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Is there a word for laws that disproportionately affect people in rural areas so that a government can play protectionist for urban companies? I hate Amazon as

by caslon 5y ago

Is there a word for laws that disproportionately affect people in rural areas so that a government can play protectionist for urban companies? I hate Amazon as much as anyone, but in this case they're definitely not wrong, even if they're probably lying about their reasoning.

WalterBright 5y ago
> I hate Amazon as much as anyone The fashionable thing to say, indeed! Yet the anyones are all covertly buying from Amazon, working for Amazon, and investing in Amazon.
- bduerst 5y ago
  Nah, we've successfully reduced spending on Amazon by >90% in our household. There are still some obscure items that, due to the sheer spread of Amazon, are incredibly difficult to get anywhere else, online or off - but that was Amazon's original market benefit to begin with. You could always get that weird book on Amazon that you couldn't get in the book store.
  - coolso 5y ago
    @Saddlerustle, that’s a very legit 5-star Amazon review if I’ve ever read one!
  - saddlerustle 5y ago
    Good for you. For me, after the local grocery store went to shit, with Prime Now and Amazon Fresh I've shifted almost all our spending to Amazon.
    - bduerst 5y ago
      Yeah, we were lucky in that we had a couple good options locally for produce other than Whole Foods too. The Safeway has gotten really bad, and the mail services I tried were all over the place.
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      Yep-- high risk during covid and lack of local delivery capacity, not to mention empty store shelves, meant Amazon Fresh was the alternative. I was fortunate that literally just a few weeks before the shutdown I had been sick and couldn't go foodshopping so I used Fresh for the first time. That made me an existing customer, and when the shutdown hit they weren't taking new ones. Even then, I was up to 1:00am in the morning a lot of times waiting for delivery slots to open. And then Amazon began releasing delivery slots incrementally throughout the day, which probably made it more equitable but also meant I had to constantly refresh the checkout page a dozen times an hour to get one instead of being quick on the draw after midnight.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Resistance is futile.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- denimnerd42 5y ago
  yeah I mean I love amazon personally. sometimes things go wrong but same as any business.
  - throwaway6734 5y ago
    Yep Amazon is mostly great
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- coolso 5y ago
  I’ve cut back on my Amazon purchases 90%. It’s been nice visiting actual stores and getting something same-hour. Sometimes I pay a dollar or two more. But buying local(er) feels good for my soul. It’s nice not having to wonder if every single positive review is real or fake, or if real, if it’s accurate. It’s also nice not having to sift through direct-from-China products with extremely strange names and poorly written box descriptions. Anyway, I’m not sure what your point is. You can hate something and still use it. Especially if that something actively made it much harder to not use it. It’s the same with made in USA goods. Most people crave them. But thanks to our government and corporations, it’s difficult to do it - or at least, do it affordably. Does that mean people prefer made in China? Or that they’re just posturing when they say they don’t like made in China? No.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    It’s nice not having to wonder if every single positive review is real or fake Unless you're getting your reviews from friends and family, you should still probably wonder if they're fake.
- saurik 5y ago
  Is this somehow supposed to be inconsistent? One normally doesn't hate Amazon because they are successful, but because they are too successful. This is like claiming making fun of someone who says they hate cigarettes or alcohol because they are "covertly" still using both all the time, or someone who says they hate the food at their school cafeteria despite "covertly" eating it... this "you don't get to say you hate something if you use it" take is ridiculous.
  - coolso 5y ago
    Didn’t you hear? Losing your US-manufacturing job so everyone can buy cheap throwaway Chinese goods with loads of fake reviews is actually good for the economy, or something. You should be made fun of for thinking otherwise.
    - caslon 5y ago
      Actually, yeah. I'm the one who made the first anti-Amazon comment in this thread; Amazon encourages anti-global market practices with their political donations. This is a pretty good reason to hate them. They aren't pro-market, they're pro-Amazon. They support protectionism stateside. A bigger market is a good thing, and something to encourage. By supporting broken/longer IP laws, software patents, and local-favoring of distributors, Amazon encourages a smaller, more centralized, more broken market.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    My meaning is a bit subtler than your interpretation. I was commenting on the practice of virtue signalling. For example, Seattle rebuilt and renamed the old Key Arena into Climate Pledge Arena. While I am a more ardent environmentalist than most (my virtue signalling duly noted) this name is a local pinnacle of vacuous virtue signalling nonsense.
    - bduerst 5y ago
      Just FYI, Virtue Signalling is a pejorative that implicitly marginalizes and accuses someone of abnormal behavior. The GP here is calling that out even if you didn't specifically use the term "virtue signalling" in your original comment - the behavior here is entirely normal. The phrase's roots come from the alt-right looking for a replacement for SJW accusations not being taken seriously: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior#.22Virtue_signalling.22 https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior#.22Virt...
- caslon 5y ago
