5 ms·

From the article it sounds like the spirit behind this decision is to better serve the customer by hitting fast delivery times more. Is this really such an impo

From the article it sounds like the spirit behind this decision is to better serve the customer by hitting fast delivery times more. Is this really such an important thing for people? I for one would rather wait an extra day if it meant there weren’t countless workers having their schedules destroyed. I’d be interested to see the percentage of people complaining about slow delivery times vs the percentage of people who choose the “slow” shipping option on amazon.

pavel_lishin 6y ago
> Is this really such an important thing for people? I for one would rather wait an extra day if it meant there weren’t countless workers having their schedules destroyed. I'd wager that most of Amazon's customers aren't aware that there's even a trolley problem to solve here.
sgpl 6y ago
Unfortunately customers don't have direct insight into what goes on behind the scenes to make the supply chains more efficient. They are shielded from the exploitation that exists and for the most part don't care after the initial shock of learning about such exploitation. My simple understanding of why this happens is: they move on to other things, convenience trumps everything else, there's so much bad stuff happening in the world that we don't really have the cognitive bandwidth to think about everything, a lot of times we can't really affect change so that doesn't help matters either. Eg: Cloth factories in India/China/Bangladesh; Electronic manufacturing factories such as Foxconn, etc.
AlexandrB 6y ago
What makes me laugh about this is that the Amazon customer experience is degrading in so many other, more important (to me) ways. * Reviews are no longer trustworthy - subject to spam, altered product listings, and "discounts" (read bribes) paid to purchasers for positive reviews. * Counterfeits are still rampant. * Products regularly arrive damaged because they're not packaged well (usually tossed in an envelope). * Amazon Prime cancellation process is becoming Kafkaesque. Given the above, even if Amazon could do 1-hour delivery, I don't want to buy anything from them. Maybe they should focus more on some of these other problems instead of running their warehouse staff into the ground.
plandis 6y ago
> Is this really such an important thing for people? Yes. Ideally, I’d buy things and get them instantly but to my knowledge nobody has created a teleporter for general goods.
ThePadawan 6y ago
> I for one would rather wait an extra day if it meant there weren’t countless workers having their schedules destroyed. Same, but it's at the discretion of the companies if they over that. In Switzerland and the UK, there is the concept of "second class mail". Generally letters, but also (some) packages. They come at a slower delivery guarantee (2-3 days instead of 1), but a ~20% discount. But shopping online doesn't seem to be headed that way. Hell, the last time I bought something online, the cheapest (free), slowest, and only delivery option was "express". How messed up is that!

pavel_lishin 6y ago

> Is this really such an important thing for people? I for one would rather wait an extra day if it meant there weren’t countless workers having their schedules destroyed. I'd wager that most of Amazon's customers aren't aware that there's even a trolley problem to solve here.

sgpl 6y ago

Unfortunately customers don't have direct insight into what goes on behind the scenes to make the supply chains more efficient. They are shielded from the exploitation that exists and for the most part don't care after the initial shock of learning about such exploitation. My simple understanding of why this happens is: they move on to other things, convenience trumps everything else, there's so much bad stuff happening in the world that we don't really have the cognitive bandwidth to think about everything, a lot of times we can't really affect change so that doesn't help matters either. Eg: Cloth factories in India/China/Bangladesh; Electronic manufacturing factories such as Foxconn, etc.

AlexandrB 6y ago

What makes me laugh about this is that the Amazon customer experience is degrading in so many other, more important (to me) ways. * Reviews are no longer trustworthy - subject to spam, altered product listings, and "discounts" (read bribes) paid to purchasers for positive reviews. * Counterfeits are still rampant. * Products regularly arrive damaged because they're not packaged well (usually tossed in an envelope). * Amazon Prime cancellation process is becoming Kafkaesque. Given the above, even if Amazon could do 1-hour delivery, I don't want to buy anything from them. Maybe they should focus more on some of these other problems instead of running their warehouse staff into the ground.

plandis 6y ago

> Is this really such an important thing for people? Yes. Ideally, I’d buy things and get them instantly but to my knowledge nobody has created a teleporter for general goods.

ThePadawan 6y ago

> I for one would rather wait an extra day if it meant there weren’t countless workers having their schedules destroyed. Same, but it's at the discretion of the companies if they over that. In Switzerland and the UK, there is the concept of "second class mail". Generally letters, but also (some) packages. They come at a slower delivery guarantee (2-3 days instead of 1), but a ~20% discount. But shopping online doesn't seem to be headed that way. Hell, the last time I bought something online, the cheapest (free), slowest, and only delivery option was "express". How messed up is that!