Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS

I boycotted Amazon for the better part of a decade over the one-click patent. Result: they lost some amount of money they didn't notice, I lost out on all the convenience and options. They changed nothing I was boycotting about.

I boycotted Blizzard over the bnetd response for 5-10 years. Result: They lost out on me buying Warcraft 3. I lost out on playing WC3, on the related social activities, on being part of DOTA being born, etc. They changed nothing I was boycotting about.

I revisited the boycott on blizzard after the Hong Kong mess, but this time I said I'd time box it if nothing seemed to be changing.

Is this cynicism? My unwillingness top accept some minor inconveniences to be part of a group trying to prevent human abuse? Should I care that my efforts are unsuccessful if they are nonetheless the right thing to do?

Maybe I shouldn't care about sacrificing but failing, but I do. And not just because I don't want the inconvenience, but because I want the problems to be fixed. Stopping the spread of soul-crushing (and in the case of warehouses at least, body-crushing) labor is GOOD, and way more important than promoting technological equality. I want success at this!

If I'm making life harder and doing nothing to actually stop that, I want to shift my sacrifices to a more successful area.

I just have no idea how. Right now my options are: Suffer a little without helping those that suffer a lot, or don't suffer while still not helping those that suffer a lot.

Then there is the old remark IIRC "deflation is the easiest problem in the world to solve -- just print money."

It may be that the current pair of low interest rates and low inflation are just from such money printing for just such deflation.

Then with the low interest rates, businesses can afford to borrow to do the R&D for the (more) robots.

Also generally with the money printing, there is more money sloshing around which tends to result in more hiring, more jobs, and lower unemployment, and sometimes even training new workers.

So we've got five together: (i) More automation (robots, computing, the Internet), (ii) low interest rates, (iii) low inflation rates, (iv) high stock market, and (v) low unemployment rates. With tariffs and trade deals, we may have more jobs for low skilled workers.

I'd like to know in more clear terms just what Amazon is using cargo planes for: The usual idea is to use boats and trucks to move products to a retailer's warehouse and then use something like FedEx, UPS, or USPS from the warehouse to the end of the last mile.

A guess: Amazon wants a warehouse in each major city, maybe 100 - 200 in the US. From each such warehouse, they deliver to the end of the last mile by small trucks. For the popular items, they stock these warehouses via trucks. Then they also have a huge central warehouse, stocked by truck, that has all the rare items and each day have their planes fly at night moving the rare stuff that has just been ordered to the city warehouses for delivery by truck during daylight. Maybe.

Amazon needed a lot of computing for their Web site so setup their server farm(s) and also provided such computing to anyone via AWS. Well, Amazon needs lots of warehousing and small truck delivery so maybe wants to provide that to every other business that needs warehousing and small truck delivery.

In some cases there're big efficiencies there: E.g., for a lot of items, it comes out of the factory for, say, 10 cents but the consumer pays maybe $2. The $1.90 goes for advertising, order taking, warehousing, shipping, payment, and some earnings. Well, Amazon can save a big chunk of the $1.90 which for the US, and much of the world, would be one heck of a big increase in economic productivity and a lot of deflation needing still more money printing! My guesses!

For more, why do people need private cars? Sure: A big reason is for shopping, e.g., getting groceries. Well, do warehousing and small truck delivery well enough and can replace a lot of the need for private cars, even for refrigerated grocery items, milk, butter, cream, eggs, lettuce, ready to bake pizza, and maybe even ice cream!

We simply don't get mail at least one day a week, maybe two.

Packages are marked as undeliverable. But then they show up a few days later.

I've asked around and have heard that mailmen (mailpeople?) in my city just don't finish their routes everyday.

If that's because they're understaffed or too busy due to Amazon or just lazy is up for debate.