  I hate Amazon because of their refusal to free their stack despite using and distributing plenty of AGPL software. I hate Amazon because they push software patents. I hate Amazon because they're anti-union. I hate Amazon for lots of reasons. At the same time, I also realize that there are plenty of good things about their existence, as someone who grew up in an area without a good library. Being good for a specific thing that is partially their fault (Amazon supports terrible intellectual property laws as much as any big company with their political donations, which prevents the market from being able to function efficiently; there's no reason Chinese sellers shouldn't be able to print out-of-print technical books, for example) doesn't make them good, or make me hate them any less. I don't buy from Amazon, and I don't invest in Amazon, and I don't work for Amazon. I'm relatively consistent, but even people who aren't consistent aren't hypocrites for participating in society when they disagree with how it functions. I think that voting isn't ideal, but I still vote, because it's available. This is pretty natural; it isn't some shocking abandonment of moral principles. Nor is using a company's services despite it being an awful actor in society because you can't afford anything else (partially because of their position and participation in society, which is worth pointing out). I'm as capitalistic as anybody, but Amazon's a bad actor that's contributing to the destruction of capitalism by encouraging intellectual property laws and making political donations encouraging ending things that actually help the market like ePacket.
TrainedMonkey 5y ago
Specific quote is: > Imposing a minimum shipping cost for books would weigh on the purchasing power of consumers. The other side is a bit more complex, but Amazon is definitely subsidizing shipping costs from their yearly subscription and seller fees. The argument is that this is unfair to smaller companies which don't have capital to burn... and that is kind of true? I think there are valid points on both sides.
- yellow_lead 5y ago
  Predatory pricing
- ineedasername 5y ago
  They may not be subsidizing shipping at all beyond the amount they would normally discount new books, but law prohibits such discounting as well. Books could be a loss leader here, but I'm not sure of it.
woodruffw 5y ago
I can't read the full article thanks to the paywall so maybe I'm missing it, but: where is the urban protectionism here? More generally, my limited understanding of French politics is that they have a very strong agricultural interest that's disproportionate to the populace, similar to the US. The limited news I read about French domestic politics indicates that their government generally accommodates and subsidizes non-urban citizens, much like ours does. Edit: Here's the (Amazon) quote about rural concerns: > Amazon said the legislation, adopted by parliament but not yet enacted, would punish those in rural areas who cannot easily visit a bookstore and rely on delivery.
- bduerst 5y ago
  Reuters doesn't use paywalls. Is it blocked in other countries?
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    Oh, this was my mistake. It's not a paywall, it's just asking me to register to continue to read for free. Says something about my advertising blindness. (I'm in the US, visiting from a US IP address.)
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      Perhaps we need a new term for this, encompassing both paywalls and "registration walls". "Dating wall" perhaps? Whether it's asking you to pay up, or just to register an account, it's still asking you to enter into a relationship with the content provider, and you bounce off because you'd rather not have that relationship. Relationships are a burden, there's only so many one can keep track of.
      - _jal 5y ago
        I just call them, "Nope." I'd really like a plugin that will override styles on links to sites on a list I get to keep.
  - deleted 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
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bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>Is there a word for laws that disproportionately affect people in rural areas so that a government can play protectionist for urban companies? how much of a difference does urban / rural divide make in France regarding such effects?
tshaddox 5y ago
I don't know if there's a word for that, but it certainly seems like it would be exceedingly rare. Don't people in rural areas have vastly disproportionately large representation in government, public spending per capita, etc.? Of course, I'm just basing this on my intuition in the United States. My intuition could be way off, or France could be quite different.
- caslon 5y ago
  People in rural areas have disproportionately large representation in government, but this doesn't mean their representation actually represents them. By and large rural politicians go against the will of their voter bases and over the past fifty years have contributed to the decline of important things like rural schooling, sort of cementing the "bad representation" problem. Rural voters are actually far more progressive than many people might think (over half of them are in favor of M4A, if we take polls of rural states at face value), but they vote based on the party line rather than who actually represents their interests. This is partially because of the destruction of education in rural states. The same is true for citizens all over the country. Dianne Feinstein repeatedly kept flying a confederate flag over SF's city hall during the 80s, for example, but she's never lost a race; tell me that represents the will of the people: https://www.newspapers.com/image/460776332/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/460776332/
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    I agree that representatives don't actually represent the wishes of pretty much anyone who isn't extremely wealthy, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that this problem is worse for rural populations than urban populations.

