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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 def

• 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.
    • jacobolus 7y ago
      The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was quite effective until its leadership were unlawfully replaced with partisan hacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_Bureau#2017_dispute_over_acting_director https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_... One big federal problem with antitrust and other corporate–related law is that we have now had an unbroken half century of “conservative” domination of the US Supreme Court. Over that time consumer, worker, citizen, and small-business friendly interpretations of a wide variety of laws have been steadily replaced by interpretations friendly to wealthy/corporate interests. That control should have been broken after Scalia died but the GOP-controlled Senate broke with any pretense of good faith or respect for norms or precedent and refused to allow even a moderate compromise candidate to come to a Senate confirmation vote. After regaining control of the presidency the Senate then eliminated the filibuster so it could force radical GOP ideologues through onto the bench. > I'm not sure it's even possible anymore for the government to be functional at any deeper level. This is absurd. The US civil service is full of highly competent experts without whom we would all be exposed to grave risks every day. They do their work conscientiously and seriously, largely out of the spotlight. Let me recommend you read Michael Lewis’s book The Fifth Risk, or at least listen to one of these interviews about it: https://www.scpr.org/programs/fresh-air/2018/10/02/65410/ https://www.scpr.org/programs/fresh-air/2018/10/02/65410/ https://cafe.com/stay-tuned-what-is-the-fifth-risk-with-michael-lewis/ https://cafe.com/stay-tuned-what-is-the-fifth-risk-with-mich...
      • asdf21 7y ago
        >Let me recommend you read Michael Lewis’s book The Fifth Risk, or at least listen to one of these interviews about it: I'm not sure I need to read a biased polemic about how big government is good and the Trump admin is bad. >The US civil service is full of highly competent experts without whom we would all be exposed to grave risks every day. I've worked for government agencies, and this is certainly not how I would describe the workers there. I'd say this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21805768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21805768 would more closely represent my typical experience with civil servants.. rampant incompetence.
  • robsinatra 7y ago
    Shoulds and oughts aren't changing the world. Moral grandstanding isn't either. You're ignoring the feedback.
    • jacobolus 7y ago
      Can you explain what you mean? I don’t understand what you are trying to say. Specifically, what do you consider to be “grandstanding” and which “feedback” are you referring to?
  • jberm123 7y ago
    This sounds contradictory to me: If Amazon wants to run a delivery network it should [be an even larger monopoly] ... Federal antitrust action against monopolies and monopsonies would be helpful too.
    • jacobolus 7y ago
      Amazon is a monopsony with respect to its delivery subcontractors. They are not real independent businesses in a real market, but are wholly reliant on Amazon, using Amazon branding and with most aspects of their business dictated by Amazon. The only reason Amazon has set things up this way is because it (a) allows them to deliberately abuse their subcontractors’ workers in ways that would be unlawful if they directly employed them, and (b) shields them from various kinds of legal risks which they should be liable for. Disclaimer: I am not an expert in Amazon’s delivery network or other business practices. You’d have to ask a labor lawyer for a full account.
    • jjeaff 7y ago
      Requiring them to follow contractor vs w2 employee rules is not making them any bigger or smaller. Frankly, I'm not sure how they are skirting the law thus far. I'm not even sure they own the trucks that have Amazon branding on them. I have read some claims that the subcontractors have to buy or lease the vehicles from Amazon.
• vector_spaces 7y ago
  I agree with you, but one feature all of the examples you gave have in common is that they're only accessible to certain demographics. When you make <$1000 a month, as many people do, organic produce doesn't seem very practical, let alone an eye-watering $3800 for a System76 box when compared with one made in a sweatshop for a fifth the price (and I know System76 offers generous payment plans, but not to people with poor credit, which excludes a large number of low income folks -- e.g. me, once upon a time). Simón Borreo, one of the founders of Rappi, said a few years ago in an interview[1] that the wildfire success of Rappi and other on-demand startups in Latin America and other emerging markets is due to vastly lower labor costs. The unfortunate reality is that by and large pricing for many items is artificially low due to (hyper)exploitation happening somewhere up the pipeline -- if something is cheap and accessible, often it is because somewhere up the chain, wages are lower or labor conditions are poorer. (Incidentally I think Simón's point should make everyone living in countries with strong labor and minimum wage laws who values those things highly suspicious of the on-demand model and the lobbying efforts of unicorns in that space) It's relatively easy to drive availability for the small subset of the population who didn't notice the apples on their grocery bill cost $5.99 a pound because they were organically grown on a small biodynamic farm in Oregon that treats its workers kindly. It's much, much harder (or outright intractable) to drive availability for everyone else -- under the current system. [1] https://lavca.org/2016/12/01/entrepreneur-profile-simon-borrero-co-founder-ceo-rappi/ https://lavca.org/2016/12/01/entrepreneur-profile-simon-borr...
