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The Post has already lost a lot of the subscribers who would leave over something like this, in successive waves after: Bezos spiked the Harris endorsement, the

The Post has already lost a lot of the subscribers who would leave over something like this, in successive waves after: Bezos spiked the Harris endorsement, the paper blocked a political cartoon depicting Bezos and others bowing down to Trump, and the announcement of this new "two pillars" editorial policy that the blocked editorial here would have commented on. All amid a stream of resignations. I don't know that the market can all that meaningfully discipline Bezos, even if a response had the kind of direction and magnitude that would. Though he clearly has sought profitability for the paper, running it at a loss is a drop in the bucket financially for him.

lovich 2y ago
The market cant self correct here because the market is broken. Bezos is using his profits from one industry to prop up his unprofitable business in another industry, which also helps from any real competition starting up as they don't have access to Amazon profits This behavior and its consequences are why people call for monopolies to be broken up
dylan604 2y ago
> the paper blocked a political cartoon depicting Bezos and others bowing down to Trump So are we saying that Bezos is so plugged into the day-to-day operations of WaPo that he can yank the things he doesn't like, or is there some sycophant put in place that pings Bezos when they think it is something Bezos wouldn't like? I can't imagine that Bezos gives a damn enough to be checking in every day before release deadlines while cruising the globe on his super yacht.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Bezos is notorious for this sort of thing. https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/5-years-later-jeff-bezos-just-confirmed-jeff-bezos-question-mark-method-that-scares-heck-out-of-everyone-at-amazon-heres-how-it-works.html https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/5-years-later-jeff-bezos-...
- mitthrowaway2 2y ago
  Isn't it even worse if he only checks in after seeing something make it to print that he doesn't like? Then there's a chilling effect where everyone is guessing what might get them fired, and so they add an extra safety margin to their syncophancy and go beyond the minimum needed.
- taude 2y ago
  Bezos is exactly involved like this. Just go look at all the headlines at the end of February that was the precursor started all this. He cared enough to censor the opinion columns.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  Jeff Bezos is an infamous micro-manager. He micro-manages every single pixel of Amazon’s retail site. He hired Larry Tesler, Apple’s Chief Scientist and probably the very most famous and respected human-computer interaction expert in the entire world, and then ignored every goddamn thing Larry said for three years until Larry finally – wisely – left the company. Larry would do these big usability studies and demonstrate beyond any shred of doubt that nobody can understand that frigging website, but Bezos just couldn’t let go of those pixels, all those millions of semantics-packed pixels on the landing page. They were like millions of his own precious children. So they’re all still there, and Larry is not. https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse452/23wi/papers/yegge-platform-rant.html https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse452/23wi/papers...

lovich 2y ago

The market cant self correct here because the market is broken. Bezos is using his profits from one industry to prop up his unprofitable business in another industry, which also helps from any real competition starting up as they don't have access to Amazon profits This behavior and its consequences are why people call for monopolies to be broken up

dylan604 2y ago

> the paper blocked a political cartoon depicting Bezos and others bowing down to Trump So are we saying that Bezos is so plugged into the day-to-day operations of WaPo that he can yank the things he doesn't like, or is there some sycophant put in place that pings Bezos when they think it is something Bezos wouldn't like? I can't imagine that Bezos gives a damn enough to be checking in every day before release deadlines while cruising the globe on his super yacht.

ceejayoz 2y ago
Bezos is notorious for this sort of thing. https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/5-years-later-jeff-bezos-just-confirmed-jeff-bezos-question-mark-method-that-scares-heck-out-of-everyone-at-amazon-heres-how-it-works.html https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/5-years-later-jeff-bezos-...
mitthrowaway2 2y ago
Isn't it even worse if he only checks in after seeing something make it to print that he doesn't like? Then there's a chilling effect where everyone is guessing what might get them fired, and so they add an extra safety margin to their syncophancy and go beyond the minimum needed.
taude 2y ago
Bezos is exactly involved like this. Just go look at all the headlines at the end of February that was the precursor started all this. He cared enough to censor the opinion columns.
magicalhippo 2y ago
Jeff Bezos is an infamous micro-manager. He micro-manages every single pixel of Amazon’s retail site. He hired Larry Tesler, Apple’s Chief Scientist and probably the very most famous and respected human-computer interaction expert in the entire world, and then ignored every goddamn thing Larry said for three years until Larry finally – wisely – left the company. Larry would do these big usability studies and demonstrate beyond any shred of doubt that nobody can understand that frigging website, but Bezos just couldn’t let go of those pixels, all those millions of semantics-packed pixels on the landing page. They were like millions of his own precious children. So they’re all still there, and Larry is not. https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse452/23wi/papers/yegge-platform-rant.html https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse452/23wi/papers...