by caslon 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago

> I hate Amazon as much as anyone The fashionable thing to say, indeed! Yet the anyones are all covertly buying from Amazon, working for Amazon, and investing in Amazon.

bduerst 5y ago
Nah, we've successfully reduced spending on Amazon by >90% in our household. There are still some obscure items that, due to the sheer spread of Amazon, are incredibly difficult to get anywhere else, online or off - but that was Amazon's original market benefit to begin with. You could always get that weird book on Amazon that you couldn't get in the book store.
- coolso 5y ago
  @Saddlerustle, that’s a very legit 5-star Amazon review if I’ve ever read one!
- saddlerustle 5y ago
  Good for you. For me, after the local grocery store went to shit, with Prime Now and Amazon Fresh I've shifted almost all our spending to Amazon.
  - bduerst 5y ago
    Yeah, we were lucky in that we had a couple good options locally for produce other than Whole Foods too. The Safeway has gotten really bad, and the mail services I tried were all over the place.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    Yep-- high risk during covid and lack of local delivery capacity, not to mention empty store shelves, meant Amazon Fresh was the alternative. I was fortunate that literally just a few weeks before the shutdown I had been sick and couldn't go foodshopping so I used Fresh for the first time. That made me an existing customer, and when the shutdown hit they weren't taking new ones. Even then, I was up to 1:00am in the morning a lot of times waiting for delivery slots to open. And then Amazon began releasing delivery slots incrementally throughout the day, which probably made it more equitable but also meant I had to constantly refresh the checkout page a dozen times an hour to get one instead of being quick on the draw after midnight.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Resistance is futile.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
denimnerd42 5y ago
yeah I mean I love amazon personally. sometimes things go wrong but same as any business.
- throwaway6734 5y ago
  Yep Amazon is mostly great
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
coolso 5y ago
I’ve cut back on my Amazon purchases 90%. It’s been nice visiting actual stores and getting something same-hour. Sometimes I pay a dollar or two more. But buying local(er) feels good for my soul. It’s nice not having to wonder if every single positive review is real or fake, or if real, if it’s accurate. It’s also nice not having to sift through direct-from-China products with extremely strange names and poorly written box descriptions. Anyway, I’m not sure what your point is. You can hate something and still use it. Especially if that something actively made it much harder to not use it. It’s the same with made in USA goods. Most people crave them. But thanks to our government and corporations, it’s difficult to do it - or at least, do it affordably. Does that mean people prefer made in China? Or that they’re just posturing when they say they don’t like made in China? No.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  It’s nice not having to wonder if every single positive review is real or fake Unless you're getting your reviews from friends and family, you should still probably wonder if they're fake.
saurik 5y ago
Is this somehow supposed to be inconsistent? One normally doesn't hate Amazon because they are successful, but because they are too successful. This is like claiming making fun of someone who says they hate cigarettes or alcohol because they are "covertly" still using both all the time, or someone who says they hate the food at their school cafeteria despite "covertly" eating it... this "you don't get to say you hate something if you use it" take is ridiculous.
- coolso 5y ago
  Didn’t you hear? Losing your US-manufacturing job so everyone can buy cheap throwaway Chinese goods with loads of fake reviews is actually good for the economy, or something. You should be made fun of for thinking otherwise.
  - caslon 5y ago
    Actually, yeah. I'm the one who made the first anti-Amazon comment in this thread; Amazon encourages anti-global market practices with their political donations. This is a pretty good reason to hate them. They aren't pro-market, they're pro-Amazon. They support protectionism stateside. A bigger market is a good thing, and something to encourage. By supporting broken/longer IP laws, software patents, and local-favoring of distributors, Amazon encourages a smaller, more centralized, more broken market.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  My meaning is a bit subtler than your interpretation. I was commenting on the practice of virtue signalling. For example, Seattle rebuilt and renamed the old Key Arena into Climate Pledge Arena. While I am a more ardent environmentalist than most (my virtue signalling duly noted) this name is a local pinnacle of vacuous virtue signalling nonsense.
  - bduerst 5y ago
    Just FYI, Virtue Signalling is a pejorative that implicitly marginalizes and accuses someone of abnormal behavior. The GP here is calling that out even if you didn't specifically use the term "virtue signalling" in your original comment - the behavior here is entirely normal. The phrase's roots come from the alt-right looking for a replacement for SJW accusations not being taken seriously: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior#.22Virtue_signalling.22 https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior#.22Virt...
caslon 5y ago
I hate Amazon because of their refusal to free their stack despite using and distributing plenty of AGPL software. I hate Amazon because they push software patents. I hate Amazon because they're anti-union. I hate Amazon for lots of reasons. At the same time, I also realize that there are plenty of good things about their existence, as someone who grew up in an area without a good library. Being good for a specific thing that is partially their fault (Amazon supports terrible intellectual property laws as much as any big company with their political donations, which prevents the market from being able to function efficiently; there's no reason Chinese sellers shouldn't be able to print out-of-print technical books, for example) doesn't make them good, or make me hate them any less. I don't buy from Amazon, and I don't invest in Amazon, and I don't work for Amazon. I'm relatively consistent, but even people who aren't consistent aren't hypocrites for participating in society when they disagree with how it functions. I think that voting isn't ideal, but I still vote, because it's available. This is pretty natural; it isn't some shocking abandonment of moral principles. Nor is using a company's services despite it being an awful actor in society because you can't afford anything else (partially because of their position and participation in society, which is worth pointing out). I'm as capitalistic as anybody, but Amazon's a bad actor that's contributing to the destruction of capitalism by encouraging intellectual property laws and making political donations encouraging ending things that actually help the market like ePacket.

