6 ms·

Amazon Let Its Drivers' Urine Be Sold as an Energy Drink

97 points by fortran77 3y ago

jruohonen 3y ago
No matter whether this is true or not, nothing amazes me no longer with this company.
- frognumber 3y ago
  I am wondering what happened with the major techs. Amazon actually used to be the world's most customer-centric company, and Google used to try to not be evil. Building long-term trust is good business, and I did a lot of business with both because I trusted them due to a good track record. They could charge more, and I'd still do business. Now, they feel sleazy and evil. I've been burned enough times in the past five years that I would pick a random vendor I know nothing about over either. They need to significantly undercut on price or win on performance for me to even consider doing business. Trust takes a long time to earn, and can be lost very quickly.
  - CSMastermind 3y ago
    > Amazon actually used to be the world's most customer-centric company What's contradictory here? They focus on their customers at the expense of their employees.
    - squidbeak 3y ago
      'Focusing on customers' = selling them piss?
  - NoGravitas 3y ago
    Cory Doctorow explains it. First you provide good value to customers to build your business and destroy competition (even losing money if necessary). Then, you provide good value to partners (e.g. vendors) at your customers' expense to get them locked in. Then in the final stage, you start extracting the value from those partners so that value flows to neither them, nor the end customers.
  - lawlessone 3y ago
    >Amazon actually used to be the world's most customer-centric company, and Google used to try to not be evil. Well, power corrupts people, and corporations are people.
  - gosub100 3y ago
    they were sleazy before, too. AMZN and ebay both got big at first because for the first 10-ish years they escaped paying sales tax in the jurisdictions in which they did business. No wonder they had the lowest prices!
jadbox 3y ago
Paywall, but it feels too crazy to be true. There's a host of legal issues here for one.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  For sure, and Amazon keeps getting away with it because nobody is bothered enough to sue, or Amazon makes changes fast enough for a judge to go "Honest mistake, carry on", or Amazon has an army of lawyers that can keep going until the person or organizating suing runs out of steam and / or money.
LinuxBender 3y ago
They jest, but I see a business opportunity here if someone were so bold. The new Amazon EV trucks could be modified to have an electric urine collection system and collect the urine in a large tank under the vehicle whilst it is in motion. While collecting the suction motors pulsate to the song wagie cagie [1]. Upon return to the warehouse the vehicle could couple with a set of connectors that charges up the batteries and drains the urine collection tank. That urine could be processed to separate out the Urea and sold to the companies that produce Diesel Exhaust Fluid. The separation machine is powered by employees on their break time stepping on peddles to get exercise. The remaining chloride, sodium, potassium, creatinine could be processed and sold on Amazon as "Completely natural supplements" branded as "Amazon Heart Healthy" with the drivers ID number on the ingredients ~Edit out: giving them a portion of the profits~. The bilirubin could be sold as antioxidants to prevent endothelial cell injury. The marketing options are limitless. I jest but when evil corps give you lemons... [Edit] - I forgot to add the link to the song. It's 30 minutes but the pumps will just keep extracting. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRzxpIa6U8o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRzxpIa6U8o [video][30 mins][metal]
- diggan 3y ago
  I was with you until the whole "giving them a portion of the profits" part. New processes need to capture the full value of the employees, not give them pieces of it. This is part of AMZN Management 101, looks like someone didn't pay attention in the employee onboarding.
  - HappySweeney 3y ago
    I don't know when you attended, but now you are supposed to charge the driver for each relief event.
  - LinuxBender 3y ago
    Fair enough, I will return for remedial re-education after I complete my social media training.
- geodel 3y ago
  > I jest but when evil corps give you lemons... Or maybe Urinade is the idea whose time has come. Finally a powerful energy drink that peak performers deserve.
colpabar 3y ago
https://archive.ph/8nNcQ https://archive.ph/8nNcQ
exo762 3y ago
We really should rename the link. It is grossly misleading. > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Which part is misleading? Amazon (check) let (check) its drivers' urine (check) be sold (check) as energy drinks (check).
  - mattchew 3y ago
    The implication is that Amazon was fully aware that this was happening and didn't care. That's what most people would think "let" meant here. Yes, equivocating over the meaning of "let", the headline is technically true. Like so, so many other technically true but misleading headlines.
    - seydor 3y ago
      the implication would be that amazon is not responsible for the sale of bombs unless someone complains that they explode
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      Amazon's cavalier approach to verifying new sellers and their listings lets things like this get into their store.
    - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
      They didn't care, but clearly their checks and verifications failed, so they were probably not fully aware.
    - hobs 3y ago
      It's their responsibility to know what is happening and to care what is happening on their store - just because they have completely vacated their responsibilities doesn't mean we should give them a break.
wirthjason 3y ago
Obviously not all of this is true. I chatted to Amazon driver for my apartment about some local Chicago sports and he talked to me forever. Ironically I had to end the conversation by saying I needed to use the bathroom. He’s definitely not timed. Can’t wait for Season 2 where he chronicles how to game the ratings system. I feel 99% of the people on HN understand it but on the other hand there’s people like my 70 yr old mom who look at that and think, oh what a fantastic product. She is very susceptible to dark patterns, has no concept of sold by Amazon vs 3rd party sellers, etc.
- enragedcacti 3y ago
