6 ms·

One side effect of the growth of Amazon is the replacement of "decent" jobs with absolutely soul sucking ones. In the early 2000's I knew people that worked as

One side effect of the growth of Amazon is the replacement of "decent" jobs with absolutely soul sucking ones. In the early 2000's I knew people that worked as delivery drivers for UPS or FedEx and it was a decent job. They seemed happy. Now I see the Amazon delivery people, and they look majorly stressed out as if they are on the edge of collapse. Many times they are delivering things at 10pm desperately trying to meet their quotas. I think a lot of the same thing happened in the retail as well. I see the salespeople at malls or brick and mortar retail stores. Even though it is stressful, at least they get to be somewhat human in that they talk to people and have some degree of freedom to move around. Compare that with the Amazon warehouse workers whose every second has been planned out with maximally efficiency and who so afraid of losing their jobs that they are afraid to go to the bathroom. It seems the "decent" jobs are going away, replaced by ones that turn workers into robots to better extract value from their labor.

bsder 7y ago
> It seems the "decent" jobs are going away, replaced by ones that turn workers into robots to better extract value from their labor. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
  I love MANNA every time it gets linked, I love reading it.
- kortex 7y ago
  That started off the most terrifying dystopia I had ever read. Now it's incredibly inspiring, but alas I have to call it a night at chapter 6. This should be required reading.
standardUser 7y ago
Traditionally it has been unions that have placed a check on employers' perpetual quest to trade humanity for efficiency.
- tharne 7y ago
  That's true to an extent, but unfortunately unions (at least in the US) tend to end up mimicking the same corporate behavior they are supposed to be placing a check on. The get bigger and more powerful and they start to take and take with no concern for the fallout, and like corporations, they get politicians to do their bidding at the expense of the general population. There are towns near me teetering on bankruptcy, while the police and firefighters can retire after 20 years of service with a pension equal to 80% of their last 3 years of pay. Any effort to reform what is obviously an unsustainable agreement that never should have been struck in the first place is meet with a wall of resistance and veiled threats to public safety. In the private sector, unions have had a long history of opposing environmental regulations out of fear that it would affect employment in heavy manufacturing. Auto workers unions have repeatedly opposed any effort to invest in public transportation and reduce auto dependency. I've heard that Scandinavia has had better luck with unions, but here in the U.S. unions have been every bit as self-serving and bullying as the corporate overloads they're supposedly a counter balance to. I'd love to see better restraints on corporate power, but I'm not holding my breath for unions to be anything but one more moneyed interest.
  - jkaplowitz 7y ago
    Sure, US unions need some reforms, just like the plutocrats need to be reined in. And yet, if there are moneyed interests promoting the goals of big business and the rest of the ruling class, isn't it better to balance that out with whatever imperfect form of unionism is currently available while advocating for the necessary reforms? An anti-worker imbalance in money and power seems worse than that.
    - tharne 7y ago
      That's what I believed when I was younger. However, after watching unions in action, they seem to make things even worse, especially for younger workers. I don't think the answer to outsized corporate power is to try and balance it with outsized union power. What I'd like to see is simply more decentralization of power, something like the "trust busting" under Teddy Roosevelt. When any organization gets past a certain scale it seems to lose touch with basic values and decency. You see this with countries too. Small states like Singapore or Denmark don't often start needless wars or meddle in the affairs of others, the way superstates like the U.S., Russia or China do.
spike021 7y ago
>Now I see the Amazon delivery people, and they look majorly stressed out as if they are on the edge of collapse. Many times they are delivering things at 10pm desperately trying to meet their quotas. Even UPS sounds.. not great. I have a friend who's a delivery driver for UPS and especially this time of year he has days where his truck is loaded with 250-300 parcels and they're basically all supposed to be delivered by evening. They even hire temp guys as runners who ride along in trucks to help the drivers get the packages dropped off quicker. Not only that but if they do clear their truck and they have fellow guys in their route who still have a load to clear, they tend to be asked to stick around and help take that load. But it means 10-12 hour or more shifts in some cases. It's the Amazon/online shopping craze, and seems like it isn't a very easily scalable problem.
