I don't think this is strictly true. I think that Amazon could automate more of their order fulfillment if they were willing to invest in that. I also think t

I don't think this is strictly true. I think that Amazon could automate more of their order fulfillment if they were willing to invest in that. I also think that for the jobs that do need humans, they could afford health insurance (really not insurance these days, just a way of paying for some healthcare pre-tax) and to fully-fund the employees 401(k) or similar. Like, nobody shops on Amazon because they have the best price. If some other company starts doing same-day delivery for a wide variety of products, and the employees are treated well, and it costs $5 more per package... who cares? I'd switch to them overnight. Honestly, Amazon is kind of the snake that's eating it's own tail. Nobody feels good about buying from Amazon anymore. The customer service treats you like crap. The employees don't do a good job because they'd be fired if they did. The time is right for them to disappear overnight. I already don't trust them for anything expensive; if I'm ordering electronics, I get it through B&H, who makes some minimal amount of effort to ensure that you don't get a brick instead of a camera. Slowly but surely, the rest of the world is chipping away at their empire. "You have to indirectly torture one of our employees to get your thingamajig," isn't helping. I really think that if we fast-forward 20 years, we'll see that "no bathroom breaks, pee in a bottle" didn't make society much richer. (Of course, none of this matters. The early execs are out and incomprehensibly wealthy. I feel bad for the people that saw that and joined late, but will never achieve their goals in that area.)