  > Obviously not all of this is true. I chatted to Amazon driver for my apartment about some local Chicago sports and he talked to me forever. Ironically I had to end the conversation by saying I needed to use the bathroom. He’s definitely not timed. In the US and the UK (where the interviews were conducted) Amazon deliveries are mostly contracted out to Delivery Service Partners who are small businesses that work exclusively for Amazon, drive Amazon vans, and wear Amazon uniforms. Amazon puts a lot of pressure on DSPs while giving DSPs the digital tools to apply pressure to their drivers, but there isn't a fully direct link and you can expect variation DSP-to-DSP and day-to-day. Also, trying to calculate something as complicated as delivery routes to the maximum a human can do is bound to have outliers on either side. Eventually Amazon will figure it out and fix it, or they won't because the driver is smart enough to intentionally slow-roll it and feed them route data that validates their prediction. https://www.protocol.com/workplace/amazon-delivery-program-trap https://www.protocol.com/workplace/amazon-delivery-program-t...
  - gosub100 3y ago
    nice little liability shroud there. Looks like a full-time-employee, walks like a FTE, but has no access to the same rights or protections as someone whose paycheck says Amazon on it.
  - wirthjason 3y ago
    I might have miscommunicated my idea. I certainly think everything that documentary shows happens and agree with everything you say. No dispute there. I just don’t know what percentage it represents. Maybe my driver is a corporate driver, not a DSP, and has different metrics etc. I don't know. BTW I really like the term “partner” in delivery service partner. It’s a weasel word that covers up what’s really going on. They are not partnering in the common sense of the word like “my wife is my partner.” (Although on a long road trip she wouldn’t hesitated to make me pee in a bottle rather than stop for my baby bladder. Haha.)
thelastgallon 3y ago
Cow urine and cow dung cakes are in high demand in certain demographics. I'm certain Whole Foods will offer organic variants. I'm conservative, so I can't see a huge demand for human urine. I suppose its possible, homeopathic urine drops of billionaires (Bezos, Buffet, Munger) and influencers (Kim Kardashian). NFTs exist, hard to comprehend, so, I guess this is entirely possible, with the right people at the top, like SBF, Adam Neumann. Adam Neumann would brand it MyFlow and Marc Andreessen will fund it, it fits with web3. https://a16z.com/podcast/disrupting-the-worlds-largest-asset-class-with-adam-neumann/ https://a16z.com/podcast/disrupting-the-worlds-largest-asset...
- geodel 3y ago
  Another idea comes to me is those fresh frothy steins of human urine to be served only to the winners of late stage capitalism. They deserve something real good after a hard day of funding Blockchain based AI / AI based Blockchain startups.
- jkestner 3y ago
  My children have put coyote urine in a cup they left in my cupholder. It's used as a deer deterrent, but aren't we the apex predator?
  - surge 3y ago
    Yes, my mom would have us boys go out and piss outside by the garden for the same reason. My wife's azalea bush was getting eaten by deer too, so I told her the trick and got my son to water the bush. The tradition lives on. Follow me for more life hacks.
  - livrem 3y ago
    There was a clip on Swedish public service television a few months ago about an old man that sprinkled his own pee (mixed with water) around his garden every day to keep the wild boars away. All his neighbors' gardens were devastated by the pigs, but they stayed away from his.
    - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
belter 3y ago
The story here is that a guy collected urine bottles discharged along the road by Amazon drivers. Managed to register as a seller and sell them on Amazon as Energy drink. It is a prank but good enough to prove there is nothing Amazon wont sell, even if just temporarily... :-) "...even attained number one bestseller status in the “Bitter Lemon” category..."
- nmeofthestate 3y ago
  > a guy collected urine bottles discharged along the road by Amazon drivers He didn't do this. He said he did this.
  - dboreham 3y ago
    Speaking as someone who has worked cleaning up the area adjacent to an interstate, there's no way to identify the urine bottles specific to a trucking company. Unless Amazon issues their drivers with branded urine bottles? (I think the urine bottles begin as pop bottles and are reused).
    - cwmma 3y ago
      after learning that drivers were being penalized for returning with urine filled bottles he searched the road near the warehouses, so it's urine very likely to come from an amazon driver.
      - karaterobot 3y ago
        Why couldn't they be from trucks from other shipping companies going to the Amazon warehouse, or from other distribution centers presumably located in the same general area? I think people may be under the misapprehension that only Amazon trucks leave bottles of urine on the side of the highway. This has been a practice for many, many decades. And not just commercial drivers, either. The word to look up is 'trucker bombs'.
    - itronitron 3y ago
clubm8 3y ago
i've met people who like to drink piss, but they usually want it from someone attractive. (no offense to any amazon drivers reading this)
- LightBug1 3y ago
  Please don't slander previous President's on this platform until the facts are released. Thanks.
cogman10 3y ago
Lots of comments in here that obviously didn't RTFA. The point of the article and documentary is that Amazon listed and fulfilled delivery of products described as urine. They even sold said products in their food section. The article further goes on to describe how the guy had his toddlers order knives and rat poison with the dot and got said items delivered without the mandatory (in the uk) age verification. It's an article about an upcoming documentary of Amazon's public negligence.
stuaxo 3y ago
His work he did gaming Tripadvisor to make his shed the best restaurant in London was hilarious.
webmobdev 3y ago
On a slightly different note, there is an "alternative medicine" stream popular among the right- in India called urine therapy. Some advocates of it suggest cow urine and some for drinking their own urine. The most famous and vocal advocate for drinking your own urine was the former Prime Minister of India, Morarji Desai. - Miracles of Urine Therapy - https://www.amazon.com/Miracles-Urine-Therapy-Desai-Morarji/dp/8187155396 https://www.amazon.com/Miracles-Urine-Therapy-Desai-Morarji/... - “60 Minutes” Interview (June 4, 1978) With Former Prime Minister of India Morarji Desai - https://infiniteunknown.net/2016/12/29/60-minutes-interview-june-4-1978-with-former-prime-minister-of-india-morarji-desai-by-dan-rather-mike-wallace-and-morley-safer/ https://infiniteunknown.net/2016/12/29/60-minutes-interview-...
beastman82 3y ago
Man Wired is the _worst_. What a BS article
zenogantner 3y ago
Why is this post flagged? In which way is it against the guidelines?

