5 ms·

I wonder when the change happened. It seems like there's a fairly broad consensus now, but different people seem to cite different time periods for when things

I wonder when the change happened. It seems like there's a fairly broad consensus now, but different people seem to cite different time periods for when things took a bad turn. I had consistently great experiences ~3-8 years ago, but I remember needing to be careful about 3rd party sellers towards the end of that time period. Thing is, I stopped ordering online about a year before the pandemic started. When I returned to Amazon 18 months ago, it felt like the balance had shifted towards the majority of listings being fraud/low quality/unexpectedly comingled/etc. Personally, I blame a shift in perspective. It feels like their retail teams' views on who "The Customer" was shifted from the person placing the order, to the 3rd-party sellers. When do y'all think that happened? 2015? 2017? 2019?

onli 5y ago
For me I can restore it in my blog. At the beginning of 2019 a first article about how Amazon might not be the best option to buy everything anymore, citing the bad quality of user reviews, the potential problem with fakes and the subpar experience with the website (specifically: The search evidently being skewed towards sponsored and not towards good offers, and missing filters to find products by their properties). Then summer 2019 a report on a disastrous support experience (in a case that included a received obvious fake) and the decision to not buy there anymore. That was very fast, in retrospective. I liked Amazon quite a bit before that, the early 2019 articles even clearly reads like that. No criticism before that. Instead a few positive support experiences. But that's just me, and not necessarily a US perspective. The fake problem for example I thought to be more prominent outside of Europe. On the other hand, that amazon seemed to fight against unions had been reported here before, to boycott the site because of that was a fairly common position. Also, I wonder how it would have been if I had been more invested into the ecosystem - there is no Kindle in my home, no Echo, and I started to buy there relatively late. Though a site of mine used their affiliate marketing program even back in 2011...
ashtonkem 5y ago
It’s not just views on Amazon as a company to do business with. Attitudes around these parts have soured on Amazon as a company to work for too.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  I find it weird that this attitude change might be recent. As early as 2015 people were writing about what a pressure cooker Amazon's white-collar workplace is[1]. I also had acquaintances who worked there and reported that it's a pretty punishing environment as early as 2008. I guess it takes 10+ years for this kind of perception to permeate? [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgbzbx/at-amazon-employees-treat-the-bathroom-as-an-extension-of-the-office https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgbzbx/at-amazon-employees-t...
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    I’ve personally only noticed (and thought) of Amazon as a bad place to work as an engineer in the past 2-3 years, but perhaps I missed a trend.
vmception 5y ago
Amazon can restore good will with me by fixing their shitty vesting schedule. But it’s probably shitty because even highly compensated engineers figure out that working there is too shitty to tolerate so they had to lock them in with backloaded vesting.
- rejectedandsad 5y ago
  If you're so concerned about it you can just buy the stock with the 2 year signing bonus that makes up for the stock vesting.
  - jreese 5y ago
