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This thread reads like a giant love-letter to Amazon. As well it should. Amazon is one of the best companies in the world . I've been buying physical books fro

by edanm 14y ago

This thread reads like a giant love-letter to Amazon. As well it should. Amazon is one of the best companies in the world . I've been buying physical books from them for the last 8 years. I've recently started buying audiobooks at Audible, and have even more recently purchased the new Kindle Paperwhite, and have been burning through many, many ebooks. The one time I had a problem with a physical shipment, they resent the book, no-questions-asked. From the looks of this thread, their customer service has stayed amazing. My favorite Bezos quote, showing an approach that, over the long term, is amazingly profitable: "There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp." By the way, I agree with the OP, asking a simple question to verify the credit card number would not hurt the customer service process, and would probably prevent some fraud.

martincmartin 14y ago
Richard Stallman vehemently disagrees with you. http://stallman.org/amazon.html http://stallman.org/amazon.html He cites DRM, remote wiping of Kindles, sweatshop conditions in some shipping facilities, cutting off service to Wikileaks, squeezing small publishers, not paying enough UK taxes, and being a member of a right-wing lobbying group.
- mst 14y ago
  Actually, I don't see that they do disagree. "One of the most pleasant companies in the world to do business with" isn't really anything to do with the morality of their backend operations.
- illuminate 14y ago
  "being a member of a right-wing lobbying group" http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/24/amazon-becomes-18th-company-to-split-with-alec/ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/24/amazon-becomes-18th-co... Not anymore, at least.
- edanm 14y ago
  Most of what he talks about, I don't care about. I used to care a lot about DRM, I in fact swore I'd never do business with Audible because of DRM. Turns out, I care less about the DRM than about getting good content at a good price. It's also part of moving everything to the cloud - I'm more used to the idea of not having a "physical" bookshelf full of books, but rather a bookshelf keep by Amazon. It actually makes things easier for me as a consumer. Remote wipe I assume was a one-off. About the other stuff, it doesn't really impact me as an Amazon user. The only thing I'm interested in is them squeezing small publishers, because I do want to make sure I keep having good content... but so does Amazon, so I trust them to work it out. I don't mind if Amazon becomes a large publisher themselves, it'll probably work in my favor. In general, almost everything Stallman cares about is uninteresting to me, and the few stuff I think he's "right" about I think he takes to extremes that are, frankly, crazy.
  - Semaphor 14y ago
    > Turns out, I care less about the DRM than about getting good content at a good price. As long as it's convenient. Not all DRM is equal. Even though I backup my Amazon books DRM-free, I only do it because it happens automatically when I connect my kindle to my PC. But compare that to the DRM in many PC games or the Audio CD DRM we had a few years ago. I'd rather skip a game than getting one that requires me to be online to play it in single player.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- mikeash 14y ago
  I often find the vehement disagreement of Richard Stallman to be a decent indicator that something might be true.
wpietri 14y ago
I have a lot of respect for Amazon; Bezos's quote definitely explains a lot of their appeal. So many businesspeople are so focused on short-term costs that they are unable to make long-term wins. Bezos has been busily crushing those people for nearly 20 years. I really hope American business culture eventually unlearns the MBA-school dogma that leads them to the charge-customers-more approach. That said, Amazon definitely has problems. E.g., how they treat employees: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876

by edanm 14y ago

martincmartin 14y ago

Richard Stallman vehemently disagrees with you. http://stallman.org/amazon.html http://stallman.org/amazon.html He cites DRM, remote wiping of Kindles, sweatshop conditions in some shipping facilities, cutting off service to Wikileaks, squeezing small publishers, not paying enough UK taxes, and being a member of a right-wing lobbying group.

mst 14y ago
Actually, I don't see that they do disagree. "One of the most pleasant companies in the world to do business with" isn't really anything to do with the morality of their backend operations.
illuminate 14y ago
"being a member of a right-wing lobbying group" http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/24/amazon-becomes-18th-company-to-split-with-alec/ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/24/amazon-becomes-18th-co... Not anymore, at least.
edanm 14y ago
Most of what he talks about, I don't care about. I used to care a lot about DRM, I in fact swore I'd never do business with Audible because of DRM. Turns out, I care less about the DRM than about getting good content at a good price. It's also part of moving everything to the cloud - I'm more used to the idea of not having a "physical" bookshelf full of books, but rather a bookshelf keep by Amazon. It actually makes things easier for me as a consumer. Remote wipe I assume was a one-off. About the other stuff, it doesn't really impact me as an Amazon user. The only thing I'm interested in is them squeezing small publishers, because I do want to make sure I keep having good content... but so does Amazon, so I trust them to work it out. I don't mind if Amazon becomes a large publisher themselves, it'll probably work in my favor. In general, almost everything Stallman cares about is uninteresting to me, and the few stuff I think he's "right" about I think he takes to extremes that are, frankly, crazy.
- Semaphor 14y ago
  > Turns out, I care less about the DRM than about getting good content at a good price. As long as it's convenient. Not all DRM is equal. Even though I backup my Amazon books DRM-free, I only do it because it happens automatically when I connect my kindle to my PC. But compare that to the DRM in many PC games or the Audio CD DRM we had a few years ago. I'd rather skip a game than getting one that requires me to be online to play it in single player.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mikeash 14y ago
I often find the vehement disagreement of Richard Stallman to be a decent indicator that something might be true.

wpietri 14y ago

I have a lot of respect for Amazon; Bezos's quote definitely explains a lot of their appeal. So many businesspeople are so focused on short-term costs that they are unable to make long-term wins. Bezos has been busily crushing those people for nearly 20 years. I really hope American business culture eventually unlearns the MBA-school dogma that leads them to the charge-customers-more approach. That said, Amazon definitely has problems. E.g., how they treat employees: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876