- papreclip 7y ago
  RE: UPS - The hours aren't bad. You get overtime past 40 and are generally glad when it happens. If you work at a normal pace you won't get into trouble for productivity with your boss, and you're never at risk of making less money because you're not productive enough. UPS guarantees you a certain number of hours so you don't get trapped committing to a job that ends up only giving you 20/wk What sucks about the job is how brainless and repetitive delivering packages is. It is nice that everyone is typically happy to see you, but conversations typically don't get very far past "hello" and "goodbye" I don't know what it's like working for Amazon, but if it's typical gig economy BS, they are getting shafted by hidden costs and have bad incentives to make rushed and sloppy deliveries while overburdening themselves
  - dwags 7y ago
    Repetitive yes, brainless no. Every day is the same problem and you need to figure out the best way to solve it. You also get paid for the number of hours the computer says. Finish your route in 5 hours and getting paid for 8 was pretty rewarding. I also stayed in great shape and you get to hang out outside all day.
tharne 7y ago
I think we're all guilty of contributing to this problem. We all say we're for livable wages and then don't vote with our dollars as often as we should. I'm definitely guilty of going to Amazon because a book is a few dollars cheaper there and I can get it in two days instead of a week. If we care about workers and corporate behavior, we need to be willing to pay a little more for products that are made by companies who's ethics we can get behind. Purism and System76 are good examples of this in the laptop space. When we do vote with our dollars, the results are often impressive, as seen by the surge in availability of organic meat and produce.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  If we care about workers and corporate behavior we need to change the law (and elect/appoint legislators and political executives and law enforcement agents and judges who will follow/enforce existing laws) to allow workers to unionize, increase the minimum wage, enforce fairer working hours, safer working conditions, better worker protections from fraud and theft, etc. If Amazon wants to run a delivery network it should have to own the trucks, pay the workers a salary, guarantee them basic labor rights, and so on. Foisting all of the legal and financial liability for bad practices onto fragmented and poorly managed subcontractors who only exist to serve Amazon as a single customer is a tremendous abuse. Federal antitrust action against monopolies and monopsonies would be helpful too. Individual consumers can’t possibly have full information about the supply chain of every item they buy, and we can’t expect consumers to solve this type of problem.
  - asdf21 7y ago
    Upvoted, because very valid points overall. That being said.. >Individual consumers can’t possibly have full information about the supply chain of every item they buy Of course not, however, they don't need full information to hear, at some point or another, that Amazon is a poor place to work. And it isn't as if the government has a solid track record of producing new regulation lately. Can you name one well-executed regulatory initiative the US Federal Government has implemented in the last 20-30 years? Or better yet, one well-executed major infrastructure project? I'm genuinely curious, maybe I'm just cynical, but I'm not sure it's even possible anymore for the government to be functional at any deeper level.
kelnos 7y ago
FedEx and UPS are likely hit by this as well. Given driver behavior in the past few years (throw packages at doorstep, buzz all units in building and don't wait for an answer before speeding off), they're probably judged on packages delivered, so they're optimizing for quantity, not quality. I wouldn't blame Amazon's logistics group for this, but simply the rise of delivery shopping (in large part fueled by Amazon). It's really hard to scale that, especially at the low (or zero) shipping prices customers have been trained to expect.
txcwpalpha 7y ago
>It seems the "decent" jobs are going away, replaced by ones that turn workers into robots to better extract value from their labor. We are in a (or entering a) transitionary period where said workers are soon to be literally replaced by robots. The current market expects robot-like efficiency from these jobs, but the robots aren't ready to fully take over yet, which means people get stuck filling the gap with jobs that require more and more of them. Transitionary periods always suck for the people caught in the churn. On one hand, once the robots are more widely deployed for warehouse work and delivery, there will be less stories about overworked, tired humans. On the other hand, there might be more stories about less availability of low-skill jobs, and these same humans now being underemployed.
