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I agree that Amazon isn't good for competition, and some of their business practices are troubling. I'm just tired of seeing some of the points you made pop up
by ctvo 6y ago
I agree that Amazon isn't good for competition, and some of their business practices are troubling. I'm just tired of seeing some of the points you made pop up in every Amazon topic.
> I haven't had a prime subscription for over 2 years now because every time I order something its a 50/50 that I will get a shitty ripoff from China.
Were you ordering expensive sneakers and purses regularly? You'd think if this was the experience of even a minor fraction of their customers (beyond the HN commenters who claim this is wide spread in every Amazon topic), they wouldn't be breaking record sales every quarter.
> This isn't even scratching the surface on how they treat many of their employees. Who is working in an amazon warehouse right now and actually having a good time of it?
Who is doing manual labor of any form and having a good time of it? Amazon to their credit gave a minimum wage of 15 USD to these workers, often ahead of the states they're located in, and the workers get full health care and benefits. I'm not saying they can't be paid more or shouldn't be paid more, but I'm going to acknowledge their agency. Over 800k of them picked Amazon over say Walmart or Costco or some other warehouse job.
> Amazon could easily automate away many jobs they never wanted in the first place, but sacrificing lower-skilled humans do the last mile of messy pick & place turns out to be more friendly to margins.
Companies hire people to do work if it's profitable is the essence of this objection? There are complex systems that lead people to accepting these jobs -- America's failing education system, the lack of upward mobility and opportunity for many citizens, lack of focus on trade / manufacturing jobs in school, etc.. You take the easy route of blaming a corporation doing corporation things.
- JKCalhoun 6y ago> > I haven't had a prime subscription for over 2 years now because every time I order something its a 50/50 that I will get a shitty ripoff from China. > Were you ordering expensive sneakers and purses regularly? You'd think if this was the experience of even a minor fraction of their customers (beyond the HN commenters who claim this is wide spread in every Amazon topic), they wouldn't be breaking record sales every quarter. Come on, you know as well as I that there is not necessarily a correlation there: between record quarter sales and counterfeit products. I agree that claims of 50% counterfeit products is an exaggeration but to point to their quarterly sales is as refutation is silly. Sales could be increasing for any number of reasons unrelated to customer satisfaction. Cusatomers could be unaware they are purchasing counterfeit products, etc.
- xpe 6y ago> who is doing manual labor of any kind and having a good time of it I take your point. That said, many (or even most?) people enjoy doing some amount of physical work. However, Taylorism and the industrial revolution tended to make physical work so repetitive that it become unsatisfying. For example, in my experience, UPS drivers often like a job where they get to be outside and active. I don't have surveys at hand, but I would guess that skilled laborers like the work itself. Their bosses, sick time, injuries, probably not so much. I would ask everyone to think about future scenarios where work can have more physical aspects -- there are advantages to long term happiness and productivity that I think get overlooked.