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Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

nytimes.com

171–175 of 175 posts

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or you could just ignore things you aren’t willing to pay for, instead of expecting to be able to steal them.

The problem with that is I would have to subscribe to a hundred different publications, and a new one every few days.

If I could buy a subscription that covered all online publications, and for a reasonable price, I would be quite happy. As it is I already have 5 print subscriptions.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#172

This makes for interesting contrast with this two part story on Reply All about a Hasidic Jew who discovers the internet and begins to struggle with his community. https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/39hzw2 https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/awhm5x

wow, that was a great story, thanks for sharing

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon seller here. Amazon doesn't make funds available for disbursement until 7 days after delivery. At that point funds are available for disbursement, but they aren't necessarily disbursed. Seller accounts created before 2011 have what are called daily disbursements: the seller has a button they can click once every 24 hours that will disburse all available funds. Most sellers accounts opened since then have bi-we…

God I hate the word bi-weekly; if you hadn't specified 14 days I would've thought it was twice a week. "bi-weekly" is never the right word to use because you always have to add additional information that makes it redundant.

Heh, I just realized that this means that biweekly (once per two weeks) is about the same as bimonthly (twice per month)

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonetheless the values of receiving and giving charity are more common in the community in question than your comment about conservative values, because conservative doesn't mean "trump supporter" or "same values as Republican party". So aware or not your previous comment was wrong in every way because you cannot or will not separate different meanings of "conservative". You smeared all with one brush and your subseq…

Everyone makes generalizations, it's one of the ways we communicate without needing to get overly academic about everything. I would also note that your tone exudes a high level of bias. If, as TFA states, there are a lot of very poor people in these communities, then that underlies your statement that charity is common among Hasidim. It is an interesting fact that (disclaimer, generalizations follow) a community tha…

generalizations are good when they're somewhat accurate. they're bad when they're inaccurate. Generalizations aren't inherently good. yours distorts reality by ignoring specifics in a way that does not good except to your ego.

Your reaction to my pointing this out is that my "tone exudes a high level of bias" - when you're the one doing the tone reading.

People are more complex than you make them, and your one dimensional analysis based on a purposeful misconstruing of a word, leading you to smear an entire religious group adds no value to any conversation, and reveals you as a likely a bigot.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#175
Belated cultural note:

Both the article and many in this comment section are using the term "Hasidic" to refer to all ultra-Orthodox (aka Haredi) Jews. This is not the case.

As the article briefly mentions, Hasidism is a recent (~18th-century) ecstatic religious movement that split off from conventional ultra-Orthodoxy. Non-Hasidic Haredim originally called themselves Misnagdim ("opposition"), but these days are usually called Litvish ("Lithuanian", since that was the stronghold of Misnagdi thought). The two have since reconciled over their combined opposition to later secularist Jewish religious and political trends, and through the efforts/existence of groups like Chabad which blur the binary; but the separate identities are still strong.

Borough Park, the neighborhood the article is about, happens to be majority Hasidic, but also has a substantial Litvish minority which is subject to all of the same pressures and constraints that draw Haredim of all stripes to online businesses.

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