- graycat 7y ago
  There is a simple macro view I don't see mentioned much: For the economics, in a word, the robots are deflationary. Usually in deflation people lose jobs. Then there is the old remark IIRC "deflation is the easiest problem in the world to solve -- just print money." It may be that the current pair of low interest rates and low inflation are just from such money printing for just such deflation. Then with the low interest rates, businesses can afford to borrow to do the R&D for the (more) robots. Also generally with the money printing, there is more money sloshing around which tends to result in more hiring, more jobs, and lower unemployment, and sometimes even training new workers. So we've got five together: (i) More automation (robots, computing, the Internet), (ii) low interest rates, (iii) low inflation rates, (iv) high stock market, and (v) low unemployment rates. With tariffs and trade deals, we may have more jobs for low skilled workers. I'd like to know in more clear terms just what Amazon is using cargo planes for: The usual idea is to use boats and trucks to move products to a retailer's warehouse and then use something like FedEx, UPS, or USPS from the warehouse to the end of the last mile. A guess: Amazon wants a warehouse in each major city, maybe 100 - 200 in the US. From each such warehouse, they deliver to the end of the last mile by small trucks. For the popular items, they stock these warehouses via trucks. Then they also have a huge central warehouse, stocked by truck, that has all the rare items and each day have their planes fly at night moving the rare stuff that has just been ordered to the city warehouses for delivery by truck during daylight. Maybe. Amazon needed a lot of computing for their Web site so setup their server farm(s) and also provided such computing to anyone via AWS. Well, Amazon needs lots of warehousing and small truck delivery so maybe wants to provide that to every other business that needs warehousing and small truck delivery. In some cases there're big efficiencies there: E.g., for a lot of items, it comes out of the factory for, say, 10 cents but the consumer pays maybe $2. The $1.90 goes for advertising, order taking, warehousing, shipping, payment, and some earnings. Well, Amazon can save a big chunk of the $1.90 which for the US, and much of the world, would be one heck of a big increase in economic productivity and a lot of deflation needing still more money printing! My guesses! For more, why do people need private cars? Sure: A big reason is for shopping, e.g., getting groceries. Well, do warehousing and small truck delivery well enough and can replace a lot of the need for private cars, even for refrigerated grocery items, milk, butter, cream, eggs, lettuce, ready to bake pizza, and maybe even ice cream!
diegoholiveira 7y ago
Stop buying stuff online and start buying from locals.
- ergothus 7y ago
  The problem with this is that while it is easy to see that the success of large corporations with practices we disagree with creates the problem, it is harder to see how us stopping our support helps fix them. I boycotted Amazon for the better part of a decade over the one-click patent. Result: they lost some amount of money they didn't notice, I lost out on all the convenience and options. They changed nothing I was boycotting about. I boycotted Blizzard over the bnetd response for 5-10 years. Result: They lost out on me buying Warcraft 3. I lost out on playing WC3, on the related social activities, on being part of DOTA being born, etc. They changed nothing I was boycotting about. I revisited the boycott on blizzard after the Hong Kong mess, but this time I said I'd time box it if nothing seemed to be changing. Is this cynicism? My unwillingness top accept some minor inconveniences to be part of a group trying to prevent human abuse? Should I care that my efforts are unsuccessful if they are nonetheless the right thing to do? Maybe I shouldn't care about sacrificing but failing, but I do. And not just because I don't want the inconvenience, but because I want the problems to be fixed. Stopping the spread of soul-crushing (and in the case of warehouses at least, body-crushing) labor is GOOD, and way more important than promoting technological equality. I want success at this! If I'm making life harder and doing nothing to actually stop that, I want to shift my sacrifices to a more successful area. I just have no idea how. Right now my options are: Suffer a little without helping those that suffer a lot, or don't suffer while still not helping those that suffer a lot.
  - Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
