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Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

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Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#51

Post by safgasCVS »

zwkrt wrote: post #12
geofft wrote: post #3

Thought experiment (I don't actually want to go down this road): can you out-market Amazon in this scenario? If you have a $400 committed spend for a $500 rent discount, can you find people who would buy things from Amazon anyway and offer to make purchases on their behalf at a 1% discount (which is, on paper, obviously rational for them), such that you're now getting back $396 of the $400? Now you're spending a mere…

A more wild and outlandish thought experiment: would you become infinitely indebted for infinite reward? Imagining some cyberpunk wasteland where every commodity, pastime, medication, and media content is wildly expensive but offset by huge subsidies from complicated conglomeration of other corporations and government entities. Every action you take in your life adds wild positives and negatives to a fantastically co…

This comment takes the cake for me

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#52

Post by megaremote »

geofft wrote: post #3

Thought experiment (I don't actually want to go down this road): can you out-market Amazon in this scenario? If you have a $400 committed spend for a $500 rent discount, can you find people who would buy things from Amazon anyway and offer to make purchases on their behalf at a 1% discount (which is, on paper, obviously rational for them), such that you're now getting back $396 of the $400? Now you're spending a mere…

> If you have a $400 committed spend for a $500 rent discount,

That makes no sense, who wouldn't do that. It would be more like $250 rent discount for $500 purchases.

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#53

Post by dhruvrrp »

I don't think Amazon even needs experiments like this to increase its dominance.

Take the apartment complex i live in as an example, last year there was a marked increase in package thefts that the residents started complaining. The management came up with a few solutions that all got shot down, cameras were a straight no from most people because of privacy implications, increasing rounds by the security was also shot down since its a huge complex and it would require a lot more people (which they implied might lead to increase in rents in the coming years).

What did everyone decide on? on-site Amazon lockers. So now the choices are that you either buy from Amazon, or risk having your package stolen. Guess what everyone does now?

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#54

Post by frei »

dhruvrrp wrote: post #53

I don't think Amazon even needs experiments like this to increase its dominance. Take the apartment complex i live in as an example, last year there was a marked increase in package thefts that the residents started complaining. The management came up with a few solutions that all got shot down, cameras were a straight no from most people because of privacy implications, increasing rounds by the security was also sho…

The Amazon locker still makes non Amazon packages safer just by reducing the thief's reward. For example, if I forget my bike lock, I feel better leaving my bicycle in a locked bike cage with cheaper bikes that are all well locked with chains than with a bunch of pricy unsecured bikes, since there's less incentive for a theif to cut the cage fencing and take all the bikes.

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#56

Post by dustinmoris »

Really enjoyed this blog post! This is the type of critical thinking which I'm missing a lot in recent years. The stuff which we are building in our little tech bubble is increasingly shaping and impacting the entire world in ways which many of us could have never imagined a decade or two ago. It's funny how many things which have been mentioned in this blog post are literally only one corner away from reality! In Singapore there are already lots of Grab only parking bays where a Grab driver can stop for you but not an Uber for instance.

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#57

Post by ThrustVectoring »

geofft wrote: post #3

Thought experiment (I don't actually want to go down this road): can you out-market Amazon in this scenario? If you have a $400 committed spend for a $500 rent discount, can you find people who would buy things from Amazon anyway and offer to make purchases on their behalf at a 1% discount (which is, on paper, obviously rational for them), such that you're now getting back $396 of the $400? Now you're spending a mere…

From the manufactured spending strategy of "buy gift cards and sell them to people", the proper discount is more like 5-15%, rather than 1%, IIRC.

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#58

Post by progval »

dhruvrrp wrote: post #53

I don't think Amazon even needs experiments like this to increase its dominance. Take the apartment complex i live in as an example, last year there was a marked increase in package thefts that the residents started complaining. The management came up with a few solutions that all got shot down, cameras were a straight no from most people because of privacy implications, increasing rounds by the security was also sho…

Ironically, Amazon lockers also have a camera

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#59

Post by chii »

megaremote wrote: post #52
geofft wrote: post #3

Thought experiment (I don't actually want to go down this road): can you out-market Amazon in this scenario? If you have a $400 committed spend for a $500 rent discount, can you find people who would buy things from Amazon anyway and offer to make purchases on their behalf at a 1% discount (which is, on paper, obviously rational for them), such that you're now getting back $396 of the $400? Now you're spending a mere…

> If you have a $400 committed spend for a $500 rent discount, That makes no sense, who wouldn't do that. It would be more like $250 rent discount for $500 purchases.

But the cost of the rent is "arbitary" - if amazon owned the apartment, they could set the rent high, and give you a "discouunt". If they get large enough, they can force the high price to become the norm, and so force you to buy the committed spend. This gives them more leverage elsewhere as well (e.g., suppliers).

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#60

Post by isoskeles »

> The elevators, for example, will only take residents from the lobby to the Poor Floors and back if there are zero outstanding requests from the Rich Floors; this effectively forces the lower income residents to either walk thirty flights up to reach their units, or else wait forty minutes at rush hour to use the elevators – a pretty thinly veiled analogy to what happens today with commuting inequality.

But here's the kicker: the people on the Rich Floors have to pay more, effectively subsidizing the rent of the people on the Poor Floors.

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