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Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS
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Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS
#72One side effect of the growth of Amazon is the replacement of "decent" jobs with absolutely soul sucking ones. In the early 2000's I knew people that worked as delivery drivers for UPS or FedEx and it was a decent job. They seemed happy. Now I see the Amazon delivery people, and they look majorly stressed out as if they are on the edge of collapse. Many times they are delivering things at 10pm desperately trying to m…
I think we're all guilty of contributing to this problem. We all say we're for livable wages and then don't vote with our dollars as often as we should. I'm definitely guilty of going to Amazon because a book is a few dollars cheaper there and I can get it in two days instead of a week. If we care about workers and corporate behavior, we need to be willing to pay a little more for products that are made by companies…
No only indirectly via those choices but also by removing any and all “play” (inefficiency) from systems. Some automation is good and brings steadiness (removes errors), but other efficiencies basically remove jobs.
Do we need HFT trading? Did we need traders in the pit? In any case, this resulted in the elimination of good jobs.
We could “automate” much of sports and just have fantasy leagues, why not?
Automating transportation, same thing. It will eliminate meaningful jobs. We are all contributing to this acceleration.
So we’re destroying jobs in many ways. From preferring auto checkouts to buying from amazon to putting services “in the cloud”.
Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Upvoted, because very valid points overall. That being said.. >Individual consumers can’t possibly have full information about the supply chain of every item they buy Of course not, however, they don't need full information to hear, at some point or another, that Amazon is a poor place to work. And it isn't as if the government has a solid track record of producing new regulation lately. Can you name one well-execute…
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was quite effective until its leadership were unlawfully replaced with partisan hacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_... One big federal problem with antitrust and other corporate–related law is that we have now had an unbroken half century of “conservative” domination of the US Supreme Court. Over that time consumer, worker, citizen, and small-bu…
>Let me recommend you read Michael Lewis’s book The Fifth Risk, or at least listen to one of these interviews about it:
I'm not sure I need to read a biased polemic about how big government is good and the Trump admin is bad.
>The US civil service is full of highly competent experts without whom we would all be exposed to grave risks every day.
I've worked for government agencies, and this is certainly not how I would describe the workers there. I'd say this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21805768 would more closely represent my typical experience with civil servants.. rampant incompetence.
Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS
#74I'm just happy because 9 times out of 10 USPS would mark my stuff as delivered and then deliver it the next day. I have yet to have an Amazon delivery go bad besides when they try to deliver to my work after 5pm. I recognize people have huge issues with amazon delivery drivers but my experience has been better than USPS.
My house has the same street name and number as another house on the same block, across the town line (it’s about 15 houses away). UPS and FedEx drivers rarely mess it up, but Amazon contractors drop my package at the wrong house about 60% of the time. I always dread ordering from amazon for this reason.
That confusion seems like something that should be fixed, if only to not delay emergency services should you ever need any.
Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon needs to add a "Deliver next week, given them a break" instead of the $1 it offers me which I never use anyways.
I've been seeing a "deliver on my Amazon day (Saturday)" option, which is a way to batch deliver all purchases for a week.
While I haven’t seen Amazon day in the wild, I have to marvel at their marketing folks who have captured mindshare by coopting what used to be (and still is in my house) grocery day - when we do our weekly shopping - into Amazon day.
To me, it’s these little moves which capture an inch of mindshare at a time that really bring home the power of marketing.
Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we're all guilty of contributing to this problem. We all say we're for livable wages and then don't vote with our dollars as often as we should. I'm definitely guilty of going to Amazon because a book is a few dollars cheaper there and I can get it in two days instead of a week. If we care about workers and corporate behavior, we need to be willing to pay a little more for products that are made by companies…
No only indirectly via those choices but also by removing any and all “play” (inefficiency) from systems. Some automation is good and brings steadiness (removes errors), but other efficiencies basically remove jobs. Do we need HFT trading? Did we need traders in the pit? In any case, this resulted in the elimination of good jobs. We could “automate” much of sports and just have fantasy leagues, why not? Automating tr…
This is an interesting take on jobs, similar to what Ancient Romans had –– they preferred to not automate certain jobs to ensure that slaves would have things to work on :)
Mentioned offhand in https://www.jstor.org/stable/2591872
Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS
#77Amazon is pulling a fast one here, and The Verge is letting them get away with it. Here’s the key part: > it’s also been building out a network of its own delivery drivers under the Amazon Flex platform, which is a kind of on-demand contract network similar to Uber and food delivery companies like DoorDash. So, in fact Amazon is not delivering their own packages, they are employing an ad-hoc network of local truckers…
Some of the most unsafe driving I've seen is from those Amazon Sprinter vans. I blame Amazon more than the driver.
If reporting is to believed, Amazon puts a lot of pressure on delivery partners which contributes to the problem, and is happy to partner with companies that are poorly run and incredibly risky.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/amazon...
Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS
#78The article mentions that Amazon is also on pace to be rivaling FedEx and UPS in total volume as well. It's interesting that Bezos' estimate of 5% of retail equals this much volume of packages.
Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS
#79Amazon is pulling a fast one here, and The Verge is letting them get away with it. Here’s the key part: > it’s also been building out a network of its own delivery drivers under the Amazon Flex platform, which is a kind of on-demand contract network similar to Uber and food delivery companies like DoorDash. So, in fact Amazon is not delivering their own packages, they are employing an ad-hoc network of local truckers…
And... it's so much worse for customers than the old system.
Every package I order used to get here in 2 days. Now they can't get it right, and every time I make an order I get an email saying, "Oh, we're sorry it's delayed a day or two!" So Prime is now taking 3-4 days on average to get to me. I'm in the suburbs, sure... but the point remains, the old system worked better. I wouldn't even care if it took 3-4 days, if it just advertised it was going to take 3-4 days... it's crap for them to say, "Be there on the 12th!" and not get here until the 16th.
And yeah, I mean... to the original point, these guys look stressed. They're not "professional" delivery guys, half the time it's some guy without a uniform in a a minivan. Looks like just a sub-sub-sub-contractor.
So what's the solution? Do I stop using Amazon? Pretty hard this day and age. I don't know, but it's sure been bad service the last 5-6 months.
Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was quite effective until its leadership were unlawfully replaced with partisan hacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_... One big federal problem with antitrust and other corporate–related law is that we have now had an unbroken half century of “conservative” domination of the US Supreme Court. Over that time consumer, worker, citizen, and small-bu…
>Let me recommend you read Michael Lewis’s book The Fifth Risk, or at least listen to one of these interviews about it: I'm not sure I need to read a biased polemic about how big government is good and the Trump admin is bad. >The US civil service is full of highly competent experts without whom we would all be exposed to grave risks every day. I've worked for government agencies, and this is certainly not how I woul…
Isn’t is possible that government bureaucracy is simultaneously both big, wasteful, and sometimes incompetent as well as necessary and staffed by a core of skilled, hardworking people? I’ve applied for govt contractor jobs and the emphasis placed on checking every box while blindly ignoring any other indicia of aptitude for the job (ie can you prove you have 4 years experience with Microsoft Office?) is infuriating. But its basically a big company- you get good employees with the bad, just harder to fire the bad ones.