    I'm on a similar page with Comcast. I had problems with their service back in 2008. Long story short, my internet connection dropped frequently (20+ times per DAY), and not only were the techs unable to find the problem, but wanted to charge me for the visits since they assumed that it had to be a problem with my computer, even though it was the lights on the cable modem showing a loss of signal. After that debacle, I swore off Comcast and said I'd never use them again. I doubled down on this boycott as net neutrality debates heated up. But these days, my choices for Internet service are Frontier FIOS or Comcast. I'm on Frontier, paying $40/month for 30 mbps, but only get 20-25 mbps. They supposedly offer up to 500 mbps, but won't tell me what the off-promo pricing is. Comcast at least includes it in their fine print. Having only 30 mbps is starting to be a drag. I'm a gamer, and having to wait an hour or more to download a game that my friends are inviting me to check out is lame. I'm starting to consider Comcast, even though I hate them so bad.
harikb 7y ago
Amazon needs to add a "Deliver next week, given them a break" instead of the $1 it offers me which I never use anyways.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Deliver next week, ship via USPS. I don’t care when it shows up as long as the workers are paid and treated humanely.
- magnetic 7y ago
  You can select "Amazon Day" delivery to accomplish that (kind of).
- jonlucc 7y ago
  I've been seeing a "deliver on my Amazon day (Saturday)" option, which is a way to batch deliver all purchases for a week.
  - saimiam 7y ago
    While I haven’t seen Amazon day in the wild, I have to marvel at their marketing folks who have captured mindshare by coopting what used to be (and still is in my house) grocery day - when we do our weekly shopping - into Amazon day. To me, it’s these little moves which capture an inch of mindshare at a time that really bring home the power of marketing.
    - brewdad 7y ago
      Prime members can choose a "Prime Day", meaning consolidating purchases into one day of your choice (say Thursday). This might be a bigger triumph in marketing. Convincing customers who pay a premium for 2-day shipping to accept delivery a week (or more) out, by choice. Genius!
jdkee 7y ago
It is a race to the bottom with one man having more wealth than 20 million Americans. Amazon delivery folk, and warehouse folk, need to unionize and demand better wages and working conditions.
- ctack 7y ago
  I imagine that unionisation is going to come for Amazon in the end.
guelo 7y ago
You happy employees is my opportunity. - Bezos, almost
robsinatra 7y ago
These are people who are competing with unionized drivers at UPS. Why feel any compassion towards them about their work conditions? They are only serving their own interests.
mengibar10 7y ago
Problem is deeper than that, much widespread than one company (Amazon). It's the culture of modern Western civilization. We're all guilty of it, so I'm not blaming anyone or any country. When everything is driven by profit, pure utility, regardless of its currency (it can be time not just money), what we are living is inevitable. Environmental degradation is just another manifestation of the same root problem, climate change, income disparity, you name it.
GuB-42 7y ago
My experience with Amazon delivery guys is they look completely lost, and I don't think it is their fault. They are nice, nicer than postmen and deliverymen from well established companies like UPS, but as soon as something unexpected happen (if you can call "not at home" unexpected) things become complicated. I often get "I don't know", "I need to call my boss", "this is not my route", etc... They don't have the master key for my mailbox or entry hall, they don't have a drop off point where I can pick the package later, I can't even go to the warehouse and pick my package there, tracking events are inaccurate, times are highly irregular ... None of that happen with other delivery companies. They really look like amateurs doing their best with limited means, it is difficult to imagine they are backed by one of the biggest and most technologically advanced companies in the world.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > They don't have the master key for my mailbox or entry hall Why would you expect someone to have your keys? That’s not a reasonable expectation. > they don't have a drop off point where I can pick the package later, I can't even go to the warehouse and pick my package there They’re a delivery company, not a pick-up company, that why.
  - empath75 7y ago
    Lots of buildings give keys to fedex and ups drivers.
    - Jamwinner 7y ago
      And more do not. I do not want every rando who scores a backpage delivery job to hve access to my building.
  - andrewbinstock 7y ago
    > They don't have the master key for my mailbox or entry hall Why would you expect someone to have your keys? That’s not a reasonable expectation. Totally common in the US. It's not the keys to your house but to the common areas of your building, such as the lobby and hallways where packages can be left.
ctdonath 7y ago
The lament of the Luddite lingers. Were the job not there, other jobs would be pursued. Pursue other jobs if this is not to your liking.

