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> And to the people criticizing, this is cheating. To them, a billion dollars enterprise is not possible without the exploitation of employees, customers, or at

by rayiner 5mo ago

> And to the people criticizing, this is cheating. To them, a billion dollars enterprise is not possible without the exploitation of employees, customers, or at least the environment. Well that’s wrong. Exploitive businesses do exist. Rent seeking and arbitrage does exist. But the ire today isn’t directed to Wall Street or private equity. It’s being directed to people who built real companies. It’s not inherently exploitive to sell a customer a valuable product or employ someone to build that product. In the 1990s, it took weeks to order something by mail. Amazon can now deliver me stuff the same day of the next morning. That’s amazing, considering that it’s all done with trucks, warehouses, and other things that already existed in the 1990s. Whoever made that happen when USPS couldn’t do it deserves to be a billionaire.

WarOnPrivacy 5mo ago
> Whoever made that happen when USPS couldn’t do it deserves to be a billionaire. This bit might be a bit unfair. USPS and Amazon Delivery are different services, fulfilling different needs. Neither will deliver a pizza in 30 min or less, for example.
- hawaiianbrah 5mo ago
  > Neither will deliver a pizza in 30 min or less, for example. Looks like Amazon will deliver me a (frozen) pizza in 23 minutes, actually!
callmeal 5mo ago
> Amazon can now deliver me stuff the same day of the next morning. That’s amazing, considering that it’s all done with trucks, warehouses, and other things that already existed in the 1990s. Whoever made that happen when USPS couldn’t do it deserves to be a billionaire. It's also impossible without Amazon exploiting all the workers in the chain - from warehouse workers forced to undergo dehumanizing _unpaid_ searches that take hours when leaving the warehouse, to being forced to pee in bottles. It is impossible to become a billionaire without exploting people.
- rayiner 5mo ago
  > It is impossible to become a billionaire without exploting people. Explain this to me using math not feelings.
  - TimorousBestie 5mo ago
    At 5% APR compounded daily and zero inflation, a person would need to invest $300,000 weekly to attain 1 billion dollars after 80 years. Fiddle with the numbers as you like. Do enlighten us as to what actual labor creates $300,000 in real value every week, week after week.
    - rayiner 5mo ago
      Tim Cook’s labor optimizing Apple’s supply chain easily crates billions in value.
      - deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
      - nullocator 5mo ago
        Excellent way to put this, by moving and accelerating Apple's outsourcing of manufacturing and production to countries with more exploitable labor and cheaper corruption to advantage himself with, Tim Cook not only exploited people in multiple countries around the world but helped hollow out American manufacturing and suppress wages! Through this exploitation he created billions in value for himself and other capital holders.
  - keeda 5mo ago
    Here's a useful, easy-to-understand number: "Exactly zero" That is the answer to the question: "How many of the top 50 billionaires in the world have NOT been in legal trouble for anti-worker, anti-consumer or anti-competitive practices." Try it yourself! If you ask it to, Google AI Overview will even detail the infractions of each billionaire on the list.
chadgpt3 5mo ago
But there are many online stores, and Amazon is one of the worst? On line shopping was an innovation but Amazon, in particular, was just a cash grab from all the others.
- WarmWash 5mo ago
  If you pay attention to how people spend their money, and not what they say (i.e. actions speak louder than words) People really love billionaire owned businesses. We can look at Walmart, which eviscerated mom&pop stores all over rural America, and you'd be hard pressed to find much love of Walmart in those places, but alas, people gave their money to Walmart instead of Jone's Town General.
  - rayiner 5mo ago
    I saw a Harvard-Harris poll a couple of years ago where Amazon had the highest favorability ratings of institutions/organizations polled, basically tied with the U.S. military and ahead of the police and CDC: https://harvardharrispoll.com/key-results-may-2 https://harvardharrispoll.com/key-results-may-2 (page 15).
  - chadgpt3 5mo ago
    People don't have to like things they use though.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
oulipo2 5mo ago
Okay, now try applying your thinking to abusive healthcare insurance companies and see how well this fares...
- rayiner 5mo ago
  Okay, but people aren’t complaining about health insurance companies. None of those are owned by billionaires.
  - nullocator 5mo ago
    Yes we are, yes they are. You can google dozens of examples of billionaire owners or CEOs of health insurance companies, for example Warren Buffet is deeply invested/has ownership stake. Why state something so obviously disprovable and false?
boelboel 5mo ago
Amazon itself used the extremely advantageous rates of USPS for book delivery in the 90s/early 2000s to be able to grow. Combined with the lack of sales tax it could undercut basically any bookstore in sale-tax free states. Part of the reason why USPS couldn't improve itself was because of a law in 2006 which forced them to prefund retiree health benefits for decades into the future making them unable to spend those billions a year into modernisation right when it needed it the most (and private companies didn't face this pressure). Both the sale tax benefit and the USPS disadvantages are reversed now but the momentum amazon got and the slowdown USPS had can't be reversed. The company also pushed for all sort of regulatory changes to punish competitors (e.g. minimum wage to harm Walmart) while it had labour violations which barely got fined. This isn't to say that I think Amazon didn't provide value at any point in time, with its recommendation algorithm and review system it actually abuses the added value the platform delivered in the past to benefit its own basic products, but I believe there would've always been an Amazon who would've used similar regulatory plays to get ahead. That's why it's kind of difficult for me to say how many of Bezos his billions were 'fairly' earned. Furthermore I don't believe it's impossible for someone to truly earn a billion, the financial sector is one that has some of the best examples (e.g. Jim Simons) it's just difficult to find a 'close to purely fair' billionaire.