97 points by fortran77 3y ago

jruohonen 3y ago

No matter whether this is true or not, nothing amazes me no longer with this company.

frognumber 3y ago
I am wondering what happened with the major techs. Amazon actually used to be the world's most customer-centric company, and Google used to try to not be evil. Building long-term trust is good business, and I did a lot of business with both because I trusted them due to a good track record. They could charge more, and I'd still do business. Now, they feel sleazy and evil. I've been burned enough times in the past five years that I would pick a random vendor I know nothing about over either. They need to significantly undercut on price or win on performance for me to even consider doing business. Trust takes a long time to earn, and can be lost very quickly.
- CSMastermind 3y ago
  > Amazon actually used to be the world's most customer-centric company What's contradictory here? They focus on their customers at the expense of their employees.
  - squidbeak 3y ago
    'Focusing on customers' = selling them piss?
- NoGravitas 3y ago
  Cory Doctorow explains it. First you provide good value to customers to build your business and destroy competition (even losing money if necessary). Then, you provide good value to partners (e.g. vendors) at your customers' expense to get them locked in. Then in the final stage, you start extracting the value from those partners so that value flows to neither them, nor the end customers.
- lawlessone 3y ago
  >Amazon actually used to be the world's most customer-centric company, and Google used to try to not be evil. Well, power corrupts people, and corporations are people.
- gosub100 3y ago
  they were sleazy before, too. AMZN and ebay both got big at first because for the first 10-ish years they escaped paying sales tax in the jurisdictions in which they did business. No wonder they had the lowest prices!

jadbox 3y ago

Paywall, but it feels too crazy to be true. There's a host of legal issues here for one.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
For sure, and Amazon keeps getting away with it because nobody is bothered enough to sue, or Amazon makes changes fast enough for a judge to go "Honest mistake, carry on", or Amazon has an army of lawyers that can keep going until the person or organizating suing runs out of steam and / or money.