bsder 7y ago

> It seems the "decent" jobs are going away, replaced by ones that turn workers into robots to better extract value from their labor. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
I love MANNA every time it gets linked, I love reading it.
kortex 7y ago
That started off the most terrifying dystopia I had ever read. Now it's incredibly inspiring, but alas I have to call it a night at chapter 6. This should be required reading.

standardUser 7y ago

Traditionally it has been unions that have placed a check on employers' perpetual quest to trade humanity for efficiency.

tharne 7y ago
That's true to an extent, but unfortunately unions (at least in the US) tend to end up mimicking the same corporate behavior they are supposed to be placing a check on. The get bigger and more powerful and they start to take and take with no concern for the fallout, and like corporations, they get politicians to do their bidding at the expense of the general population. There are towns near me teetering on bankruptcy, while the police and firefighters can retire after 20 years of service with a pension equal to 80% of their last 3 years of pay. Any effort to reform what is obviously an unsustainable agreement that never should have been struck in the first place is meet with a wall of resistance and veiled threats to public safety. In the private sector, unions have had a long history of opposing environmental regulations out of fear that it would affect employment in heavy manufacturing. Auto workers unions have repeatedly opposed any effort to invest in public transportation and reduce auto dependency. I've heard that Scandinavia has had better luck with unions, but here in the U.S. unions have been every bit as self-serving and bullying as the corporate overloads they're supposedly a counter balance to. I'd love to see better restraints on corporate power, but I'm not holding my breath for unions to be anything but one more moneyed interest.
- jkaplowitz 7y ago
  Sure, US unions need some reforms, just like the plutocrats need to be reined in. And yet, if there are moneyed interests promoting the goals of big business and the rest of the ruling class, isn't it better to balance that out with whatever imperfect form of unionism is currently available while advocating for the necessary reforms? An anti-worker imbalance in money and power seems worse than that.
  - tharne 7y ago
    That's what I believed when I was younger. However, after watching unions in action, they seem to make things even worse, especially for younger workers. I don't think the answer to outsized corporate power is to try and balance it with outsized union power. What I'd like to see is simply more decentralization of power, something like the "trust busting" under Teddy Roosevelt. When any organization gets past a certain scale it seems to lose touch with basic values and decency. You see this with countries too. Small states like Singapore or Denmark don't often start needless wars or meddle in the affairs of others, the way superstates like the U.S., Russia or China do.

spike021 7y ago

>Now I see the Amazon delivery people, and they look majorly stressed out as if they are on the edge of collapse. Many times they are delivering things at 10pm desperately trying to meet their quotas. Even UPS sounds.. not great. I have a friend who's a delivery driver for UPS and especially this time of year he has days where his truck is loaded with 250-300 parcels and they're basically all supposed to be delivered by evening. They even hire temp guys as runners who ride along in trucks to help the drivers get the packages dropped off quicker. Not only that but if they do clear their truck and they have fellow guys in their route who still have a load to clear, they tend to be asked to stick around and help take that load. But it means 10-12 hour or more shifts in some cases. It's the Amazon/online shopping craze, and seems like it isn't a very easily scalable problem.