TrainedMonkey 5y ago

Specific quote is: > Imposing a minimum shipping cost for books would weigh on the purchasing power of consumers. The other side is a bit more complex, but Amazon is definitely subsidizing shipping costs from their yearly subscription and seller fees. The argument is that this is unfair to smaller companies which don't have capital to burn... and that is kind of true? I think there are valid points on both sides.

yellow_lead 5y ago
Predatory pricing
ineedasername 5y ago
They may not be subsidizing shipping at all beyond the amount they would normally discount new books, but law prohibits such discounting as well. Books could be a loss leader here, but I'm not sure of it.

woodruffw 5y ago

I can't read the full article thanks to the paywall so maybe I'm missing it, but: where is the urban protectionism here? More generally, my limited understanding of French politics is that they have a very strong agricultural interest that's disproportionate to the populace, similar to the US. The limited news I read about French domestic politics indicates that their government generally accommodates and subsidizes non-urban citizens, much like ours does. Edit: Here's the (Amazon) quote about rural concerns: > Amazon said the legislation, adopted by parliament but not yet enacted, would punish those in rural areas who cannot easily visit a bookstore and rely on delivery.

bduerst 5y ago
Reuters doesn't use paywalls. Is it blocked in other countries?
- woodruffw 5y ago
  Oh, this was my mistake. It's not a paywall, it's just asking me to register to continue to read for free. Says something about my advertising blindness. (I'm in the US, visiting from a US IP address.)
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Perhaps we need a new term for this, encompassing both paywalls and "registration walls". "Dating wall" perhaps? Whether it's asking you to pay up, or just to register an account, it's still asking you to enter into a relationship with the content provider, and you bounce off because you'd rather not have that relationship. Relationships are a burden, there's only so many one can keep track of.
    - _jal 5y ago
      I just call them, "Nope." I'd really like a plugin that will override styles on links to sites on a list I get to keep.
- deleted 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>Is there a word for laws that disproportionately affect people in rural areas so that a government can play protectionist for urban companies? how much of a difference does urban / rural divide make in France regarding such effects?

tshaddox 5y ago

I don't know if there's a word for that, but it certainly seems like it would be exceedingly rare. Don't people in rural areas have vastly disproportionately large representation in government, public spending per capita, etc.? Of course, I'm just basing this on my intuition in the United States. My intuition could be way off, or France could be quite different.

caslon 5y ago
People in rural areas have disproportionately large representation in government, but this doesn't mean their representation actually represents them. By and large rural politicians go against the will of their voter bases and over the past fifty years have contributed to the decline of important things like rural schooling, sort of cementing the "bad representation" problem. Rural voters are actually far more progressive than many people might think (over half of them are in favor of M4A, if we take polls of rural states at face value), but they vote based on the party line rather than who actually represents their interests. This is partially because of the destruction of education in rural states. The same is true for citizens all over the country. Dianne Feinstein repeatedly kept flying a confederate flag over SF's city hall during the 80s, for example, but she's never lost a race; tell me that represents the will of the people: https://www.newspapers.com/image/460776332/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/460776332/
- tshaddox 5y ago
  I agree that representatives don't actually represent the wishes of pretty much anyone who isn't extremely wealthy, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that this problem is worse for rural populations than urban populations.