I don't know if these district/government contracts are considered public information, but this is a place where going to your local school committee or town council meeting and asking questions could make a huge difference.

Absolutely. Boycotting somewhere as big as Amazon on an individual consumer level is never going to get anywhere, but those contracts? That's where the power is, especially if you've got dozens of districts/local governments/organizations/etc. all pushing back at once.

I'm sure Amazon looked like the cheapest and most convenient option at the, but why you'd ever agree to a term like that is beyond me.

Bingo! Whoever made the decision to sign a contract binding them to "dynamic pricing" should never be allowed to have that kind of authority again, because that is a *bonkers* thing for them to agree to!

(I hope you don't mind me saving the explanation you just gave, it's really good)

Fully agreed! But pretending they could just be shopping locally for this stuff instead of signing a contract is just silly and muddies the issue, especially when it took you under a minute to articulate the actual problem way better than I was going to do lol

Because when you're purchasing anything at the scale/volume a school district or local government is, you sign a contract with a vendor. Just like every big company signs contracts with vendors for their office supplies and then orders through them.

....no, you cannot buy supplies for an entire school district at the local dollar store. Or Walmart. Signing a contract when you're purchasing literally anything at that scale is very, very normal.

Signing one that binds you to "dynamic pricing" is not. Let's be clear what the actual issue is.