4 ms·

Perhaps Amazon could add a checkbox to the shopping cart: [] pay 10% more that will go directly into the pockets of the packers. I wouldn't even mind a picture

Perhaps Amazon could add a checkbox to the shopping cart: [] pay 10% more that will go directly into the pockets of the packers. I wouldn't even mind a picture gallery of everybody who handled my package.

ars_technician 13y ago
Laying on guilt like that in the checkout process really turns some people off though.
RodericDay 13y ago
wow
quadrangle 13y ago
If some business did this and it was reliable, I guess we'd need third-party certification that this was real… As someone else mentioned, the real solution is a Basic Income Guarantee. Otherwise, these ideas start becoming bizarro bureaucratic regulatory wasteful things, even though it sounds nice.
w1ntermute 13y ago
They already have this: http://smile.amazon.com/ http://smile.amazon.com/
- username223 13y ago
  What the fuck does that have to do with paying the people who pack my orders? 1/200 of what I spend on "eligible purchases" (whatever those are) goes to some other organization.
SilasX 13y ago
Unfortunately, the theory of tax/cost incidence shows what can go wrong with this: since it results in above-market effective wages, that simply intensifies the competition for those positions, probably to the point that workers will offer to do them for less than the current wage Amazon is paying, since they know they'll still make the same from such donations. Here's a discussion that covered the question in the context of allowing people to tip McDonald's cashiers directly, but the same analysis applies: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/08/what_if_tipping_1.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/08/what_if_tipping_... "Who benefits" is determined by the shape of the supply/demand curves, not who is being handed the dollars.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  Nice point. Even if the money did get to the workers, I don't see why most people would really want to do this, since is equivalent to donating $10 to people who happen to be working that particular job. Wouldn't most people rather donate that money to a charity, whose recipients are presumable more needy than people who at least have jobs.
downer94 13y ago
If I had a factory job, the last thing I'd ever want is for my picture to be put on display, telling the whole world that my lot in life was that of an indentured servant, making $9 an hour to pack your iPad, for a glimmering tip of $5. I wouldn't be interested in sitting for a professional user profile photo, or a standardized mandatory snapshot. I wouldn't smile for the photo on my ID badge. I wouldn't be interested in having candid photos of me snapped on the factory floor, while my manager, zippy the pinhead, brow-beats me, because I express obvious disinterest in a mundane, repetitive, soul crushing job. I wouldn't put up a Facebook profile proclaiming that I work at McDonald's. Similarly, if McDonald's had it's own corporate social network at mcdonalds.com, where all the pages are themed in red and yellow, with your choice of one of three background images (french fries, a Big Mac or Ronald himself), and everyone wear's a visor or a hair net in their profile picture, it wouldn't be a social network I'd be interested in participating in. Not even for tips. It would feel a little bit like pan handling for spare change. There's a line of dignity I'm not interested in crossing, when it come to social websites. When I drop change in the tip cup, as I pick up my morning coffee, it's a token of appreciation that goes untaxed, and unrecorded on a server. That's the way tips are supposed to work. A surreptitious reward as acknowlegement for the indignity of servitude.

ars_technician 13y ago

Laying on guilt like that in the checkout process really turns some people off though.

RodericDay 13y ago

wow

quadrangle 13y ago

If some business did this and it was reliable, I guess we'd need third-party certification that this was real… As someone else mentioned, the real solution is a Basic Income Guarantee. Otherwise, these ideas start becoming bizarro bureaucratic regulatory wasteful things, even though it sounds nice.

w1ntermute 13y ago

They already have this: http://smile.amazon.com/ http://smile.amazon.com/

username223 13y ago
What the fuck does that have to do with paying the people who pack my orders? 1/200 of what I spend on "eligible purchases" (whatever those are) goes to some other organization.

SilasX 13y ago

Unfortunately, the theory of tax/cost incidence shows what can go wrong with this: since it results in above-market effective wages, that simply intensifies the competition for those positions, probably to the point that workers will offer to do them for less than the current wage Amazon is paying, since they know they'll still make the same from such donations. Here's a discussion that covered the question in the context of allowing people to tip McDonald's cashiers directly, but the same analysis applies: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/08/what_if_tipping_1.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/08/what_if_tipping_... "Who benefits" is determined by the shape of the supply/demand curves, not who is being handed the dollars.

yetanotherphd 13y ago
Nice point. Even if the money did get to the workers, I don't see why most people would really want to do this, since is equivalent to donating $10 to people who happen to be working that particular job. Wouldn't most people rather donate that money to a charity, whose recipients are presumable more needy than people who at least have jobs.

downer94 13y ago

If I had a factory job, the last thing I'd ever want is for my picture to be put on display, telling the whole world that my lot in life was that of an indentured servant, making $9 an hour to pack your iPad, for a glimmering tip of $5. I wouldn't be interested in sitting for a professional user profile photo, or a standardized mandatory snapshot. I wouldn't smile for the photo on my ID badge. I wouldn't be interested in having candid photos of me snapped on the factory floor, while my manager, zippy the pinhead, brow-beats me, because I express obvious disinterest in a mundane, repetitive, soul crushing job. I wouldn't put up a Facebook profile proclaiming that I work at McDonald's. Similarly, if McDonald's had it's own corporate social network at mcdonalds.com, where all the pages are themed in red and yellow, with your choice of one of three background images (french fries, a Big Mac or Ronald himself), and everyone wear's a visor or a hair net in their profile picture, it wouldn't be a social network I'd be interested in participating in. Not even for tips. It would feel a little bit like pan handling for spare change. There's a line of dignity I'm not interested in crossing, when it come to social websites. When I drop change in the tip cup, as I pick up my morning coffee, it's a token of appreciation that goes untaxed, and unrecorded on a server. That's the way tips are supposed to work. A surreptitious reward as acknowlegement for the indignity of servitude.