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I'm surprised that Amazon doesn't own apartment complexes. Build a multi-level basement as a fulfillment warehouse, then stack housing on top. The housing would

I'm surprised that Amazon doesn't own apartment complexes. Build a multi-level basement as a fulfillment warehouse, then stack housing on top. The housing would have 10 minute delivery and be a great way to further accustom people to Amazon being the place to get everything.

bcx 4y ago
Or even better they could continue to vertically integrate their stack and provide affordable housing to warehouse employees.
- DesiLurker 4y ago
  also maybe install nets around the joint building, you know for safety.
  - trevcanhuman 4y ago
    ah yes, just like in Asia
- kevmo 4y ago
  Back to the old ways, eh? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
G3nnaro 4y ago
Amazons already building apartments at HQ2 and I believe Seattle as well - https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22593871/amazon-key-for-business-thousands-of-buildings-us-installation-incentives-privacy-concerns https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22593871/amazon-key-for-b... Amazon can't build apartment complexes on top of their warehouses because many of their warehouses are already 3 or 4 floors, and the obvious zoning issues of building complexes in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of other warehouses.
wronglyprepaid 4y ago
I don't live in US, and there is no amazon specifically catering to the country I live in, but my experience with Amazon as a shop has been that it is a really bad user interface, with crappy search, filled with a bunch of questionable "spam" products. I wonder if this is the case in US also, or maybe just my individual experience. It is very hard for me to get how a company so successful has such a crappy flagship product.
- blobbers 4y ago
  It has a medium level of spam, but if you stick to name brands sold by amazon, you generally get what you pay for. It's replaced the department store, and usually has better service / return policy than a department store (Target etc.). Costco might be the exception but generally I don't go to costco to search for a specific product. They either have some general version of a product, and if I'm willing to buy that I will; swim goggles for example. Perhaps I want TYR swim goggles. Costco will have better pricing on Speedo goggles but won't sell the TYR mirrored version I'm looking for. Click, bought on amazon, arrives next day.
- nonameiguess 4y ago
  The flagship product is the logistical operation and it is pretty damn far from crappy. I can't speak for everywhere, but at least in most parts of the US, they can get you damn near anything on the same day. For products where you already know what you want in terms of brand, seller, and quantity, or regular recurring purchases of staple goods (cat litter, paper towels, dish soap, anything undifferentiated that you need to repeatedly purchase), even groceries now thanks to buying Whole Foods (provided you have the upscale price point that makes you willing to shop there to begin with), it's about as perfect an interface as you could hope for. Find and click in under a minute and you can probably have most goods in a few hours, at most next day. If you're trying to discover new products of unknown quality and reputation, then it's not so good. For whatever reason, that seems to be the use case people focus on when criticizing Amazon on Hacker News, but I don't see how that can possibly be the dominant use case. Most of what people ever buy is not something brand new to them that they know nothing about. I'm looking through my last several months of purchases here, and I'm seeing a bunch of automotive cleaning fluids, mostly from Adam's, polishing compounds and a respirator from 3M, a bunch of power tools from DeWalt, a Bose speaker. Known brands from reputable sellers, every item what I wanted and it got here quickly. In some cases, I either tried to or had to purchase elsewhere. For instance, Amazon had most of the DeWalt power tools I wanted, but was out of stock on rotary polishers, so I had to get it from some place called Acme Tools, and it took a week and a half. Amazon got me everything the next day. (I had a bunch of stuff stolen from my garage is why I needed all this at around the same time.) I tried to purchase the Bose speaker from Best Buy since I have one a five minute drive from me, and their website claimed it was in stock and I could pick it up the same day, but then right before the pick up window, they texted me to inform me they didn't actually have it and wouldn't for another week. So I canceled the order, went on Amazon, and they had free same day delivery. It should be obvious that anything that goes from not existing 25 years ago to top five market cap company in the world is probably offering value somehow.
ajkjk 4y ago
Basements are by far the most expensive parts of apartment building. It's one of the reasons that reducing parking requirements for apartment buildings is a good way to make housing more cost-effective to build and therefore to increase housing supply (last I heard).
