3 ms·

> Who pays for the roads that Amazon depends on for deliveries and employee commutes? If they’re the interstate highways, then the gas tax pays for most of tha

• dragonwriter 5y ago
  > If they’re the interstate highways, then the gas tax pays for most of that. That's mostly a subsidy from passenger cars to larger vehicles, because road wear goes up much more rapidly with vehicle weight than fuel consumption does (IIRC, the former with roughly the fourth power of weight, the latter sublinearly.) Since Amazon mostly isn't using passenger cars as part of its delivery fleet, its actually being subsidized by gas tax, not paying its way.
  • pb7 5y ago
    What you say is true but they're just passing those subsidies on to their customers (the majority of the US). And they're still paying a significant amount contrary to the very popular belief, even if it's not proportional to the consumption which I agree with you on. Amazon e-commerce is not all that profitable. Most of Amazon's value comes from AWS.
    • caeril 5y ago
      > Amazon e-commerce is not all that profitable. Most of Amazon's value comes from AWS. AWS represents 43% of net profit, per the most recently posted quarter. It used to be on the order of 75%, but pandemic-related demand for physical products changed all that. Retail is back, baby.