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I like Amazon and online shopping; won't ditch any time soon and don't think it's important for people to do so. The local businesses I was worried about going

by Rapzid 5y ago

I like Amazon and online shopping; won't ditch any time soon and don't think it's important for people to do so. The local businesses I was worried about going under were restaurants and others in the food/service industry(would lump experience in there as well; the zoo, botanical garden, museums, and etc).

jungturk 5y ago
> don't think it's important for people to do so Is that because you don't believe in the negative externalities or because you think they're worth the convenience?
- ozzythecat 5y ago
  The narrative I hear is that Amazon is destroying businesses. The issue I have is that this isn’t really true. Here’s an anecdote. I drive 20 minutes to the mall. After finding parking and getting into a shoe store, there’s no one really there to help me. Once they get around to me, they don’t have my size. And it’s also apparent the person working there has no interest in helping. Whether they have my size or whether I found what I was looking for is basically not their problem. So I drive at least 40 minutes round trip, plus the hassle of parking, finding the store in the mall, and waiting on someone to help me. Now my time is valuable. I lost my time. I paid for gas. I also put miles on my car. And depending on the day, I also had to deal with traffic. IMO businesses refuse to compete. If Amazon is doing it better than them, then hats off to Amazon. If a business is doing better than Amazon, then I’ll go with that business. IMO the “negative externalities” puts blame on Amazon while pretending like these other stores even try to compete. Btw this binary view of the world where Amazon is bad and others are good (or vice versa) seems to be a very American thing.
  - belval 5y ago
    I don't know about you but I am also not bound to Amazon, a few years ago some stores actually started putting some work into their website, offered free shipping on order over 50$, etc... and I went back almost naturally. These threads of Amazon-bashing always read like something out of parallel universe, I should go have a worse shopping experience because of some "greater" objective of opposing Amazon?
    - Spivak 5y ago
      For me the sticking point is returns. Amazon makes it so easy to return stuff when other companies make you pay for your own shipping back that I'm way more willing to take a risk on something when it's on Amazon.
      - belval 5y ago
        That too! I once received the wrong item from Hudson's Bay (Canadian everything store, think Sears) and not only had to physically go back to the store to get a refund because they wanted 8$ in shipping to let me send it back, they would not reimburse the shipping cost even after admitting that it was 100% their fault that they sent me the wrong item. I don't want a future dominated by mega-corp with 99% market share but traditional retail need to get their shit together at some point.
  - wiether 5y ago
    > Btw this binary view of the world where Amazon is bad and others are good (or vice versa) seems to be a very American thing. It's not. In France it's the same thing. But the "Amazon is bad" is not really about destroying businesses (since it was done decades ago by malls, now cities are just banks, insurances and clothing crapshops like Zara) but about the fact that they are not paying taxes and they provide awful work conditions to people. So you tend to be considered as someone who doesn't care if you buy at Amazon. (But we're still waiting for proof that companies trying to compete with Amazon don't act the same way).
    - cutthegrass2 5y ago
      Similar story in the UK. People are sick and tired of Amazon deriving huge profits out of the UK market ($17.5 billion in 2019) and paying just a minuscule amount of tax on those UK sales (£6.3 million in 2019) using a mixture of clever accounting techniques (not available to other businesses) and funnelling profit out via subsidiaries in low tax jurisdictions (Luxembourg).
  - rocqua 5y ago
    Interesting example, because shoes are one of the few things I will not order on-line. Shoes fall in the category "things I want to physically try before buying". And that category of things does not work with on-line shopping.