LinuxBender 3y ago

They jest, but I see a business opportunity here if someone were so bold. The new Amazon EV trucks could be modified to have an electric urine collection system and collect the urine in a large tank under the vehicle whilst it is in motion. While collecting the suction motors pulsate to the song wagie cagie [1]. Upon return to the warehouse the vehicle could couple with a set of connectors that charges up the batteries and drains the urine collection tank. That urine could be processed to separate out the Urea and sold to the companies that produce Diesel Exhaust Fluid. The separation machine is powered by employees on their break time stepping on peddles to get exercise. The remaining chloride, sodium, potassium, creatinine could be processed and sold on Amazon as "Completely natural supplements" branded as "Amazon Heart Healthy" with the drivers ID number on the ingredients ~Edit out: giving them a portion of the profits~. The bilirubin could be sold as antioxidants to prevent endothelial cell injury. The marketing options are limitless. I jest but when evil corps give you lemons... [Edit] - I forgot to add the link to the song. It's 30 minutes but the pumps will just keep extracting. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRzxpIa6U8o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRzxpIa6U8o [video][30 mins][metal]

diggan 3y ago
I was with you until the whole "giving them a portion of the profits" part. New processes need to capture the full value of the employees, not give them pieces of it. This is part of AMZN Management 101, looks like someone didn't pay attention in the employee onboarding.
- HappySweeney 3y ago
  I don't know when you attended, but now you are supposed to charge the driver for each relief event.
- LinuxBender 3y ago
  Fair enough, I will return for remedial re-education after I complete my social media training.
geodel 3y ago
> I jest but when evil corps give you lemons... Or maybe Urinade is the idea whose time has come. Finally a powerful energy drink that peak performers deserve.

colpabar 3y ago

https://archive.ph/8nNcQ https://archive.ph/8nNcQ

exo762 3y ago

We really should rename the link. It is grossly misleading. > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ceejayoz 3y ago
Which part is misleading? Amazon (check) let (check) its drivers' urine (check) be sold (check) as energy drinks (check).
- mattchew 3y ago
  The implication is that Amazon was fully aware that this was happening and didn't care. That's what most people would think "let" meant here. Yes, equivocating over the meaning of "let", the headline is technically true. Like so, so many other technically true but misleading headlines.
  - seydor 3y ago
    the implication would be that amazon is not responsible for the sale of bombs unless someone complains that they explode
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    Amazon's cavalier approach to verifying new sellers and their listings lets things like this get into their store.
  - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
    They didn't care, but clearly their checks and verifications failed, so they were probably not fully aware.
  - hobs 3y ago
    It's their responsibility to know what is happening and to care what is happening on their store - just because they have completely vacated their responsibilities doesn't mean we should give them a break.

wirthjason 3y ago

Obviously not all of this is true. I chatted to Amazon driver for my apartment about some local Chicago sports and he talked to me forever. Ironically I had to end the conversation by saying I needed to use the bathroom. He’s definitely not timed. Can’t wait for Season 2 where he chronicles how to game the ratings system. I feel 99% of the people on HN understand it but on the other hand there’s people like my 70 yr old mom who look at that and think, oh what a fantastic product. She is very susceptible to dark patterns, has no concept of sold by Amazon vs 3rd party sellers, etc.

enragedcacti 3y ago
> Obviously not all of this is true. I chatted to Amazon driver for my apartment about some local Chicago sports and he talked to me forever. Ironically I had to end the conversation by saying I needed to use the bathroom. He’s definitely not timed. In the US and the UK (where the interviews were conducted) Amazon deliveries are mostly contracted out to Delivery Service Partners who are small businesses that work exclusively for Amazon, drive Amazon vans, and wear Amazon uniforms. Amazon puts a lot of pressure on DSPs while giving DSPs the digital tools to apply pressure to their drivers, but there isn't a fully direct link and you can expect variation DSP-to-DSP and day-to-day. Also, trying to calculate something as complicated as delivery routes to the maximum a human can do is bound to have outliers on either side. Eventually Amazon will figure it out and fix it, or they won't because the driver is smart enough to intentionally slow-roll it and feed them route data that validates their prediction. https://www.protocol.com/workplace/amazon-delivery-program-trap https://www.protocol.com/workplace/amazon-delivery-program-t...
- gosub100 3y ago
  nice little liability shroud there. Looks like a full-time-employee, walks like a FTE, but has no access to the same rights or protections as someone whose paycheck says Amazon on it.
- wirthjason 3y ago
  I might have miscommunicated my idea. I certainly think everything that documentary shows happens and agree with everything you say. No dispute there. I just don’t know what percentage it represents. Maybe my driver is a corporate driver, not a DSP, and has different metrics etc. I don't know. BTW I really like the term “partner” in delivery service partner. It’s a weasel word that covers up what’s really going on. They are not partnering in the common sense of the word like “my wife is my partner.” (Although on a long road trip she wouldn’t hesitated to make me pee in a bottle rather than stop for my baby bladder. Haha.)