- smachiz 4y ago
  expensive to build, but less desirable for anyone (but parking) so there's no incentive to build much. It will definitely be more expensive than a warehouse 45 minutes away - even in the most expensive cities (where they do build basements to the extent that they can before they hit subways and whatever).
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  Yeah but parking above ground is probably cheaper than building out apartments. I've lived in buildings where the first 6 or 8 floors were parking. And a parking space rented for several hundred a month, on top of your apartment rent.
outside1234 4y ago
They could have everyone work in the basement for at 4% discount on rent too. Great stuff - totally not dystopian at all.
- Vladimof 4y ago
  Would they have anti-suicide nets like Chinese factories?
politician 4y ago
So dystopian. You can imagine the vending machine kiosk on the first floor— no, the Alexa built into every unit- that’s ready to deliver anything you wish, and accept your rent payment.
- lancesells 4y ago
  Might as well just house employees there as well and take the rent directly out of their paychecks. Frighteningly they have almost 1 million employees in the US, which is more than the population of a handful of states.
  - plasticchris 4y ago
    I wonder what the tax treatment would be - I think company housing might not be taxed as income in this case (on prem, required to work there, etc), allowing them to pay much lower effective rates for labor by baking the cost of housing into a paycheck and pocketing the tax savings.
    - longtimelistnr 4y ago
      There’s not a fucking chance that’s legal
      - zdragnar 4y ago
        Employee benefits are routinely taxed differently. Health insurance, 401ks, some meals, etc. Most likely, it'd be considered a "fringe benefit" and the employee would still have W2 / income taxes and withholdings on it. How municipalities would tax the property value depends entirely on how they choose to tax on-site housing (as it is technically both commercial and residential space). Maintenance on the buildings would likely be partially deductible as operating expenses, no different than any other building operated by a landlord or business.
      - dboreham 4y ago
        The illegal aspect only pertains to doing something like this and not paying relevant taxes. Companies have been providing their employees housing for hundreds of years. Trump Org was perfectly free to provide employees apartments, provided appropriate tax filings and payments were made.
schnevets 4y ago
In addition to the drawbacks outlined in other responses, human living situations are too unpredictable to make that kind of arrangement desirable. Inevitably, there will be a plumbing issue because someone left a bath running, or a medical emergency causes unforeseen traffic challenges, or a fire breaks out. The more delivery productivity you stack on top of this infrastructure, the bigger the impact from an unforeseen issue... and humans can introduce a lot of unforeseen issues.
yuliyp 4y ago
That sounds awful. An apartment where you have semis pulling up at all hours delivering cargo? This is why we have zoning laws to avoid people building warehouses in residential districts.
- ianai 4y ago
  With how short Amazon tenures are, shouldn't they be hotels at the top?
- agilob 4y ago
  Surely Amazon can buy some local regulators, just think about how many low paid jobs this would bring!
  - supertrope 4y ago
    Smarter politicians will refuse to bend over backwards for new employers who offer low wage jobs, set up enterprises that can be easily relocated when the tax credits expire, and don’t offer anything special.
- shiftpgdn 4y ago
  Denying mixed use because it might be noisy for hypothetical residents is how we wound up with the current disaster that is American urban/suburban planning
  - Dyac 4y ago
    Are mixed use buildings a problem? I thought the normal problem in America was that zoning tends to prohibit mixing uselage types. Here [0] is a random street i picked in Paris with mixed use buildings - looks pretty nice tbh-lots of accommodation & amenities, easily walkable, some shops and restaurants. [0] 61 rue de Passy https://maps.app.goo.gl/14Kxyd9SwARyT79s8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/14Kxyd9SwARyT79s8
    - taylorius 4y ago
      Mixed use is a winner in urban environments. London has a lot of it, and it makes for good, local living.
agilob 4y ago
Will Amazon Prime include affordable housing?
paxys 4y ago
Zoning laws exist
User23 4y ago
I used to joke that Amazon should buy up the housing in SLU and then between Amazon sales and rent they'd get 90% of their costs of employment back as revenue.
larsiusprime 4y ago
Zoning makes mixed-use development illegal in most places in any case
itslennysfault 4y ago
This is why zoning exists, and thank god it does.

bcx 4y ago

Or even better they could continue to vertically integrate their stack and provide affordable housing to warehouse employees.