    - Spivak 5y ago
      I just buy a few sizes and return the ones that don't fit. Obviously this means I have to shop at places that offer to ship returns back for free or have a local store close I could drive to but I like the experience better than going to a store honestly.
- Rapzid 5y ago
  It depends on the negative externalities. I will specifically address destroying jobs though. In general, there is no standing in the way of progress that improves efficiency and gives consumers what they want. Interestingly, there seems to be an overlap between the crowd that says we need to hold business accountable for packaging waste and those who believe if they virtue signal hard enough Amazon will disappear and everyone will flock back to inconvenient, higher priced shopping.. Going against the general consumer demand grain typically ends up niche. But I digress. Amazon(and other online retailers) are destroying lots of low skill jobs, but that's true for most major gains in the efficiency of producing a product. Usually this is associated with automation, but this shift touches many aspects of the logistics providing a shopping experience to consumers. This is a good thing to me as it will ultimately increase our GDP and standard of living. Resources, particular labor, are freed up to work on other stuff. Over 600k small businesses are created every year. There are millions more small business than there were a decade ago. These efficiency gains create a TON of potential. I think that's good, so what of the net negative in raw job numbers? People without jobs. Well, weren't we at "full employment" pre-pandemic? In any case, I'm a big fan of tackling that with job re-training. We do a really poor job of that in the USA compared to other countries. But there are a number of solutions to different negative externalities that aren't swimming upstream against consumer trends. Unionization failed but it could happen. That could help address some of the workplace issues. The government can trust bust. I don't view this as a binary choice. Different people seem to have different pet grievances with Amazon. Some of them I agree with, some I don't(like Amazon doesn't pay taxes, which is a sound bite to me; ya basic), but generally I believe boycotting Amazon(and other online retailers) isn't really going to affect real change.
dkhenry 5y ago
And I believe its exploitive of everyone in the supply chain, from manufacturers to delivery drivers, and has led to the vast centralization of an overwhelmingly large portion of our economy into the hands of corporation with no accountability. Furthermore I am very convinced it makes the lives of everyone, except the tiny minority that are actively exploiting everyone else, much worse. Good jobs are lost, supply chains are made fragile, and monopolistic tendencies are encouraged. I would rather the inconvenience of shopping around than encourage a world with a private entity as the sole source of all consumer goods.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Yeah, but we are never going to stop that behavior by individuals choosing not to shop at Amazon. As an individual, my only two choices are to shop at Amazon and get the benefits and Amazon still exists, or don’t shop there and don’t get the benefits and Amazon still exists. Amazon is not going to care if they lose my business. The only person who suffers is me. If we think Amazon business practices are immoral, we need to make them illegal.
  - methodin 5y ago
    And therein lies the main problem with that line of thinking in today's political landscape - when politicians are effectively funded by the large companies that have seemingly unlimited money and power, that will never happen, so where exactly will this new law come from?
  - dkhenry 5y ago
    I believe thats exactly how we stop that, by choosing not to shop at Amazon. The government is ( theoretically ) an expression of the will of the people, if the will of the people is to exploit others for their own benefit, the government will reflect that. Until we individually decide that our neighbors are important enough to us that we are willing to suffer a little inconvenience nothing will change, but if we are willing to individually suffer a little inconvenience we absolutely can effect any company even one as big as Amazon.

