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If Jassy had his way, Amazon's sole employee would be him and he'd be rent seeking everything down the line with robots and AI. He has no vision beyond what is

If Jassy had his way, Amazon's sole employee would be him and he'd be rent seeking everything down the line with robots and AI. He has no vision beyond what is best for him personally. Other people aren't humans.

isoprophlex 1y ago
Is amazon a net benefit to humanity? Is extreme disintermediation in general a beneficial thing, where there is only the consumers left, paying rent-like tithes into one big pocket, without an economic ecosystem in between?
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  Looking just at their physical-item distribution model, I'd imagine it's far more carbon-efficient than physically shopping. Case 1: I drive to the store to get a widget. There is a low chance Store-1 doesn't have it, and I have to keep shopping. Regardless, I am driving about 30 minutes total, conservatively. Case 2: I order a widget from Amazon. The Amazon driver organizes their stops to minimize travel time, and it's undoubtedly less than 30 minutes driving from the previous stop. Both cases require transport of goods from factory to the final storage location (shopfront or Amazon warehouse), so the difference there is negligible.
  - malfist 1y ago
    Maybe, but when I order from Amazon it's usually an item or three. When I go to the grocery I'm getting dozens of items. It would be interesting to quantify the carbon emissions from those two systems (they're not fully independent variable) I wouldn't be surprised if my intuition is wrong. Or yours
  - david-gpu 1y ago
    I broadly agree, but the assumption that people drive for 30 minutes to on average to buy an item sounds like a stretch. When I don't buy online I simply walk or ride a bike to the store. On the other hand, I live in an urban setting.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      From what I've seen of American cities, I can easily believe there are many in those cities who have a 30 minute drive to a store. And while it's only one specific category of product, I keep hearing about "food deserts" in the USA, where poorer communities are only served by dollar stores that don't have a good range of stuff, so I can easily believe that there's worse than what I've seen in all product categories. I'm in Berlin, so I'm a 25 minutes walk from three supermarkets a bike shop and a pharmacy, despite being in one of the remote corners of the city. Our previous place was much more central so it had a dozen or so supermarkets, a building supply store, and a shopping mall in that distance. Both new and old place have excellent public transport, I have literally seen someone transport a kitchen sink on one of the trams.
      - david-gpu 1y ago
        Yeah, that tracks. Even while living in the far end of the Toronto urban fabric we have something like nine grocery stores within 25 minutes of walking distance. And we are not living in an urbanist's wet dream, either. The sort of extreme car-centric urbanism often seen in the US is the exception around the world, not the norm.
    - scarface_74 1y ago
      Because most people ride bikes and walk to the store despite all of the huge parking lots filled with cars.
      - david-gpu 1y ago
        Most people in most of the cities around the world get around by walking, transit or cycling. Car-centric development is a pretty recent and relatively localized phenomenon.
        scarface_74 1y ago
        As is Amazon 92% of the people in the US have access to at least one vehicle https://www.fool.com/money/research/car-ownership-statistics/ https://www.fool.com/money/research/car-ownership-statistics... And this is worldwide https://www.visualcapitalist.com/vehicles-per-capita-by-country/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/vehicles-per-capita-by-coun... The average driver in the US drives 40 miles per day https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/average-miles-driven-per-year/ https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/average-miles-driven-per-year... No most people don’t walk to the store
  - MangoToupe 1y ago
    Of course, the productivity gains are largely drained by the shareholders, so we only collectively get part of expected benefits of a centrally-planned economy.
    - cynicalsecurity 1y ago
      Centrally-planned economy was a disaster. Capitalism might not be perfect, but communism did not function at all. You can have the best of both worlds in socio-capitalist system. Let Amazon automate everything. Does anyone here really want to do the manual labour in their warehouses?
      - MangoToupe 1y ago
        Amazon is a centrally-planned economy. You do not need to fix prices to achieve this.
dfxm12 1y ago
Yes, he is a capitalist. This is the logical result of capitalism.
rybosworld 1y ago
This mindset is more common than not among executives. I think there's a non-zero chance of 95% unemployment within the next 20 years.
- diggan 1y ago
  > non-zero chance of 95% unemployment within the next 20 years With that said, there is probably also a non-zero chance that something like that wouldn't be negative but something positive instead. I suppose that'd be the ideal scenario.
  - hshdhdhj4444 1y ago
    U.S. productivity has increased massively over the last half century and yet much of the increased productivity has ended up in the hands of a select few. This is being accelerated by the bill passed the senate literally today. Is there any reason to believe we will drastically reverse the trend?
    - Kon5ole 1y ago
      >much of the increased productivity has ended up in the hands of a select few. I do agree that wealth is not distributed particularly fairly but I don't understand the idea that it's mostly going to a select few. There are almost 20 million more jobs in the US now than there were 20 years ago, that's a lot of productivity right there. Amazon employs 1.4 million people. Bezos has spent maybe the equivalent to a couple of weeks worth of Amazon payroll so far in his life. His yacht was the equivalent of a few days, his wedding maybe one hour. That money didn't come from Amazon either, it came from people wanting to own Amazon. Leaving aside whether that's fair or not, surely it means that most of the productivity and money is going to the employees? What am I missing here? How was this better before, what has changed recently that makes this such a big talking point now?
      - joquarky 1y ago
        > There are almost 20 million more jobs in the US now than there were 20 years ago There are 40 million more people in the USA than 20 years ago.
HardCodedBias 1y ago
Have you worked with him? I had the privilege of working with him for a little over a year. He was respectful, analytical, and only thought about what is best for Amazon and Amazon's customers. I don't think his own aggrandizement or what's best for him enters into the calculus of his day-to-day work one itoa. He's an untiring as well. I realized I had gone far beyond my peter principle when I was working with him.
- malfist 1y ago
  I have worked with him. He's a robber baron, not a captain of industry. Don't have to look much past his "gobble gobble" email to see that, nor his announcement of RTO the day after an all hands where remote work was touted as the future.
  - exolymph 1y ago
    > He's a robber baron, not a captain of industry. Arguably these are synonyms :P
  - HardCodedBias 1y ago
    "his announcement of RTO" At least he walks the walk. He was in the office 100% of the time.
    - malfist 1y ago
      I don't give assholes credit for being unapologetic assholes

