Gizmodo reporter Kashmir Hill, who went to some pretty extreme lengths to try.

Our theme song is "Ripples on an Evaporated Lake" by Raymond Scott. You also heard "Heartline" by Pezzner, a Seattle artist.

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