    I hardly think "owning stock" is the goal, rather than "receiving compensation". Vesting schedules that backload compensation to discourage quitting early are hostile to employees, and makes them feel unfairly "locked in" because they lose a disproportionate amount of their unvested compensation relative to the percentage of the vesting period that they have spent working. By comparison, Facebook vesting is evenly spread across four years, with refreshers granted every year, so that people can expect to receive relatively stable compensation for as long as they stay at the company. There's no "bad" time to leave when it comes to your vesting schedule, so you don't feel "locked in" for anything beyond the total value that you'll always be leaving on the table, regardless of when you leave. Refreshers don't even have a vesting cliff anymore, so you don't even feel the need to stick around for a particularly good batch if you don't want to.
    - rejectedandsad 5y ago
      You're receiving an equivalent amount of cash. If you want to invest it, you can. If not, you're still getting a consistent amount of money for four years (or more if stock goes up).
      - vmception 5y ago
        Velocity of money is more important than the amount.
haberman 5y ago
> It seems like there's a fairly broad consensus now Opinion polling shows Amazon has a 72% approval rating, higher than almost any other institution in America. https://reason.com/2021/07/06/poll-people-like-amazon-more-than-any-institution-but-the-u-s-military/ https://reason.com/2021/07/06/poll-people-like-amazon-more-t...
- pvarangot 5y ago
  The headline is tricky there. It's only higher than almost any of the institutions that they are asking about in that poll, which only includes three private companies (Amazon, Facebook, Twitter) and a bunch of government organizations or civil movements. I would guess a lot of private companies and most of big tech rate higher than Amazon, specially if they are thrown in with a bunch of things like ANTIFA, BLM and Israel or Palestina when they ask the question. Here's the poll, page 15: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OgPzcB75uxXiFmTjUUb-ITIr7BFdFFhw/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OgPzcB75uxXiFmTjUUb-ITIr7BF...
  - haberman 5y ago
    > It's only higher than almost any of the institutions that they are asking about in that poll [...] I would guess This is pure speculation. 72%, at a minimum, undermines the notion that there is "fairly broad consensus now" about viewing Amazon unfavorably. The fact that they poll higher than many government organizations seems especially relevant on an article about the NRLB. People mistake their own feelings (and the feelings of their social groups) for the consensus view. Polling can clarify when our perceptions of consensus are incorrect. > Here's the poll, page 15 It's also screenshotted in the article.
    - cratermoon 5y ago
      72% is a C in most schools. I wonder how they'd do against Comcast or Bank of America.
      - gruez 5y ago
handrous 5y ago
When'd they become a shady flea market putting laughably little effort into policing the wares sold thereon, while still showing "amazon" branding all over the page and generally not making it clear enough that they weren't taking direct responsibility for the listing, and then keeping that up year after year because it made them a whole fucking bunch of money and no-one made them stop, despite knowing that lots of their income was a result of fraud, borderline-scams, and unsafe or unfit-for-use-but-too-cheap-to-bother-returning products? I'm pretty sure that was way before 2015. That's when they became indefensibly-bad actors, IMO.
gdulli 5y ago
In 2007 I was considering a move to the Bay Area and I focused my job research first on Amazon. You can find negative anecdotes about any large company. But still, without even remembering the details, I remember that research resulting in a strong takeaway that I wanted to have nothing to do with the company. So then it was sometime around the early 2010s that the first wave of bad press came out about the way they treat workers, and I remember being unsurprised.