• pornel 7y ago
  Voting with dollars is hard when Amazon hoovers up their competitors. You may be buying from an Amazon subsidiary without even realizing it (e.g. UK's largest "not Amazon" book site is owned by Amazon). Just vote with your votes for fair wages instead of tax breaks for Bezos.
• theturtletalks 7y ago
  I use eBay for books. Sellers pay a lower commission and a 3rd party seller is sending your book so you're supporting small business. The book is always cheaper and even more so if you buy used. The only catch is that it takes longer than 1 day and that's a dealbreaker for many.
• matz1 7y ago
  The thing is I am indeed voting with my dollar, I vote for few dollars cheaper and get it in two days instead of a week.
• mc32 7y ago
  No only indirectly via those choices but also by removing any and all “play” (inefficiency) from systems. Some automation is good and brings steadiness (removes errors), but other efficiencies basically remove jobs. Do we need HFT trading? Did we need traders in the pit? In any case, this resulted in the elimination of good jobs. We could “automate” much of sports and just have fantasy leagues, why not? Automating transportation, same thing. It will eliminate meaningful jobs. We are all contributing to this acceleration. So we’re destroying jobs in many ways. From preferring auto checkouts to buying from amazon to putting services “in the cloud”.
  • suzakus 7y ago
    This is an interesting take on jobs, similar to what Ancient Romans had –– they preferred to not automate certain jobs to ensure that slaves would have things to work on :) Mentioned offhand in https://www.jstor.org/stable/2591872 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2591872
    • mc32 7y ago
      Interesting! At the moment we’re automating low hanging fruit and some arduous manual things (with agricultural automation and factory automation), but it will keep on creeping up. There is only a certain percentage of people with aptitude to go further and further up the value chain. What do we do for the many who just don’t have what it takes? We’ve taken all their jobs away. A baseline UBI isn’t an answer. People will want more. People have _some_ ambition. Not everyone is made out to finding things to do at home all day (we need only look at retirees for data). What are they going to volunteer for? It’ll all be automated.
      • mercer 7y ago
        > People will want more. People have _some_ ambition. Not everyone is made out to finding things to do at home all day (we need only look at retirees for data). What are they going to volunteer for? It’ll all be automated. I don't know if this is true. Sure, if you grow up in a society where work is an important part of your self-worth for much of your life, it makes sense that upon retirement it's hard to see things differently. But suppose you're raised in a society where this is not the case? Where for some, there isn't the often almost traumatic transition from play to school and school to work? I'm inclined to believe that in such a society there will be different kinds of people, some who enjoy the tedious work, some who focus on art, and some who mostly fart around and remind the rest of us to take a break, so to speak. As a child, I was always busy starting activity groups. I enjoyed learning for its own sake (preserved in part by not having to go to high school until I was around 17). I read voraciously. I explored. I learned a degree of diligence and discipline by other means that, in hindsight, felt a lot more natural than "do your homework". If I didn't 'have' to work I would probably still be doing the kinds of stuff that we now call work. I've kind of become less certain that this is true for everyone, because other children seemed to mostly enjoy socializing and relaxing in various ways. But I can imagine there's a use for that too, and if we do manage to automate everything it's not like we can't afford these types of people too. I still suspect that with these other children perhaps they just hadn't yet found what innately motivates them.
• graylights 7y ago
  It shouldn't be on the customer to investigate every company they deal with. The public will only know when it becomes so bad that these kind of news stories start coming out. If public opinion is that bad, it should be regulated. Or the drivers need to unionize. I think it's only a matter of time before the drivers join the teamsters.
• sinabsolved 7y ago
  That's okay. You've already admitted to your fault in public. Now let's get back to buying the new ooooo shiny from amazon.com. oh wait, you're better than this. Smile.amazon.com