isoprophlex 1y ago

Is amazon a net benefit to humanity? Is extreme disintermediation in general a beneficial thing, where there is only the consumers left, paying rent-like tithes into one big pocket, without an economic ecosystem in between?

IAmBroom 1y ago
Looking just at their physical-item distribution model, I'd imagine it's far more carbon-efficient than physically shopping. Case 1: I drive to the store to get a widget. There is a low chance Store-1 doesn't have it, and I have to keep shopping. Regardless, I am driving about 30 minutes total, conservatively. Case 2: I order a widget from Amazon. The Amazon driver organizes their stops to minimize travel time, and it's undoubtedly less than 30 minutes driving from the previous stop. Both cases require transport of goods from factory to the final storage location (shopfront or Amazon warehouse), so the difference there is negligible.
- malfist 1y ago
  Maybe, but when I order from Amazon it's usually an item or three. When I go to the grocery I'm getting dozens of items. It would be interesting to quantify the carbon emissions from those two systems (they're not fully independent variable) I wouldn't be surprised if my intuition is wrong. Or yours
- david-gpu 1y ago
  I broadly agree, but the assumption that people drive for 30 minutes to on average to buy an item sounds like a stretch. When I don't buy online I simply walk or ride a bike to the store. On the other hand, I live in an urban setting.
  - ben_w 1y ago
    From what I've seen of American cities, I can easily believe there are many in those cities who have a 30 minute drive to a store. And while it's only one specific category of product, I keep hearing about "food deserts" in the USA, where poorer communities are only served by dollar stores that don't have a good range of stuff, so I can easily believe that there's worse than what I've seen in all product categories. I'm in Berlin, so I'm a 25 minutes walk from three supermarkets a bike shop and a pharmacy, despite being in one of the remote corners of the city. Our previous place was much more central so it had a dozen or so supermarkets, a building supply store, and a shopping mall in that distance. Both new and old place have excellent public transport, I have literally seen someone transport a kitchen sink on one of the trams.
    - david-gpu 1y ago
      Yeah, that tracks. Even while living in the far end of the Toronto urban fabric we have something like nine grocery stores within 25 minutes of walking distance. And we are not living in an urbanist's wet dream, either. The sort of extreme car-centric urbanism often seen in the US is the exception around the world, not the norm.
  - scarface_74 1y ago
    Because most people ride bikes and walk to the store despite all of the huge parking lots filled with cars.
    - david-gpu 1y ago
      Most people in most of the cities around the world get around by walking, transit or cycling. Car-centric development is a pretty recent and relatively localized phenomenon.
      - scarface_74 1y ago
        As is Amazon 92% of the people in the US have access to at least one vehicle https://www.fool.com/money/research/car-ownership-statistics/ https://www.fool.com/money/research/car-ownership-statistics... And this is worldwide https://www.visualcapitalist.com/vehicles-per-capita-by-country/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/vehicles-per-capita-by-coun... The average driver in the US drives 40 miles per day https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/average-miles-driven-per-year/ https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/average-miles-driven-per-year... No most people don’t walk to the store
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  Of course, the productivity gains are largely drained by the shareholders, so we only collectively get part of expected benefits of a centrally-planned economy.
  - cynicalsecurity 1y ago
    Centrally-planned economy was a disaster. Capitalism might not be perfect, but communism did not function at all. You can have the best of both worlds in socio-capitalist system. Let Amazon automate everything. Does anyone here really want to do the manual labour in their warehouses?
    - MangoToupe 1y ago
      Amazon is a centrally-planned economy. You do not need to fix prices to achieve this.