onli 5y ago

For me I can restore it in my blog. At the beginning of 2019 a first article about how Amazon might not be the best option to buy everything anymore, citing the bad quality of user reviews, the potential problem with fakes and the subpar experience with the website (specifically: The search evidently being skewed towards sponsored and not towards good offers, and missing filters to find products by their properties). Then summer 2019 a report on a disastrous support experience (in a case that included a received obvious fake) and the decision to not buy there anymore. That was very fast, in retrospective. I liked Amazon quite a bit before that, the early 2019 articles even clearly reads like that. No criticism before that. Instead a few positive support experiences. But that's just me, and not necessarily a US perspective. The fake problem for example I thought to be more prominent outside of Europe. On the other hand, that amazon seemed to fight against unions had been reported here before, to boycott the site because of that was a fairly common position. Also, I wonder how it would have been if I had been more invested into the ecosystem - there is no Kindle in my home, no Echo, and I started to buy there relatively late. Though a site of mine used their affiliate marketing program even back in 2011...

ashtonkem 5y ago

It’s not just views on Amazon as a company to do business with. Attitudes around these parts have soured on Amazon as a company to work for too.

AlexandrB 5y ago
I find it weird that this attitude change might be recent. As early as 2015 people were writing about what a pressure cooker Amazon's white-collar workplace is[1]. I also had acquaintances who worked there and reported that it's a pretty punishing environment as early as 2008. I guess it takes 10+ years for this kind of perception to permeate? [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgbzbx/at-amazon-employees-treat-the-bathroom-as-an-extension-of-the-office https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgbzbx/at-amazon-employees-t...
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  I’ve personally only noticed (and thought) of Amazon as a bad place to work as an engineer in the past 2-3 years, but perhaps I missed a trend.

vmception 5y ago

Amazon can restore good will with me by fixing their shitty vesting schedule. But it’s probably shitty because even highly compensated engineers figure out that working there is too shitty to tolerate so they had to lock them in with backloaded vesting.

rejectedandsad 5y ago
If you're so concerned about it you can just buy the stock with the 2 year signing bonus that makes up for the stock vesting.
- jreese 5y ago
  I hardly think "owning stock" is the goal, rather than "receiving compensation". Vesting schedules that backload compensation to discourage quitting early are hostile to employees, and makes them feel unfairly "locked in" because they lose a disproportionate amount of their unvested compensation relative to the percentage of the vesting period that they have spent working. By comparison, Facebook vesting is evenly spread across four years, with refreshers granted every year, so that people can expect to receive relatively stable compensation for as long as they stay at the company. There's no "bad" time to leave when it comes to your vesting schedule, so you don't feel "locked in" for anything beyond the total value that you'll always be leaving on the table, regardless of when you leave. Refreshers don't even have a vesting cliff anymore, so you don't even feel the need to stick around for a particularly good batch if you don't want to.
  - rejectedandsad 5y ago
    You're receiving an equivalent amount of cash. If you want to invest it, you can. If not, you're still getting a consistent amount of money for four years (or more if stock goes up).
    - vmception 5y ago
      Velocity of money is more important than the amount.

haberman 5y ago

> It seems like there's a fairly broad consensus now Opinion polling shows Amazon has a 72% approval rating, higher than almost any other institution in America. https://reason.com/2021/07/06/poll-people-like-amazon-more-than-any-institution-but-the-u-s-military/ https://reason.com/2021/07/06/poll-people-like-amazon-more-t...

pvarangot 5y ago
The headline is tricky there. It's only higher than almost any of the institutions that they are asking about in that poll, which only includes three private companies (Amazon, Facebook, Twitter) and a bunch of government organizations or civil movements. I would guess a lot of private companies and most of big tech rate higher than Amazon, specially if they are thrown in with a bunch of things like ANTIFA, BLM and Israel or Palestina when they ask the question. Here's the poll, page 15: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OgPzcB75uxXiFmTjUUb-ITIr7BFdFFhw/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OgPzcB75uxXiFmTjUUb-ITIr7BF...
- haberman 5y ago
  > It's only higher than almost any of the institutions that they are asking about in that poll [...] I would guess This is pure speculation. 72%, at a minimum, undermines the notion that there is "fairly broad consensus now" about viewing Amazon unfavorably. The fact that they poll higher than many government organizations seems especially relevant on an article about the NRLB. People mistake their own feelings (and the feelings of their social groups) for the consensus view. Polling can clarify when our perceptions of consensus are incorrect. > Here's the poll, page 15 It's also screenshotted in the article.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    72% is a C in most schools. I wonder how they'd do against Comcast or Bank of America.
    - gruez 5y ago

handrous 5y ago

When'd they become a shady flea market putting laughably little effort into policing the wares sold thereon, while still showing "amazon" branding all over the page and generally not making it clear enough that they weren't taking direct responsibility for the listing, and then keeping that up year after year because it made them a whole fucking bunch of money and no-one made them stop, despite knowing that lots of their income was a result of fraud, borderline-scams, and unsafe or unfit-for-use-but-too-cheap-to-bother-returning products? I'm pretty sure that was way before 2015. That's when they became indefensibly-bad actors, IMO.

gdulli 5y ago

In 2007 I was considering a move to the Bay Area and I focused my job research first on Amazon. You can find negative anecdotes about any large company. But still, without even remembering the details, I remember that research resulting in a strong takeaway that I wanted to have nothing to do with the company. So then it was sometime around the early 2010s that the first wave of bad press came out about the way they treat workers, and I remember being unsurprised.