papreclip 7y ago
RE: UPS - The hours aren't bad. You get overtime past 40 and are generally glad when it happens. If you work at a normal pace you won't get into trouble for productivity with your boss, and you're never at risk of making less money because you're not productive enough. UPS guarantees you a certain number of hours so you don't get trapped committing to a job that ends up only giving you 20/wk What sucks about the job is how brainless and repetitive delivering packages is. It is nice that everyone is typically happy to see you, but conversations typically don't get very far past "hello" and "goodbye" I don't know what it's like working for Amazon, but if it's typical gig economy BS, they are getting shafted by hidden costs and have bad incentives to make rushed and sloppy deliveries while overburdening themselves
- dwags 7y ago
  Repetitive yes, brainless no. Every day is the same problem and you need to figure out the best way to solve it. You also get paid for the number of hours the computer says. Finish your route in 5 hours and getting paid for 8 was pretty rewarding. I also stayed in great shape and you get to hang out outside all day.

tharne 7y ago

I think we're all guilty of contributing to this problem. We all say we're for livable wages and then don't vote with our dollars as often as we should. I'm definitely guilty of going to Amazon because a book is a few dollars cheaper there and I can get it in two days instead of a week. If we care about workers and corporate behavior, we need to be willing to pay a little more for products that are made by companies who's ethics we can get behind. Purism and System76 are good examples of this in the laptop space. When we do vote with our dollars, the results are often impressive, as seen by the surge in availability of organic meat and produce.

jacobolus 7y ago
If we care about workers and corporate behavior we need to change the law (and elect/appoint legislators and political executives and law enforcement agents and judges who will follow/enforce existing laws) to allow workers to unionize, increase the minimum wage, enforce fairer working hours, safer working conditions, better worker protections from fraud and theft, etc. If Amazon wants to run a delivery network it should have to own the trucks, pay the workers a salary, guarantee them basic labor rights, and so on. Foisting all of the legal and financial liability for bad practices onto fragmented and poorly managed subcontractors who only exist to serve Amazon as a single customer is a tremendous abuse. Federal antitrust action against monopolies and monopsonies would be helpful too. Individual consumers can’t possibly have full information about the supply chain of every item they buy, and we can’t expect consumers to solve this type of problem.
- asdf21 7y ago
  Upvoted, because very valid points overall. That being said.. >Individual consumers can’t possibly have full information about the supply chain of every item they buy Of course not, however, they don't need full information to hear, at some point or another, that Amazon is a poor place to work. And it isn't as if the government has a solid track record of producing new regulation lately. Can you name one well-executed regulatory initiative the US Federal Government has implemented in the last 20-30 years? Or better yet, one well-executed major infrastructure project? I'm genuinely curious, maybe I'm just cynical, but I'm not sure it's even possible anymore for the government to be functional at any deeper level.

kelnos 7y ago

FedEx and UPS are likely hit by this as well. Given driver behavior in the past few years (throw packages at doorstep, buzz all units in building and don't wait for an answer before speeding off), they're probably judged on packages delivered, so they're optimizing for quantity, not quality. I wouldn't blame Amazon's logistics group for this, but simply the rise of delivery shopping (in large part fueled by Amazon). It's really hard to scale that, especially at the low (or zero) shipping prices customers have been trained to expect.

txcwpalpha 7y ago

>It seems the "decent" jobs are going away, replaced by ones that turn workers into robots to better extract value from their labor. We are in a (or entering a) transitionary period where said workers are soon to be literally replaced by robots. The current market expects robot-like efficiency from these jobs, but the robots aren't ready to fully take over yet, which means people get stuck filling the gap with jobs that require more and more of them. Transitionary periods always suck for the people caught in the churn. On one hand, once the robots are more widely deployed for warehouse work and delivery, there will be less stories about overworked, tired humans. On the other hand, there might be more stories about less availability of low-skill jobs, and these same humans now being underemployed.

