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Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#31

Post by dang »

helpPeople wrote: post #18
eldenbishop wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like an unusually large percentage of posts on Hacker News are behind paywalls, some soft, some hard, some with a maximum free articles per time-unit. I peruse most of the top stories daily and can't read a good number of them making me have to just read the comments to get a sense of the article. It is seriously annoying. I wish there was some kind of flair or warning on these posts.

I'm with you. Mods currate the front page, so everything I read here seems like an advertisement.

We curate the front page for interestingness (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Advertisement has nothing to do with it. If there's a class of articles you're seeing here consistently that you don't think gratifies intellectual curiosity, I'd like to know what they are. Usually the trouble is that users don't all share the same curiosity, but it's possible that we need to make a change somehow.

We also try to make sure that hard-paywalled articles don't appear on the front page, though that's gotten complicated because those publications work differently for different users.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#32

Post by pchristensen »

undefined3840 wrote: post #9

I think there’s something about knowing you need to care for a large family (e.g. a member of a religion that values having lots of kids) that is motivating for entrepreneurs in a way I don’t always hear about e.g. entrepreneurial tendencies among Hasidic Jews and Mormons

For Latter-day Saints (Mormons), the entrepreneurship roots go back to the early church history. Between 1831-1847, members of the church established 4 settlements and were expelled from 3(Kirtland, OH; Western Missouri; Nauvoo, IL; Salt Lake City). These areas were all frontiers at the time, and grew to become the largest cities in their region, which drew fear and persecution from people in the surrounding areas. Salt Lake was many hundreds of miles from the closest white settlement, and Brigham Young intentionally assigned/coerced/funded as many crafts and industries as possible to reduce dependence on trade with the (indifferent to hostile) United States. And established dozens of settlements throughout the Mountain West. So you have generations of entrepreneurs that had a captive market that needed EVERYTHING, and only internal competition.

Also, many Latter-day Saints go on 2 year missions in their late teens/early 20s, where you mostly self-direct your proselyting in the area you are assigned to. Good sales experience, self-starting, persistence, etc.

It's a potent combination for business.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#34

Post by richeyrw »

undefined3840 wrote: post #26
shoes_for_thee wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be pretty to think so, but the wide majority of the Satmar community lives in poverty and is dependent on government benefits. The tendency towards entrepreneurship -- if there is one -- is more likely to be the result of being unwilling or unable to assimilate into a non-religious society. I can't speak for the LDSs, since I don't know them.

I grew up with a lot of Mormons...anecdotally would say their families were more often SMB owners than not. Utah also has a pretty happening tech scene nowadays.

I am a Mormon SMB owner, and I agree with your point, but in the interest of full disclosure, there is a darker side to this tendency as well. Utah (read Mormons) is the MLM capital of the world, with other get rich quick schemes being pretty popular as well.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/theslice/mormon-utah-valley-mu...

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#35

Post by knicholes »

shoes_for_thee wrote: post #13
undefined3840 wrote: post #9

I think there’s something about knowing you need to care for a large family (e.g. a member of a religion that values having lots of kids) that is motivating for entrepreneurs in a way I don’t always hear about e.g. entrepreneurial tendencies among Hasidic Jews and Mormons

That'd be pretty to think so, but the wide majority of the Satmar community lives in poverty and is dependent on government benefits. The tendency towards entrepreneurship -- if there is one -- is more likely to be the result of being unwilling or unable to assimilate into a non-religious society. I can't speak for the LDSs, since I don't know them.

I grew up LDS my whole pre-adult life. There's a big focus on self-reliance. Also, the men are supposed to serve missions for two years (go teach about Jesus and the church). I imagine the skillset required to go door-to-door teaching people about something is very transferrable to other sales, which is very important when being an entrepreneur.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#36

Post by woodandsteel »

eldenbishop wrote: post #8
kova12 wrote: post #3

article is behind paywall

Seems like an unusually large percentage of posts on Hacker News are behind paywalls, some soft, some hard, some with a maximum free articles per time-unit. I peruse most of the top stories daily and can't read a good number of them making me have to just read the comments to get a sense of the article. It is seriously annoying. I wish there was some kind of flair or warning on these posts.

I think HN should have a rule that if someone puts up a link that is behind a paywall, they should give some way to get around it. Like they should make the first comment a set of instructions, like disable JS or an alternative link.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#37

Post by jweir »

drdeadringer wrote: post #29
GhettoMaestro wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice! I wonder if the vendor gets his money earlier from Amazon if he delivered it faster.

All other things being equal, if 2hr delivery happened to me I'd at least be tossing referrals around if not being a return customer [maybe they sell only TVs and I only needed the one].

I dug up the seller info - Always A Deal

https://www.amazon.com/sp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=&isAmazonFulfi...

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#38

Post by woodandsteel »

localareaman wrote: post #15
electriclove wrote: post #6

People making a business selling on Amazon.. If you left out the religion, would this be a story? Is the point to get NYT and BuzzFeed clicks? Is it to get more attendance at the 'how you can get rich selling on Amazon' conferences? For better or worse, is it to show how a certain demographic is making a lot of money? I'm not a fan of these articles..

Any story or comment about Jews coming up with a clever way of making money feels anti-semitic to me.

Perhaps you weren't aware that the reason Jews have for a long time been so engaged in commerce is that long ago they got kicked out of their homeland and so many of them weren't able to support themselves any longer with their traditional occupations of farming and herding. So it is not that there is something greedy about Jews, they are just, like everyone, trying to survive.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#40

Post by AWildC182 »

electriclove wrote: post #6

People making a business selling on Amazon.. If you left out the religion, would this be a story? Is the point to get NYT and BuzzFeed clicks? Is it to get more attendance at the 'how you can get rich selling on Amazon' conferences? For better or worse, is it to show how a certain demographic is making a lot of money? I'm not a fan of these articles..

Sometimes it's just cool to see how people different from ourselves live their lives.
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