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1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

businessinsider.com

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Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#171

Post by shawnz »

shakezula wrote: post #95
missedthecue wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you accuse them of suppressing wages when they lead the way to $15/hr, and when they literally spend money lobbying congress to raise the federal minimum wage? https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-15-minimum-wage-lobby...

Because they participate in union busting? https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/09/amazon-...

I'm not happy about that, but what bigcorp doesn't try to bust unions? Certainly Walmart does it too, so that really seems to just be an instance of Amazon merely matching their competitors' abuses.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#172

Post by api »

airstrike wrote: post #135
buescher wrote: post #12

Neal Stephenson had the delivery part right.

He got so much right on that book it's downright eerie

The cyberpunks were by far the most prophetic of all sci-fi writers. William Gibson didn't get the specifics right as he knew little about actual computers, but he really nailed the zeitgeist as well.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#173

Post by mcguire »

fridif wrote: post #81
underseacables wrote: post #72

I’m torn badly with Amazon. After read The Everything Store, and what has been written all over the place, Jeff Bezos is a massive turd. Employees are horribly treated, wages suppressed, and all sorts of terrible and abusive practices. Then it comes time for me to buy something. I needed a new pair of size 14 sneakers. I drove to Adidas, Footlocker, dicks, and a few other stores but I just couldn’t justify $100 sneak…

>"So aside from just stop buying from Amazon, what can we do?" Lower the barriers to entry for business. It is not easy to comply with regulations and reporting. A scrappy startup can replace Amazon if they can focus on things that are not burdensome and arbitrary, like rent + insurance + tax reporting + legal.

In other words, if the scrappy startup is worse than Amazon?

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#174

Post by zzleeper »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #147
macintux wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, when I wanted a specific pair of shoes, I ordered them directly from the brand. It's very convenient to buy from Amazon, but it's hardly a hardship to not do so.

No reputable brand is going to sell even half decent shoes for $35. This is a good example where you can see how much people are really willing (or able) to spend on “local” or “quality” goods that can help pay for a store’s staffing needs and other expenses.

I was in the same dilemma a month ago. Went to the closest outlet and got a great pair of Nike running shoes for about $55 (which I could try before buying).

I think a KEY benefit of amazon is that you know it has everything.

Sure, you might get better Foo at another store, but that's not the same store that sells you the better Bar. So you just default to amzn

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#175

Post by Rd6n6 »

tjr wrote: post #148
chubot wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically Barnes And Noble was also a significant computer user in the 80’s and 90’s. They put a lot of local bookstores out of business with superior inventory, prices, and generally being data driven. Then they were one of Amazon’s first casualties!

I frequently shopped at Barnes & Noble ~20 years ago. But they slowly carried less and less that I was interested in, seemingly shifting from a "store for people who like books" to a "store for people to buy gifts for people who like books". At first I placed online orders with them, but once moving to online shopping at all, it was clear that Amazon had even better selection, prices, shipping, etc. But I still enjoy…

Chapters/indigo in Canada is like that. Half the stores are gift shops for socks and blankets etc. They removed all the tables and chairs they had 20 years ago for you to read at. At least they still exist though, all 4 used bookstores (plus one chapters) near where I live have closed down

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#176

Post by shakezula »

dstick wrote: post #150
shakezula wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So aside from “just stop buying from Amazon” what can we do ? The "just stop buying amazon" arguments never made sense to me in the first place, because most people who use it are the ones budget-stretched in the first place. A lot of rural communities have no other viable options for some items as well. It will take massive government action and that's it. There's no other way we can fix this problem. Wages are su…

And it’s a negative cycle. Those already budget stretched people are getting paid poorly by Amazon, so they too will shop at Amazon. We’re not there yet but the cycle is reminiscent of the factory owners with factory stores and pubs where the workers spend all their money during the industrial revolution. Unions and worker laws stem from that era. So who knows - maybe we’re on the cusp of another revolution that’s si…

There was an article on the front page about how Amazon does this in some places already.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#177

Post by shakezula »

shawnz wrote: post #171
shakezula wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they participate in union busting? https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/09/amazon-...

I'm not happy about that, but what bigcorp doesn't try to bust unions? Certainly Walmart does it too, so that really seems to just be an instance of Amazon merely matching their competitors' abuses.

I absolutely agree with you, they all do it, because all major corporations suppress wages, because there’s no real consequences for it anymore.

“If the only punishment is a fine then it’s legal for the rich” or however the saying goes.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#178

Post by jdavis703 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #152
echelon wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Book stores (which were pretty awesome, actually) - Open source - Concentration of compute resources - American cinema (well, I suppose Disney has a hand in this too)

How are we losing open source?

I don’t agree with OP, but what they were trying to say is they’re killing open source business models. They take a popular open source project, turn it into an AWS offering and then crush any SaaS/cloud ambitions of the open source developers.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#179

Post by splatzone »

shawnz wrote: post #171
shakezula wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they participate in union busting? https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/09/amazon-...

I'm not happy about that, but what bigcorp doesn't try to bust unions? Certainly Walmart does it too, so that really seems to just be an instance of Amazon merely matching their competitors' abuses.

I think almost all large corporations are abusive and will bust unions to maintain their dominance, it’s still unacceptable though

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#180

Post by unchocked »

underseacables wrote: post #72

I’m torn badly with Amazon. After read The Everything Store, and what has been written all over the place, Jeff Bezos is a massive turd. Employees are horribly treated, wages suppressed, and all sorts of terrible and abusive practices. Then it comes time for me to buy something. I needed a new pair of size 14 sneakers. I drove to Adidas, Footlocker, dicks, and a few other stores but I just couldn’t justify $100 sneak…

I'm pretty sure that commodity retail has always, for my living memory at least, been a pretty stressful, insecure, and low-wage position.

Amazon's scale brings welcome visibility to the problem, and offers employees the chance to unionize, but I'm puzzled by upper-class culture's seemingly new discovery that commodity retail is a shitty job.

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