graycat 7y ago
There is a simple macro view I don't see mentioned much: For the economics, in a word, the robots are deflationary. Usually in deflation people lose jobs. Then there is the old remark IIRC "deflation is the easiest problem in the world to solve -- just print money." It may be that the current pair of low interest rates and low inflation are just from such money printing for just such deflation. Then with the low interest rates, businesses can afford to borrow to do the R&D for the (more) robots. Also generally with the money printing, there is more money sloshing around which tends to result in more hiring, more jobs, and lower unemployment, and sometimes even training new workers. So we've got five together: (i) More automation (robots, computing, the Internet), (ii) low interest rates, (iii) low inflation rates, (iv) high stock market, and (v) low unemployment rates. With tariffs and trade deals, we may have more jobs for low skilled workers. I'd like to know in more clear terms just what Amazon is using cargo planes for: The usual idea is to use boats and trucks to move products to a retailer's warehouse and then use something like FedEx, UPS, or USPS from the warehouse to the end of the last mile. A guess: Amazon wants a warehouse in each major city, maybe 100 - 200 in the US. From each such warehouse, they deliver to the end of the last mile by small trucks. For the popular items, they stock these warehouses via trucks. Then they also have a huge central warehouse, stocked by truck, that has all the rare items and each day have their planes fly at night moving the rare stuff that has just been ordered to the city warehouses for delivery by truck during daylight. Maybe. Amazon needed a lot of computing for their Web site so setup their server farm(s) and also provided such computing to anyone via AWS. Well, Amazon needs lots of warehousing and small truck delivery so maybe wants to provide that to every other business that needs warehousing and small truck delivery. In some cases there're big efficiencies there: E.g., for a lot of items, it comes out of the factory for, say, 10 cents but the consumer pays maybe $2. The $1.90 goes for advertising, order taking, warehousing, shipping, payment, and some earnings. Well, Amazon can save a big chunk of the $1.90 which for the US, and much of the world, would be one heck of a big increase in economic productivity and a lot of deflation needing still more money printing! My guesses! For more, why do people need private cars? Sure: A big reason is for shopping, e.g., getting groceries. Well, do warehousing and small truck delivery well enough and can replace a lot of the need for private cars, even for refrigerated grocery items, milk, butter, cream, eggs, lettuce, ready to bake pizza, and maybe even ice cream!

diegoholiveira 7y ago

Stop buying stuff online and start buying from locals.

ergothus 7y ago
The problem with this is that while it is easy to see that the success of large corporations with practices we disagree with creates the problem, it is harder to see how us stopping our support helps fix them. I boycotted Amazon for the better part of a decade over the one-click patent. Result: they lost some amount of money they didn't notice, I lost out on all the convenience and options. They changed nothing I was boycotting about. I boycotted Blizzard over the bnetd response for 5-10 years. Result: They lost out on me buying Warcraft 3. I lost out on playing WC3, on the related social activities, on being part of DOTA being born, etc. They changed nothing I was boycotting about. I revisited the boycott on blizzard after the Hong Kong mess, but this time I said I'd time box it if nothing seemed to be changing. Is this cynicism? My unwillingness top accept some minor inconveniences to be part of a group trying to prevent human abuse? Should I care that my efforts are unsuccessful if they are nonetheless the right thing to do? Maybe I shouldn't care about sacrificing but failing, but I do. And not just because I don't want the inconvenience, but because I want the problems to be fixed. Stopping the spread of soul-crushing (and in the case of warehouses at least, body-crushing) labor is GOOD, and way more important than promoting technological equality. I want success at this! If I'm making life harder and doing nothing to actually stop that, I want to shift my sacrifices to a more successful area. I just have no idea how. Right now my options are: Suffer a little without helping those that suffer a lot, or don't suffer while still not helping those that suffer a lot.
- Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
  I'm on a similar page with Comcast. I had problems with their service back in 2008. Long story short, my internet connection dropped frequently (20+ times per DAY), and not only were the techs unable to find the problem, but wanted to charge me for the visits since they assumed that it had to be a problem with my computer, even though it was the lights on the cable modem showing a loss of signal. After that debacle, I swore off Comcast and said I'd never use them again. I doubled down on this boycott as net neutrality debates heated up. But these days, my choices for Internet service are Frontier FIOS or Comcast. I'm on Frontier, paying $40/month for 30 mbps, but only get 20-25 mbps. They supposedly offer up to 500 mbps, but won't tell me what the off-promo pricing is. Comcast at least includes it in their fine print. Having only 30 mbps is starting to be a drag. I'm a gamer, and having to wait an hour or more to download a game that my friends are inviting me to check out is lame. I'm starting to consider Comcast, even though I hate them so bad.