by rayiner 5mo ago

WarOnPrivacy 5mo ago

> Whoever made that happen when USPS couldn’t do it deserves to be a billionaire. This bit might be a bit unfair. USPS and Amazon Delivery are different services, fulfilling different needs. Neither will deliver a pizza in 30 min or less, for example.

hawaiianbrah 5mo ago
> Neither will deliver a pizza in 30 min or less, for example. Looks like Amazon will deliver me a (frozen) pizza in 23 minutes, actually!

callmeal 5mo ago

> Amazon can now deliver me stuff the same day of the next morning. That’s amazing, considering that it’s all done with trucks, warehouses, and other things that already existed in the 1990s. Whoever made that happen when USPS couldn’t do it deserves to be a billionaire. It's also impossible without Amazon exploiting all the workers in the chain - from warehouse workers forced to undergo dehumanizing _unpaid_ searches that take hours when leaving the warehouse, to being forced to pee in bottles. It is impossible to become a billionaire without exploting people.

rayiner 5mo ago
> It is impossible to become a billionaire without exploting people. Explain this to me using math not feelings.
- TimorousBestie 5mo ago
  At 5% APR compounded daily and zero inflation, a person would need to invest $300,000 weekly to attain 1 billion dollars after 80 years. Fiddle with the numbers as you like. Do enlighten us as to what actual labor creates $300,000 in real value every week, week after week.
  - rayiner 5mo ago
    Tim Cook’s labor optimizing Apple’s supply chain easily crates billions in value.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - nullocator 5mo ago
      Excellent way to put this, by moving and accelerating Apple's outsourcing of manufacturing and production to countries with more exploitable labor and cheaper corruption to advantage himself with, Tim Cook not only exploited people in multiple countries around the world but helped hollow out American manufacturing and suppress wages! Through this exploitation he created billions in value for himself and other capital holders.
- keeda 5mo ago
  Here's a useful, easy-to-understand number: "Exactly zero" That is the answer to the question: "How many of the top 50 billionaires in the world have NOT been in legal trouble for anti-worker, anti-consumer or anti-competitive practices." Try it yourself! If you ask it to, Google AI Overview will even detail the infractions of each billionaire on the list.

chadgpt3 5mo ago

But there are many online stores, and Amazon is one of the worst? On line shopping was an innovation but Amazon, in particular, was just a cash grab from all the others.

WarmWash 5mo ago
If you pay attention to how people spend their money, and not what they say (i.e. actions speak louder than words) People really love billionaire owned businesses. We can look at Walmart, which eviscerated mom&pop stores all over rural America, and you'd be hard pressed to find much love of Walmart in those places, but alas, people gave their money to Walmart instead of Jone's Town General.
- rayiner 5mo ago
  I saw a Harvard-Harris poll a couple of years ago where Amazon had the highest favorability ratings of institutions/organizations polled, basically tied with the U.S. military and ahead of the police and CDC: https://harvardharrispoll.com/key-results-may-2 https://harvardharrispoll.com/key-results-may-2 (page 15).
- chadgpt3 5mo ago
  People don't have to like things they use though.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]

oulipo2 5mo ago

Okay, now try applying your thinking to abusive healthcare insurance companies and see how well this fares...

rayiner 5mo ago
Okay, but people aren’t complaining about health insurance companies. None of those are owned by billionaires.
- nullocator 5mo ago
  Yes we are, yes they are. You can google dozens of examples of billionaire owners or CEOs of health insurance companies, for example Warren Buffet is deeply invested/has ownership stake. Why state something so obviously disprovable and false?

boelboel 5mo ago

Amazon itself used the extremely advantageous rates of USPS for book delivery in the 90s/early 2000s to be able to grow. Combined with the lack of sales tax it could undercut basically any bookstore in sale-tax free states. Part of the reason why USPS couldn't improve itself was because of a law in 2006 which forced them to prefund retiree health benefits for decades into the future making them unable to spend those billions a year into modernisation right when it needed it the most (and private companies didn't face this pressure). Both the sale tax benefit and the USPS disadvantages are reversed now but the momentum amazon got and the slowdown USPS had can't be reversed. The company also pushed for all sort of regulatory changes to punish competitors (e.g. minimum wage to harm Walmart) while it had labour violations which barely got fined. This isn't to say that I think Amazon didn't provide value at any point in time, with its recommendation algorithm and review system it actually abuses the added value the platform delivered in the past to benefit its own basic products, but I believe there would've always been an Amazon who would've used similar regulatory plays to get ahead. That's why it's kind of difficult for me to say how many of Bezos his billions were 'fairly' earned. Furthermore I don't believe it's impossible for someone to truly earn a billion, the financial sector is one that has some of the best examples (e.g. Jim Simons) it's just difficult to find a 'close to purely fair' billionaire.