dfxm12 1y ago

Yes, he is a capitalist. This is the logical result of capitalism.

rybosworld 1y ago

This mindset is more common than not among executives. I think there's a non-zero chance of 95% unemployment within the next 20 years.

diggan 1y ago
> non-zero chance of 95% unemployment within the next 20 years With that said, there is probably also a non-zero chance that something like that wouldn't be negative but something positive instead. I suppose that'd be the ideal scenario.
- hshdhdhj4444 1y ago
  U.S. productivity has increased massively over the last half century and yet much of the increased productivity has ended up in the hands of a select few. This is being accelerated by the bill passed the senate literally today. Is there any reason to believe we will drastically reverse the trend?
  - Kon5ole 1y ago
    >much of the increased productivity has ended up in the hands of a select few. I do agree that wealth is not distributed particularly fairly but I don't understand the idea that it's mostly going to a select few. There are almost 20 million more jobs in the US now than there were 20 years ago, that's a lot of productivity right there. Amazon employs 1.4 million people. Bezos has spent maybe the equivalent to a couple of weeks worth of Amazon payroll so far in his life. His yacht was the equivalent of a few days, his wedding maybe one hour. That money didn't come from Amazon either, it came from people wanting to own Amazon. Leaving aside whether that's fair or not, surely it means that most of the productivity and money is going to the employees? What am I missing here? How was this better before, what has changed recently that makes this such a big talking point now?
    - joquarky 1y ago
      > There are almost 20 million more jobs in the US now than there were 20 years ago There are 40 million more people in the USA than 20 years ago.

HardCodedBias 1y ago

Have you worked with him? I had the privilege of working with him for a little over a year. He was respectful, analytical, and only thought about what is best for Amazon and Amazon's customers. I don't think his own aggrandizement or what's best for him enters into the calculus of his day-to-day work one itoa. He's an untiring as well. I realized I had gone far beyond my peter principle when I was working with him.

malfist 1y ago
I have worked with him. He's a robber baron, not a captain of industry. Don't have to look much past his "gobble gobble" email to see that, nor his announcement of RTO the day after an all hands where remote work was touted as the future.
- exolymph 1y ago
  > He's a robber baron, not a captain of industry. Arguably these are synonyms :P
- HardCodedBias 1y ago
  "his announcement of RTO" At least he walks the walk. He was in the office 100% of the time.
  - malfist 1y ago
    I don't give assholes credit for being unapologetic assholes