thelastgallon 3y ago

Cow urine and cow dung cakes are in high demand in certain demographics. I'm certain Whole Foods will offer organic variants. I'm conservative, so I can't see a huge demand for human urine. I suppose its possible, homeopathic urine drops of billionaires (Bezos, Buffet, Munger) and influencers (Kim Kardashian). NFTs exist, hard to comprehend, so, I guess this is entirely possible, with the right people at the top, like SBF, Adam Neumann. Adam Neumann would brand it MyFlow and Marc Andreessen will fund it, it fits with web3. https://a16z.com/podcast/disrupting-the-worlds-largest-asset-class-with-adam-neumann/ https://a16z.com/podcast/disrupting-the-worlds-largest-asset...

geodel 3y ago
Another idea comes to me is those fresh frothy steins of human urine to be served only to the winners of late stage capitalism. They deserve something real good after a hard day of funding Blockchain based AI / AI based Blockchain startups.
jkestner 3y ago
My children have put coyote urine in a cup they left in my cupholder. It's used as a deer deterrent, but aren't we the apex predator?
- surge 3y ago
  Yes, my mom would have us boys go out and piss outside by the garden for the same reason. My wife's azalea bush was getting eaten by deer too, so I told her the trick and got my son to water the bush. The tradition lives on. Follow me for more life hacks.
- livrem 3y ago
  There was a clip on Swedish public service television a few months ago about an old man that sprinkled his own pee (mixed with water) around his garden every day to keep the wild boars away. All his neighbors' gardens were devastated by the pigs, but they stayed away from his.
  - 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

belter 3y ago

The story here is that a guy collected urine bottles discharged along the road by Amazon drivers. Managed to register as a seller and sell them on Amazon as Energy drink. It is a prank but good enough to prove there is nothing Amazon wont sell, even if just temporarily... :-) "...even attained number one bestseller status in the “Bitter Lemon” category..."

nmeofthestate 3y ago
> a guy collected urine bottles discharged along the road by Amazon drivers He didn't do this. He said he did this.
- dboreham 3y ago
  Speaking as someone who has worked cleaning up the area adjacent to an interstate, there's no way to identify the urine bottles specific to a trucking company. Unless Amazon issues their drivers with branded urine bottles? (I think the urine bottles begin as pop bottles and are reused).
  - cwmma 3y ago
    after learning that drivers were being penalized for returning with urine filled bottles he searched the road near the warehouses, so it's urine very likely to come from an amazon driver.
    - karaterobot 3y ago
      Why couldn't they be from trucks from other shipping companies going to the Amazon warehouse, or from other distribution centers presumably located in the same general area? I think people may be under the misapprehension that only Amazon trucks leave bottles of urine on the side of the highway. This has been a practice for many, many decades. And not just commercial drivers, either. The word to look up is 'trucker bombs'.
  - itronitron 3y ago

clubm8 3y ago

i've met people who like to drink piss, but they usually want it from someone attractive. (no offense to any amazon drivers reading this)

LightBug1 3y ago
Please don't slander previous President's on this platform until the facts are released. Thanks.

cogman10 3y ago

Lots of comments in here that obviously didn't RTFA. The point of the article and documentary is that Amazon listed and fulfilled delivery of products described as urine. They even sold said products in their food section. The article further goes on to describe how the guy had his toddlers order knives and rat poison with the dot and got said items delivered without the mandatory (in the uk) age verification. It's an article about an upcoming documentary of Amazon's public negligence.

stuaxo 3y ago

His work he did gaming Tripadvisor to make his shed the best restaurant in London was hilarious.

webmobdev 3y ago

On a slightly different note, there is an "alternative medicine" stream popular among the right- in India called urine therapy. Some advocates of it suggest cow urine and some for drinking their own urine. The most famous and vocal advocate for drinking your own urine was the former Prime Minister of India, Morarji Desai. - Miracles of Urine Therapy - https://www.amazon.com/Miracles-Urine-Therapy-Desai-Morarji/dp/8187155396 https://www.amazon.com/Miracles-Urine-Therapy-Desai-Morarji/... - “60 Minutes” Interview (June 4, 1978) With Former Prime Minister of India Morarji Desai - https://infiniteunknown.net/2016/12/29/60-minutes-interview-june-4-1978-with-former-prime-minister-of-india-morarji-desai-by-dan-rather-mike-wallace-and-morley-safer/ https://infiniteunknown.net/2016/12/29/60-minutes-interview-...

beastman82 3y ago

Man Wired is the _worst_. What a BS article

zenogantner 3y ago

Why is this post flagged? In which way is it against the guidelines?