81–90 of 124 posts
It's pretty clear it hasn't done Amazon's reputation any favours. And there's no reason to think government officials won't go above and beyond in offering incentives behind closed doors.
A commenter on the article made a snarky reply about Apple choosing China as that's where a lot of the manufacturing is - I wonder why Apple/Amazon don't look internationally for HQ2? Are their international offices 'big enough' for what they need?
I think the concept of a second HQ is by definition a bit weird, size is probably not the main concern here.
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On the one hand I think this is a great sign that the GDPR is being taken seriously. On the other, I see this as corporate speak for "We're not sure if ensuring compliance makes business sense for us and this notice may actually be permanent. You're from a region where anyone interested in our content is probably a long-tail outlier that won't make us much money, so ensuring access for you is not a priority." I reall…
I don't blame them. I'm thinking about doing the same thing for a few of my web sites that have very local content. The company that sells the advertising on those sites says non-US traffic dilutes the value of the ads, and I'd get 3-5% higher CPM if I filtered non-US traffic. I've kept them open until now because I like to check on the sites when I travel, but GDPR might be the incentive I need to pull the plug.
3-5% higher CPM on how many fewer pageviews? In general, filtering out traffic should always make you less money, even as filtering to the most profitable traffic increases how much you make per page view.
If non-US traffic really were losing you money your advertising company could always drop ad requests from non-US traffic.
I'm not sure comparing a second headquarters and a tech support site is apt. I'm not sure how loud the search is matters. WSJ is a joke. Look, I can twist words too: "While Amazon is clearer and open about employee counts and candidate locations for HQ2, Apple remains secret and opaque about any details even for small site". Abatements abound regardless, lets not treat the differences in culture between Amazon and Ap…
Your average joe is always going to oppose a disruption in his otherwise mundane and lazy life.
Apple's strategy is much smarter let the cities secretly do a peacock dance, cut some real under the table secret tax deals and move somewhere else.
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Can confirm on Chrome. There is something interesting though. I tested it after logging out of Facebook (wanted to see what would happen). Basically I wanted to see if you needed to be logged into Facebook or not to use this redirect (would it work from the logged-out Facebook page?), but got something surprising. I performed these steps (Chrome on Desktop, from Windows): 1. I was logged into Facebook in an incognito…
I think any JS can listen for the navigate-away event or changes to the URL without doing anything special - then just grab ‘window.href/window.location’ or something like that
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Ok then, companies that hover around 900 employees. Business owners aren't stupid either, generally.
Come on. If you’re not making enough money they would probably not even bother with a 1000. If you do however, and the main reason to have a business is to make money as I remember - then they will most certainly come for you anyway. You’re trying to lawyer your way out of an oppressive government. It doesn’t end well generally.
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I don't blame them. I'm thinking about doing the same thing for a few of my web sites that have very local content. The company that sells the advertising on those sites says non-US traffic dilutes the value of the ads, and I'd get 3-5% higher CPM if I filtered non-US traffic. I've kept them open until now because I like to check on the sites when I travel, but GDPR might be the incentive I need to pull the plug.
> I'd get 3-5% higher CPM if I filtered non-US traffic. 3-5% higher CPM on how many fewer pageviews? In general, filtering out traffic should always make you less money, even as filtering to the most profitable traffic increases how much you make per page view. If non-US traffic really were losing you money your advertising company could always drop ad requests from non-US traffic.
I'm not sure comparing a second headquarters and a tech support site is apt. I'm not sure how loud the search is matters. WSJ is a joke. Look, I can twist words too: "While Amazon is clearer and open about employee counts and candidate locations for HQ2, Apple remains secret and opaque about any details even for small site". Abatements abound regardless, lets not treat the differences in culture between Amazon and Ap…
Amazon's beauty contest did seem completely counterintuitive to me. People with skin in the game are always in the know of things. Even if Amazon had not massively advertised its move cities and states would have worked hard to bring them to their shores. I did not understand why ordinary public had to be drawn into it. Your average joe is always going to oppose a disruption in his otherwise mundane and lazy life. Ap…
HQ2 is a project that will involve hundreds of thousands/millions of people when you add up the employees, contractors who will build it, local politicians/electorate, and everyone else. There's just no way to keep something that big secret. It seems easier to just come clean, announce to the world what you're doing, and be open about it.
Plus something of this magnitude is going to require political support so the proposal is as much an appeal to the local electorate as anything else.
I, for one, think it would be great if tech jobs spread out across the US.
Paywall. Alternative link?
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Why do you think that? I think Amazon will get what they want - mainly a city to capitulate to their demands. I’ve talked to people in Pittsburgh and Atlanta and the majority wanted Amazon. I don’t think most people realize outside of tech circles that Amazon will mostly bring people in rather than hiring locally and how much they have strained the infrastructure in Seattle.
> how much they have strained the infrastructure in Seattle You could rephrase this as "How much Seattle's entrenched interests have crippled the city's growth". How many towns and cities would love to have the problem of too many jobs?
Expanding their offices puts costs on existing city residents. It's all well and good that tens of thousands of new units to house these workers are being built, but those units also require extra infrastructure funding.
Amazon wants this cost to be 100% borne by Seattle city residents. Unsurprisingly, Seattle city residents aren't interesting in bearing it (On top of the %8 YoY rent increases many of them are seeing.)
Amazon earns what, half a million dollars a year for every new engineer that they hire? Whereas the city gets stuck with a $XY,000 infrastructure bill for supporting that engineer's apartment - money that ends up being squeezed out of existing residents.
I do work for one of the big-four in Seattle, and I absolutely believe that they, or their employees should pay for these infrastructure improvements - not my hairdresser. I have no right to move into a neighborhood with the expectation that existing residents pay to make room for me.