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Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

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Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#211

Post by sokoloff »

techsupporter wrote: post #199
bamboozled wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not "happy" customers, we see issues with Amazon and AWS, but we wouldn't be competitive from a price standpoint if we rolled out own infra, or hired people to do it.

This view--not that you hold it, but that it exists--frustrates the hell out of me. "We don't like being a customer of the company that clubs baby seals but our customers would leave us if we didn't use the company that clubs baby seals so I guess we should pay up for some more clubs." It's a pretty glaring example that "free markets" usually aren't, and often unrelated to government intervention. You have informatio…

I may not like that my electric utility burns coal, but I like my lights to work more. You can’t sit around worrying about every single imperfection in the world and accomplish much of anything.

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#212

Post by mym1990 »

bamboozled wrote: post #152
jmeister wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> corporate gains What about customers? They seem to be happy to ignore how the sausage is made, to have stuff delivered to their doorsteps cheap and fast.

We're not "happy" customers, we see issues with Amazon and AWS, but we wouldn't be competitive from a price standpoint if we rolled out own infra, or hired people to do it.

There are many more things to be competitive in other than price. Plenty of business thrive outside of the Amazon/AWS economy. If you can't find a way to change your behavior on the basis of your beliefs, then the value of that behavior is more important than your beliefs. That is nothing to be embarrassed about, but don't be delusional and think that you have no other choice.

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#213

Post by GavinMcG »

IncRnd wrote: post #182
nooneknows wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is the intention.

But, the results are the same in either case. People's property gets destroyed. If the results are the same, what is the actual, real-world difference?

Well, no, you can bet if I hate my employer and therefore destroy people's stuff, that stuff is getting destroyed.

Tossing a cardboard box just doesn't do much the majority of the time.

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#214

Post by cduzz »

I suspect that amazon specializes in arbitrage.

They collect information in a domain (such as delivering stuff to places in a region). They build a detailed map of "easy to deliver" and "horrible to deliver" locations in that region.

After that, they take the "Easy to deliver" places for themselves and get a 3rd party to agree to deliver the rest, typically based on some rate scheme that is coarse to assume "average delivery pain" when in fact they're getting only the impossible delivery list.

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#215

Post by tedunangst »

nrmitchi wrote: post #97
whatok wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should clarify that comment with if you made a naïve assumption of 3-4 packages per delivery then it's a similar workload. I don't doubt that Amazon workers are treated worse than UPS workers but comparing packages to deliveries without normalizing somehow is not productive. The 400 package number from the article is also specifically cited from this company and we have no idea whether that is a nationwide figure w…

> if you made a naïve assumption of 3-4 packages per delivery then it's a similar workload But you're still just making an assumption with 0 evidence. I would love to see a distribution of how common multi-package deliveries are, but we don't have that information, and I highly suspect that it's overwhelmingly one package per delivery. It seems like an exceptionally bad assumption that Amazon is regularly shipping 3-…

Bundling seems like a cost reduction when using a shipper like UPS who charge per package. If you control delivery chain end to end, paying per hours of delivery time, there's probably less savings.

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#216

Post by alexanderdmitri »

IncRnd wrote: post #182
nooneknows wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is the intention.

But, the results are the same in either case. People's property gets destroyed. If the results are the same, what is the actual, real-world difference?

It depends on your angle. If your looking to solve the problem, the root cause very much informs the solution. If your looking to prosecute, intention and context often inform the severity of the charge(s) and determination of guilt (ie man-slaughter v. first-degree murder).

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#217

Post by maccard »

herbst wrote: post #175
maccard wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Returns are a nightmare in practice. I ordered a jacket from the manufacturers website and had to return it because it was stained on arrival. Unfortunately for me, their courier of choice is on the wrong side of town for me, and only has one drop off office open between 9 and 5 Monday to Friday. This was also over the Christmas period, so when I returned it I was asked to pay customs charges (thanks brexit), and it…

Within the EU (and some attached countries) you can return anything you bought online within 14 days directly to where you bought it from and get your full money back. No questions asked. In Switzerland I can give any returns just to the postal guy that comes by everyday anyway. Couldn't be more comfortable than that. I rarely have to return anything tho

> you can return anything you bought online within 14 days directly to where you bought it from and get your full money back. No questions asked.

The ease of the process of doing that varies mightily with sellers.

> In Switzerland I can give any returns just to the postal guy that comes by everyday anyway.

That is definitely not the case in either the UK (pre brexit even) or Ireland. You need to drop the package off, and depending on the seller their preferred return method may be on the opposite side of the city to you, or they might let you drop off at a supermarket.

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#218

Post by nrmitchi »

tedunangst wrote: post #215
nrmitchi wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you made a naïve assumption of 3-4 packages per delivery then it's a similar workload But you're still just making an assumption with 0 evidence. I would love to see a distribution of how common multi-package deliveries are, but we don't have that information, and I highly suspect that it's overwhelmingly one package per delivery. It seems like an exceptionally bad assumption that Amazon is regularly shipping 3-…

Bundling seems like a cost reduction when using a shipper like UPS who charge per package. If you control delivery chain end to end, paying per hours of delivery time, there's probably less savings.

Less savings doesn't mean no savings. It will still for the most part use additional packaging, additional sorting, additional space in trucks, additional labor in terms of locating packages, and additional risk if the driver misses 1/n packages.

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#219

Post by nradov »

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #68
zouhair wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And throw packages like they don't care, as they should.

And park in the most ridiculous places. I wonder who pays the fines.

Parking tickets are just a cost of doing business in many areas. It's all factored into the prices ultimately paid by customers.

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#220

Post by Y_Y »

MattGaiser wrote: post #189
ethbr0 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least they haven't turned into Subway yet: all Amazon delivery partners must purchase Amazon gasoline.

As far as I know, Uber hasn't done this which tells me that the logistics of it are horrible.

Or maybe the same shady plutocrats that control Uber have all the gas stations, so it doesn't even matter.
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