The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade? • Hacker News Board

Re: The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade?

#21

Post by onion2k » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 8:57 AM UTC

Treegarden wrote: post #10

DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #2

"Matt Kilcoyne, of the free market think-tank the Adam Smith Institute, disagrees. "Quite frankly Bezos's greatest act of philanthropy is Amazon itself," he argues. "Lower prices, more choice and competition have delivered billions for Bezos and billions worth for the hundreds of millions of customers he serves." " I do think feel strong about Bezos plans, but it's a bit of a stretch to claim Amazon is a public good.…

I dont quite understand this reoccurring sentiment about the poor book shops. Here in Germany the bookshops mainly feature fear mongering books and are mostly in German. Then there is a tiny section of english books (which often happen to be better then the German books displayed). Maybe this dos not apply to all German book shops but I feel like they haven't gotten with the times yet.

Here in the UK most of the bookshops that just sold books have gone. Now most bookshops are essentially cafes that also sell books.

There are a few exceptions - in London there are some niche booksellers, and most university cities have a bookshop that stocks textbooks, but it's generally true.

Re: The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade?

#22

Post by ckastner » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 8:59 AM UTC

DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #2

"Matt Kilcoyne, of the free market think-tank the Adam Smith Institute, disagrees. "Quite frankly Bezos's greatest act of philanthropy is Amazon itself," he argues. "Lower prices, more choice and competition have delivered billions for Bezos and billions worth for the hundreds of millions of customers he serves." " I do think feel strong about Bezos plans, but it's a bit of a stretch to claim Amazon is a public good.…

> I do think feel strong about Bezos plans, but it's a bit of a stretch to claim Amazon is a public good.

Totally.

Yes, in the past Amazon has as some point contributed to the lowering of prices, by challenging the dominant players in retail markets.

But now, Amazon is the dominant player in the retail market, and Amazon seems to exploit this to the greatest extent possible.

Here's an excellent quote from recent thread [1] about one of Amazon's practices:

"Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly."

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17959085

Re: The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade?

#23

Post by Silhouette » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 9:07 AM UTC

ckastner wrote: post #22

DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #2

"Matt Kilcoyne, of the free market think-tank the Adam Smith Institute, disagrees. "Quite frankly Bezos's greatest act of philanthropy is Amazon itself," he argues. "Lower prices, more choice and competition have delivered billions for Bezos and billions worth for the hundreds of millions of customers he serves." " I do think feel strong about Bezos plans, but it's a bit of a stretch to claim Amazon is a public good.…

> I do think feel strong about Bezos plans, but it's a bit of a stretch to claim Amazon is a public good. Totally. Yes, in the past Amazon has as some point contributed to the lowering of prices, by challenging the dominant players in retail markets. But now, Amazon is the dominant player in the retail market, and Amazon seems to exploit this to the greatest extent possible. Here's an excellent quote from recent thre…

"Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly."

Which is an interesting assumption, but certainly not a correct one. They have lost a lot of my business in recent years due to frequent poor quality control and customer service issues.

Re: The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade?

#24

Post by amelius » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 9:08 AM UTC

Well, even though he made more than 1000x than most people, Bezos is probably not 10x smarter by any reasonable metric, and certainly doesn't work 10x more than the rest of us. It's clearly a choice we all made as a society that allows him to have all this money. The question is: would we have an Amazon without people who are driven by money? Of course we can never know, but if we look at the past, where a large amount of technological progress was driven by monks, it seems the answer is affirmative. Also the amount of work done in OSS by volunteers points in this direction. So the "charade" is something that we created, ultimately. The conclusion is that perhaps we could scale down a little on the capitalism, and let society take care of causes that currently need the help of philanthropists.

Re: The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade?

#25

Post by point78 » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 9:09 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #19

kowdermeister wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should put a gap on wealth and redistribute it beyond that in a fair way?

Yes. And we do exactly that through taxation. A portion of Jeff Bezos' fortune is derived from Amazon's ability to increase it's profits by (legal, and arguably justifiable) tax avoidance. That's part of global business these days, but it's not unreasonable for people in regions where Amazon minimizes it's tax costs to say Bezos is doing something bad for them .