harikb 7y ago

Amazon needs to add a "Deliver next week, given them a break" instead of the $1 it offers me which I never use anyways.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Deliver next week, ship via USPS. I don’t care when it shows up as long as the workers are paid and treated humanely.
magnetic 7y ago
You can select "Amazon Day" delivery to accomplish that (kind of).
jonlucc 7y ago
I've been seeing a "deliver on my Amazon day (Saturday)" option, which is a way to batch deliver all purchases for a week.
- saimiam 7y ago
  While I haven’t seen Amazon day in the wild, I have to marvel at their marketing folks who have captured mindshare by coopting what used to be (and still is in my house) grocery day - when we do our weekly shopping - into Amazon day. To me, it’s these little moves which capture an inch of mindshare at a time that really bring home the power of marketing.
  - brewdad 7y ago
    Prime members can choose a "Prime Day", meaning consolidating purchases into one day of your choice (say Thursday). This might be a bigger triumph in marketing. Convincing customers who pay a premium for 2-day shipping to accept delivery a week (or more) out, by choice. Genius!

jdkee 7y ago

It is a race to the bottom with one man having more wealth than 20 million Americans. Amazon delivery folk, and warehouse folk, need to unionize and demand better wages and working conditions.

ctack 7y ago
I imagine that unionisation is going to come for Amazon in the end.

guelo 7y ago

You happy employees is my opportunity. - Bezos, almost

robsinatra 7y ago

These are people who are competing with unionized drivers at UPS. Why feel any compassion towards them about their work conditions? They are only serving their own interests.

mengibar10 7y ago

Problem is deeper than that, much widespread than one company (Amazon). It's the culture of modern Western civilization. We're all guilty of it, so I'm not blaming anyone or any country. When everything is driven by profit, pure utility, regardless of its currency (it can be time not just money), what we are living is inevitable. Environmental degradation is just another manifestation of the same root problem, climate change, income disparity, you name it.

GuB-42 7y ago

My experience with Amazon delivery guys is they look completely lost, and I don't think it is their fault. They are nice, nicer than postmen and deliverymen from well established companies like UPS, but as soon as something unexpected happen (if you can call "not at home" unexpected) things become complicated. I often get "I don't know", "I need to call my boss", "this is not my route", etc... They don't have the master key for my mailbox or entry hall, they don't have a drop off point where I can pick the package later, I can't even go to the warehouse and pick my package there, tracking events are inaccurate, times are highly irregular ... None of that happen with other delivery companies. They really look like amateurs doing their best with limited means, it is difficult to imagine they are backed by one of the biggest and most technologically advanced companies in the world.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> They don't have the master key for my mailbox or entry hall Why would you expect someone to have your keys? That’s not a reasonable expectation. > they don't have a drop off point where I can pick the package later, I can't even go to the warehouse and pick my package there They’re a delivery company, not a pick-up company, that why.
- empath75 7y ago
  Lots of buildings give keys to fedex and ups drivers.
  - Jamwinner 7y ago
    And more do not. I do not want every rando who scores a backpage delivery job to hve access to my building.
- andrewbinstock 7y ago
  > They don't have the master key for my mailbox or entry hall Why would you expect someone to have your keys? That’s not a reasonable expectation. Totally common in the US. It's not the keys to your house but to the common areas of your building, such as the lobby and hallways where packages can be left.

ctdonath 7y ago

The lament of the Luddite lingers. Were the job not there, other jobs would be pursued. Pursue other jobs if this is not to your liking.