DesiLurker 4y ago
also maybe install nets around the joint building, you know for safety.
- trevcanhuman 4y ago
  ah yes, just like in Asia
kevmo 4y ago
Back to the old ways, eh? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

G3nnaro 4y ago

Amazons already building apartments at HQ2 and I believe Seattle as well - https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22593871/amazon-key-for-business-thousands-of-buildings-us-installation-incentives-privacy-concerns https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22593871/amazon-key-for-b... Amazon can't build apartment complexes on top of their warehouses because many of their warehouses are already 3 or 4 floors, and the obvious zoning issues of building complexes in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of other warehouses.

wronglyprepaid 4y ago

I don't live in US, and there is no amazon specifically catering to the country I live in, but my experience with Amazon as a shop has been that it is a really bad user interface, with crappy search, filled with a bunch of questionable "spam" products. I wonder if this is the case in US also, or maybe just my individual experience. It is very hard for me to get how a company so successful has such a crappy flagship product.

blobbers 4y ago
It has a medium level of spam, but if you stick to name brands sold by amazon, you generally get what you pay for. It's replaced the department store, and usually has better service / return policy than a department store (Target etc.). Costco might be the exception but generally I don't go to costco to search for a specific product. They either have some general version of a product, and if I'm willing to buy that I will; swim goggles for example. Perhaps I want TYR swim goggles. Costco will have better pricing on Speedo goggles but won't sell the TYR mirrored version I'm looking for. Click, bought on amazon, arrives next day.
nonameiguess 4y ago
The flagship product is the logistical operation and it is pretty damn far from crappy. I can't speak for everywhere, but at least in most parts of the US, they can get you damn near anything on the same day. For products where you already know what you want in terms of brand, seller, and quantity, or regular recurring purchases of staple goods (cat litter, paper towels, dish soap, anything undifferentiated that you need to repeatedly purchase), even groceries now thanks to buying Whole Foods (provided you have the upscale price point that makes you willing to shop there to begin with), it's about as perfect an interface as you could hope for. Find and click in under a minute and you can probably have most goods in a few hours, at most next day. If you're trying to discover new products of unknown quality and reputation, then it's not so good. For whatever reason, that seems to be the use case people focus on when criticizing Amazon on Hacker News, but I don't see how that can possibly be the dominant use case. Most of what people ever buy is not something brand new to them that they know nothing about. I'm looking through my last several months of purchases here, and I'm seeing a bunch of automotive cleaning fluids, mostly from Adam's, polishing compounds and a respirator from 3M, a bunch of power tools from DeWalt, a Bose speaker. Known brands from reputable sellers, every item what I wanted and it got here quickly. In some cases, I either tried to or had to purchase elsewhere. For instance, Amazon had most of the DeWalt power tools I wanted, but was out of stock on rotary polishers, so I had to get it from some place called Acme Tools, and it took a week and a half. Amazon got me everything the next day. (I had a bunch of stuff stolen from my garage is why I needed all this at around the same time.) I tried to purchase the Bose speaker from Best Buy since I have one a five minute drive from me, and their website claimed it was in stock and I could pick it up the same day, but then right before the pick up window, they texted me to inform me they didn't actually have it and wouldn't for another week. So I canceled the order, went on Amazon, and they had free same day delivery. It should be obvious that anything that goes from not existing 25 years ago to top five market cap company in the world is probably offering value somehow.

ajkjk 4y ago

Basements are by far the most expensive parts of apartment building. It's one of the reasons that reducing parking requirements for apartment buildings is a good way to make housing more cost-effective to build and therefore to increase housing supply (last I heard).

smachiz 4y ago
expensive to build, but less desirable for anyone (but parking) so there's no incentive to build much. It will definitely be more expensive than a warehouse 45 minutes away - even in the most expensive cities (where they do build basements to the extent that they can before they hit subways and whatever).
SoftTalker 4y ago
Yeah but parking above ground is probably cheaper than building out apartments. I've lived in buildings where the first 6 or 8 floors were parking. And a parking space rented for several hundred a month, on top of your apartment rent.

outside1234 4y ago

They could have everyone work in the basement for at 4% discount on rent too. Great stuff - totally not dystopian at all.