by Rapzid 5y ago

jungturk 5y ago

> don't think it's important for people to do so Is that because you don't believe in the negative externalities or because you think they're worth the convenience?

ozzythecat 5y ago
The narrative I hear is that Amazon is destroying businesses. The issue I have is that this isn’t really true. Here’s an anecdote. I drive 20 minutes to the mall. After finding parking and getting into a shoe store, there’s no one really there to help me. Once they get around to me, they don’t have my size. And it’s also apparent the person working there has no interest in helping. Whether they have my size or whether I found what I was looking for is basically not their problem. So I drive at least 40 minutes round trip, plus the hassle of parking, finding the store in the mall, and waiting on someone to help me. Now my time is valuable. I lost my time. I paid for gas. I also put miles on my car. And depending on the day, I also had to deal with traffic. IMO businesses refuse to compete. If Amazon is doing it better than them, then hats off to Amazon. If a business is doing better than Amazon, then I’ll go with that business. IMO the “negative externalities” puts blame on Amazon while pretending like these other stores even try to compete. Btw this binary view of the world where Amazon is bad and others are good (or vice versa) seems to be a very American thing.
- belval 5y ago
  I don't know about you but I am also not bound to Amazon, a few years ago some stores actually started putting some work into their website, offered free shipping on order over 50$, etc... and I went back almost naturally. These threads of Amazon-bashing always read like something out of parallel universe, I should go have a worse shopping experience because of some "greater" objective of opposing Amazon?
  - Spivak 5y ago
    For me the sticking point is returns. Amazon makes it so easy to return stuff when other companies make you pay for your own shipping back that I'm way more willing to take a risk on something when it's on Amazon.
    - belval 5y ago
      That too! I once received the wrong item from Hudson's Bay (Canadian everything store, think Sears) and not only had to physically go back to the store to get a refund because they wanted 8$ in shipping to let me send it back, they would not reimburse the shipping cost even after admitting that it was 100% their fault that they sent me the wrong item. I don't want a future dominated by mega-corp with 99% market share but traditional retail need to get their shit together at some point.
- wiether 5y ago
  > Btw this binary view of the world where Amazon is bad and others are good (or vice versa) seems to be a very American thing. It's not. In France it's the same thing. But the "Amazon is bad" is not really about destroying businesses (since it was done decades ago by malls, now cities are just banks, insurances and clothing crapshops like Zara) but about the fact that they are not paying taxes and they provide awful work conditions to people. So you tend to be considered as someone who doesn't care if you buy at Amazon. (But we're still waiting for proof that companies trying to compete with Amazon don't act the same way).
  - cutthegrass2 5y ago
    Similar story in the UK. People are sick and tired of Amazon deriving huge profits out of the UK market ($17.5 billion in 2019) and paying just a minuscule amount of tax on those UK sales (£6.3 million in 2019) using a mixture of clever accounting techniques (not available to other businesses) and funnelling profit out via subsidiaries in low tax jurisdictions (Luxembourg).
- rocqua 5y ago
  Interesting example, because shoes are one of the few things I will not order on-line. Shoes fall in the category "things I want to physically try before buying". And that category of things does not work with on-line shopping.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    I just buy a few sizes and return the ones that don't fit. Obviously this means I have to shop at places that offer to ship returns back for free or have a local store close I could drive to but I like the experience better than going to a store honestly.
Rapzid 5y ago
It depends on the negative externalities. I will specifically address destroying jobs though. In general, there is no standing in the way of progress that improves efficiency and gives consumers what they want. Interestingly, there seems to be an overlap between the crowd that says we need to hold business accountable for packaging waste and those who believe if they virtue signal hard enough Amazon will disappear and everyone will flock back to inconvenient, higher priced shopping.. Going against the general consumer demand grain typically ends up niche. But I digress. Amazon(and other online retailers) are destroying lots of low skill jobs, but that's true for most major gains in the efficiency of producing a product. Usually this is associated with automation, but this shift touches many aspects of the logistics providing a shopping experience to consumers. This is a good thing to me as it will ultimately increase our GDP and standard of living. Resources, particular labor, are freed up to work on other stuff. Over 600k small businesses are created every year. There are millions more small business than there were a decade ago. These efficiency gains create a TON of potential. I think that's good, so what of the net negative in raw job numbers? People without jobs. Well, weren't we at "full employment" pre-pandemic? In any case, I'm a big fan of tackling that with job re-training. We do a really poor job of that in the USA compared to other countries. But there are a number of solutions to different negative externalities that aren't swimming upstream against consumer trends. Unionization failed but it could happen. That could help address some of the workplace issues. The government can trust bust. I don't view this as a binary choice. Different people seem to have different pet grievances with Amazon. Some of them I agree with, some I don't(like Amazon doesn't pay taxes, which is a sound bite to me; ya basic), but generally I believe boycotting Amazon(and other online retailers) isn't really going to affect real change.

dkhenry 5y ago

And I believe its exploitive of everyone in the supply chain, from manufacturers to delivery drivers, and has led to the vast centralization of an overwhelmingly large portion of our economy into the hands of corporation with no accountability. Furthermore I am very convinced it makes the lives of everyone, except the tiny minority that are actively exploiting everyone else, much worse. Good jobs are lost, supply chains are made fragile, and monopolistic tendencies are encouraged. I would rather the inconvenience of shopping around than encourage a world with a private entity as the sole source of all consumer goods.

cortesoft 5y ago
Yeah, but we are never going to stop that behavior by individuals choosing not to shop at Amazon. As an individual, my only two choices are to shop at Amazon and get the benefits and Amazon still exists, or don’t shop there and don’t get the benefits and Amazon still exists. Amazon is not going to care if they lose my business. The only person who suffers is me. If we think Amazon business practices are immoral, we need to make them illegal.
- methodin 5y ago
  And therein lies the main problem with that line of thinking in today's political landscape - when politicians are effectively funded by the large companies that have seemingly unlimited money and power, that will never happen, so where exactly will this new law come from?
- dkhenry 5y ago
  I believe thats exactly how we stop that, by choosing not to shop at Amazon. The government is ( theoretically ) an expression of the will of the people, if the will of the people is to exploit others for their own benefit, the government will reflect that. Until we individually decide that our neighbors are important enough to us that we are willing to suffer a little inconvenience nothing will change, but if we are willing to individually suffer a little inconvenience we absolutely can effect any company even one as big as Amazon.