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Amazon made $64,809,782.60 in revenue every hour in Q3 2023. Source: https://www.junglescout.com/blog/how-much-does-amazon-make-in-a-year/ https://www.junglesc
by numbers 2y ago
Amazon made $64,809,782.60 in revenue every hour in Q3 2023.
Source: https://www.junglescout.com/blog/how-much-does-amazon-make-in-a-year/ https://www.junglescout.com/blog/how-much-does-amazon-make-i...
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoHow much of that was from Californian warehouses? Because if you don’t do that math, the fine gets overturned by the courts. That not only reduces the deterrence factor. It delays private enforcement by the harmed employees who would have otherwise relied on the commission’s facts in court without the colour of them being overturned on appeal.
- dolni 2y agoThe fine doesn't even amount to a slap on the wrist. It's like if someone stole $1000 worth of merchandise from a store and the only punishment is a $1000 fine... and you get to keep what you stole. Why be law abiding when you could break the law and potentially make more money? You'd have to be stupid to be law abiding in a system like that.
- Mo3 2y agoSurely the fines will become exponentially bigger every time they are caught doing the same, right?
- erikaww 2y agoThey’ll learn to cover their tracks better
- 6510 2y agoWe will keep the secret quotas secret from hereforth.
- giuseppe_petri 2y agoNot... double secret quotas!
- DaoVeles 2y agoYep, every time someone is defeated they can learn one of two lessons. How not to do it again OR how to not get caught again.
- throwaway562if1 2y ago[dead]
- coldtea 2y agoLOL, doubt it
- fwungy 2y agoFrom the politicians they funded?
- darth_avocado 2y agoIt’s actually more like: You stole $1000 and if you are caught, your fine is $10.
- Aurornis 2y ago> It's like if someone stole $1000 worth of merchandise from a store and the only punishment is a $1000 fine... and you get to keep what you stole. No, it's not like that at all. The fine was for two specific locations and it was for not disclosing specific quotas in writing. Drawing analogies to a person stealing from a store doesn't make sense. The fine was likely calculated to offset any potential gains they may have made by failing to disclose quotas, whatever that may be. So again, your analogy about getting to keep what you stole doesn't make sense. Basically none of these analogies or proportionality arguments in this thread make sense at all. I suspect half of the reason is that nobody read past the headline far enough to realize that it was for two specific locations, not for Amazon the entire giant business. The people trying to use Amazon's total earnings across all business units across all locations as part of their argument are extremely misleading.
- nwienert 2y agoOn a more general note, fines need to be something like 5-10x of the benefit, not 1-2x. Of course the gov has limited resources, limited ability to win trials, etc, so they need to be far beyond just compensation.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> fines need to be something like 5-10x of the benefit, not 1-2x There is zero chance Amazon was saving more than $1mm at these two warehouses from hiding quotas since the law went into effect. We’re already at 5x+ (most likely 10x+) benefit before considering damages.
- cool_dude85 2y agoI'd be interested to see what labor costs are at these facilities. I could easily buy that, if they rightfully disclosed the quotas they put people under, they would need to pay significantly more in order to attract and retain workers. Maybe 10% - 20% more, including taxes and benefits?
- chefandy 2y ago
- rahimnathwani 2y agoIt's like if someone stole $1000 worth of merchandise from a store and the only punishment is a $1000 fine... and you get to keep what you stole. Not the best analogy... In San Francisco if you steal $950 worth of merchandise from a store, there is no fine or punishment, and you get to keep what you stole.
- bee_rider 2y agoWould you say that’s a good thing or a bad thing? If you think it is a bad thing, then it seems like a fitting analogy, right?
- rahimnathwani 2y agoIf GP's point is about the justice system in general, then yes. If GP's point is about this fine in particular, or about how big corporations are treated in general, then it's a poor analogy.
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoIs this why Europe fines American companies based only on their global income? Like, hey you violated this privacy thing in the EU, and you made a lot of money outside of the EU, so give us a few billion.
- refurb 2y agoNot really. If their revenue was $100M from breaking the law, but the margins were only 1%, then they profited $1M. So a $5.9M fine would have been almost 6x the benefit.
- TechDebtDevin 2y agoThey will also wast 5mm+ in taxpayer dollars via appeals. The Corporate Cartel will always win.
- bhelkey 2y agoThis fine was for two Amazon warehouses near LA. Amazon reportedly has over a thousand fulfilment centers in the US [1]. [1] https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/article/amazon-warehouses/ https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/article/amazon-warehouses...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jvanderbot 2y agoThis is fair, but remember the business units are partitioned and extremely hierarchical in a company this size, so someone, somewhere, well below the top, got in trouble for this.
- thaumasiotes 2y agoIt's not a good idea to ask how much money a retailer has by looking at their revenue.
- harimau777 2y agoIt looks like their net income last year was about 30 billion. https://www.statista.com/statistics/266288/annual-et-income-of-amazoncom/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266288/annual-et-income-...
- paulddraper 2y agoA. Amazon's retail margin is nearly zero. B. California is <0.5% of world population; IDK how much of Amazon's worldwide revenue.
- malfist 2y agoI see this parroted around a lot, but Amazon's retail margin is not nearly zero. It's 3-5%, and accounts for over half the profit the company makes. And that's even before you account for the "profit" AWS makes from retail's purchases
- paulddraper 2y ago3-5% is a heck of a lot closer to 0 than 100%. Quoting top-line is misleading.
- malfist 2y agoI encourage you to provide examples where a business has 100% profit margin
- johnnyanmac 2y agoThat seems pretty low... is what I said before I saw the metric being mneasured in hours instead of months. This is tough because we had fine ceilings for a good reason. But maybe we should start considering proportional charges (+ maybe a fine floor) at this rate.
- ssalka 2y ago"If the penalty for a crime is a fine, that law only exists for the lower classes"
- BurningFrog 2y agoCalifornia collected $26M in taxes every hour in 2023. Neither of the parties here lack monetary resources.
- pleasantpeasant 2y agoThose tax dollars go back to California and country. Amazon does everything in its power to not pay taxes or help society. It really shows little Amazon is taxed at, if at all.
- robocat 2y ago> not help society Only if you ignore consumer surplus?
- zeroonetwothree 2y agoWhat do you think happens to the revenue Amazon collects?
- BurningFrog 2y agoAmazon employs 1.1 million people in the US. To me, that alone is definitely helping society.