Vladimof 4y ago
Would they have anti-suicide nets like Chinese factories?

politician 4y ago

So dystopian. You can imagine the vending machine kiosk on the first floor— no, the Alexa built into every unit- that’s ready to deliver anything you wish, and accept your rent payment.

lancesells 4y ago
Might as well just house employees there as well and take the rent directly out of their paychecks. Frighteningly they have almost 1 million employees in the US, which is more than the population of a handful of states.
- plasticchris 4y ago
  I wonder what the tax treatment would be - I think company housing might not be taxed as income in this case (on prem, required to work there, etc), allowing them to pay much lower effective rates for labor by baking the cost of housing into a paycheck and pocketing the tax savings.
  - longtimelistnr 4y ago
    There’s not a fucking chance that’s legal
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      Employee benefits are routinely taxed differently. Health insurance, 401ks, some meals, etc. Most likely, it'd be considered a "fringe benefit" and the employee would still have W2 / income taxes and withholdings on it. How municipalities would tax the property value depends entirely on how they choose to tax on-site housing (as it is technically both commercial and residential space). Maintenance on the buildings would likely be partially deductible as operating expenses, no different than any other building operated by a landlord or business.
    - dboreham 4y ago
      The illegal aspect only pertains to doing something like this and not paying relevant taxes. Companies have been providing their employees housing for hundreds of years. Trump Org was perfectly free to provide employees apartments, provided appropriate tax filings and payments were made.

schnevets 4y ago

In addition to the drawbacks outlined in other responses, human living situations are too unpredictable to make that kind of arrangement desirable. Inevitably, there will be a plumbing issue because someone left a bath running, or a medical emergency causes unforeseen traffic challenges, or a fire breaks out. The more delivery productivity you stack on top of this infrastructure, the bigger the impact from an unforeseen issue... and humans can introduce a lot of unforeseen issues.

yuliyp 4y ago

That sounds awful. An apartment where you have semis pulling up at all hours delivering cargo? This is why we have zoning laws to avoid people building warehouses in residential districts.

ianai 4y ago
With how short Amazon tenures are, shouldn't they be hotels at the top?
agilob 4y ago
Surely Amazon can buy some local regulators, just think about how many low paid jobs this would bring!
- supertrope 4y ago
  Smarter politicians will refuse to bend over backwards for new employers who offer low wage jobs, set up enterprises that can be easily relocated when the tax credits expire, and don’t offer anything special.
shiftpgdn 4y ago
Denying mixed use because it might be noisy for hypothetical residents is how we wound up with the current disaster that is American urban/suburban planning
- Dyac 4y ago
  Are mixed use buildings a problem? I thought the normal problem in America was that zoning tends to prohibit mixing uselage types. Here [0] is a random street i picked in Paris with mixed use buildings - looks pretty nice tbh-lots of accommodation & amenities, easily walkable, some shops and restaurants. [0] 61 rue de Passy https://maps.app.goo.gl/14Kxyd9SwARyT79s8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/14Kxyd9SwARyT79s8
  - taylorius 4y ago
    Mixed use is a winner in urban environments. London has a lot of it, and it makes for good, local living.

agilob 4y ago

Will Amazon Prime include affordable housing?

paxys 4y ago

Zoning laws exist

User23 4y ago

I used to joke that Amazon should buy up the housing in SLU and then between Amazon sales and rent they'd get 90% of their costs of employment back as revenue.

larsiusprime 4y ago

Zoning makes mixed-use development illegal in most places in any case

itslennysfault 4y ago

This is why zoning exists, and thank god it does.