You mean how Amazon is being sued for hundreds of millions in the EU for dodging taxes?

And the US is probably the worst example in the western world on how taxation should work.

Case in point is this ridiculous idea that what Bezos is doing here should be applauded and not fixed for being broken.

Re: The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade?

#26

Post by andromedavision » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 9:15 AM UTC

DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #2

"Matt Kilcoyne, of the free market think-tank the Adam Smith Institute, disagrees. "Quite frankly Bezos's greatest act of philanthropy is Amazon itself," he argues. "Lower prices, more choice and competition have delivered billions for Bezos and billions worth for the hundreds of millions of customers he serves." " I do think feel strong about Bezos plans, but it's a bit of a stretch to claim Amazon is a public good.…

> it's a bit of a stretch to claim Amazon is a public good

Well, it's either good or it's bad. It seems you think it's the latter and I think you're wrong. All the merchants whose businesses have been transformed for the better would disagree. Those merchants' customers would disagree as well.

Re: The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade?

#27

Post by fastball » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 9:20 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #24

Well, even though he made more than 1000x than most people, Bezos is probably not 10x smarter by any reasonable metric, and certainly doesn't work 10x more than the rest of us. It's clearly a choice we all made as a society that allows him to have all this money. The question is: would we have an Amazon without people who are driven by money? Of course we can never know, but if we look at the past, where a large amou…

When you say "let society take care of it", who exactly do you mean?

Re: The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade?

#28

Post by Silhouette » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 9:24 AM UTC

point78 wrote: post #12

stubish wrote: post #9

It seems you can't be charitable without someone telling you you should have given more or given to someone else. It's not a great way of encouraging charity. If it is not doing harm and making some lives better, the correct response is 'thank you for making the world a better place'. Even if you think it is self serving, we should encourage such self serving behavior.

One person should not choose where and to what social services need funding. That's why we have government and not kings and queens.

One person should not choose where and to what social services need funding. That's why we have government and not kings and queens.

I think that would be a more compelling argument if our governments had a stronger democratic mandate and our political systems offered the people genuine choices in how money was being spent on their behalf. Looking at what's been happening in places like the US and UK recently, I'm not sure it's the best time to be arguing for big government and redistribution of wealth as a vehicle for social responsibility.

Re: The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade?

#29

Post by ckastner » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 9:26 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #23

ckastner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think feel strong about Bezos plans, but it's a bit of a stretch to claim Amazon is a public good. Totally. Yes, in the past Amazon has as some point contributed to the lowering of prices, by challenging the dominant players in retail markets. But now, Amazon is the dominant player in the retail market, and Amazon seems to exploit this to the greatest extent possible. Here's an excellent quote from recent thre…

"Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly." Which is an interesting assumption, but certainly not a correct one. They have lost a lot of my business in recent years due to frequent poor quality control and customer service issues.

Perhaps not a universally correct one, but most probably a sufficiently accurate one, given Amazon's continued revenue growth.

This is similar to the chronological vs. algorithmic timeline debates in social media: it's annoying to many users, but the overall result must be positive, otherwise they probably wouldn't be doing it, in face of the backlash.

Re: The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade?

#30

Post by itsmenotyou » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 9:27 AM UTC

bluecalm wrote: post #3

DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #2

"Matt Kilcoyne, of the free market think-tank the Adam Smith Institute, disagrees. "Quite frankly Bezos's greatest act of philanthropy is Amazon itself," he argues. "Lower prices, more choice and competition have delivered billions for Bezos and billions worth for the hundreds of millions of customers he serves." " I do think feel strong about Bezos plans, but it's a bit of a stretch to claim Amazon is a public good.…

Way more people benefited from Amazon. It's cheaper. It set a new standard in delivery times and customer support. Its existence improved life of millions of people by significant margin. That old industry got killed is natural when progress happens.

That people benefited from internet shopping and delivery is not a defense of a company treating it's workers badly or evading paying taxes. Let's not pretend amazon is the only company that might have delivered those efficiencies, they were just the most successful, the most ruthless.