Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators

#21

Post by op03 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

kmeisthax wrote: post #11

I'm starting to think the reason why tech companies are so well-valued is purely due to regulatory evasion skills and a dash of political engineering. Effectively, every tech company has been given a pass on something . Facebook doesn't have to worry about defamation lawsuits. Google doesn't have to worry (as much) about copyright. Amazon built it's business on evading sales tax. Uber broke the back of your local cit…

On the flip side in India atleast they are competing against well known crony monopolists who own the govt. Nothing simple or obvious about the rules of that game.

As long as they are preoccupied with ruthlessly competing against each other things tend to head in positive directions for everyone. Its when they have no competition is when the the mindless ambition and ruthlessness causes the most damage.

Re: Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators

#22

Post by WrtCdEvrydy » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #15

lupire wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a webtech thing. Look at Superfund as one of many examples of the conventional wisdom that business winnby cheating. Most theft in USA is wage theft by employers. Corporations are constantly getting caught breaking the law and not getting punished, defrauding customers or polluting the environment. Sports stadiums being built my governments and given away to corporations.

"Most theft in USA is wage theft by employers" This is something I hear repeated ad infinitum on the net, but has a calculation ever been done the other way? That is, workers stealing from employers by deliberately clocking out early/late, or by goofing off on HN while on the clock. I would hazard a guess that this number is an order of magnitude greater than seedy business owners short changing their staff.

Yeah, the guy mowing the lawn and getting dicked on overtime is totally goofing off on HN

Re: Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators

#23

Post by nullandvoid » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #15

lupire wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a webtech thing. Look at Superfund as one of many examples of the conventional wisdom that business winnby cheating. Most theft in USA is wage theft by employers. Corporations are constantly getting caught breaking the law and not getting punished, defrauding customers or polluting the environment. Sports stadiums being built my governments and given away to corporations.

"Most theft in USA is wage theft by employers" This is something I hear repeated ad infinitum on the net, but has a calculation ever been done the other way? That is, workers stealing from employers by deliberately clocking out early/late, or by goofing off on HN while on the clock. I would hazard a guess that this number is an order of magnitude greater than seedy business owners short changing their staff.

Spotted the guy who underpays their staff

Re: Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators

#24

Post by capableweb » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #15

lupire wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a webtech thing. Look at Superfund as one of many examples of the conventional wisdom that business winnby cheating. Most theft in USA is wage theft by employers. Corporations are constantly getting caught breaking the law and not getting punished, defrauding customers or polluting the environment. Sports stadiums being built my governments and given away to corporations.

"Most theft in USA is wage theft by employers" This is something I hear repeated ad infinitum on the net, but has a calculation ever been done the other way? That is, workers stealing from employers by deliberately clocking out early/late, or by goofing off on HN while on the clock. I would hazard a guess that this number is an order of magnitude greater than seedy business owners short changing their staff.

Yes, calculations have been done. Search for "wage theft" and there is bunch of research about this. The US is not alone in this and it's also not a new problem, it's been like this for a while now.

Here's a good starting point: https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-...

> If these findings in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles are generalizable to the rest of the U.S. low-wage workforce of 30 million, wage theft is costing workers more than $50 billion a year.

> All of the robberies, burglaries, larcenies, and motor vehicle thefts in the nation cost their victims less than $14 billion in 2012, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports

> in the United States in 2012, there were 292,074 robberies of all kinds, including bank robberies, residential robberies, convenience store and gas station robberies, and street robberies.3 The total value of the property taken in those crimes was $340,850,358

Worth noting that that report is from 2012. Things are surely worse now.

Edit: Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant. I'm not sure if there is any research around employees slacking off on work time. If there is, it's probably conducted by companies themselves and therefore private.

Re: Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators

#25

Post by unmole » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #13

newbie578 wrote: post #4

It disturbs me that with each day, it seems like the Great Chinese Firewall was a good solution. You keep out the foreign competition letting internal competition foster and you stop a capital drain. Imagine if the EU had it’s own Alibaba, Baidu or WeChat... That is a lot of taxpaying money...

This article focuses on Amazon, but the Indian native company Flipkart is facing the same challenges. As the article hints at, these regulations are set up specifically to prevent internal competition; the Indian government wants to protect traditional retail networks against competition from online stores.

> the Indian government wants to protect traditional retail networks against competition from online stores.

Nope, the government wants to protect Jio from global competition.

Re: Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators

#26

Post by ska » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #15

lupire wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a webtech thing. Look at Superfund as one of many examples of the conventional wisdom that business winnby cheating. Most theft in USA is wage theft by employers. Corporations are constantly getting caught breaking the law and not getting punished, defrauding customers or polluting the environment. Sports stadiums being built my governments and given away to corporations.

"Most theft in USA is wage theft by employers" This is something I hear repeated ad infinitum on the net, but has a calculation ever been done the other way? That is, workers stealing from employers by deliberately clocking out early/late, or by goofing off on HN while on the clock. I would hazard a guess that this number is an order of magnitude greater than seedy business owners short changing their staff.

> but has a calculation ever been done the other way?

The usual answer to something that is both an obvious question and clearly impactful is "yes, extensively". Which is separate from the question of how well the research has been done of course (in either direction).

> I would hazard a guess that this number is an order of magnitude greater than seedy business owners short changing their staff.

What broad data are you basing this on? I suspect this is one of those areas where (nearly) any one persons individual experience is basically useless, because of the inherent lack of breadth. Exceptions made for extremely unusual life/career paths that lead to better sampling by accident.

Re: Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators

#27

Post by EricE » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #15

lupire wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a webtech thing. Look at Superfund as one of many examples of the conventional wisdom that business winnby cheating. Most theft in USA is wage theft by employers. Corporations are constantly getting caught breaking the law and not getting punished, defrauding customers or polluting the environment. Sports stadiums being built my governments and given away to corporations.

"Most theft in USA is wage theft by employers" This is something I hear repeated ad infinitum on the net, but has a calculation ever been done the other way? That is, workers stealing from employers by deliberately clocking out early/late, or by goofing off on HN while on the clock. I would hazard a guess that this number is an order of magnitude greater than seedy business owners short changing their staff.

It's easy to demonize groups you aren't a part of.

Re: Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators

#28

Post by 1996 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

kmeisthax wrote: post #11

I'm starting to think the reason why tech companies are so well-valued is purely due to regulatory evasion skills and a dash of political engineering. Effectively, every tech company has been given a pass on something . Facebook doesn't have to worry about defamation lawsuits. Google doesn't have to worry (as much) about copyright. Amazon built it's business on evading sales tax. Uber broke the back of your local cit…

> I'm starting to think the reason why tech companies are so well-valued is purely due to regulatory evasion skills and a dash of political engineering.

And how exactly is that a bad thing?

You assume regulations are good, but as a customer this is incredibly short sighted.

> Facebook doesn't have to worry about defamation lawsuits. Google doesn't have to worry (as much) about copyright. Amazon built it's business on evading sales tax. Uber broke the back of your local city's taxi medallion scheme. And so on and so forth

So are you sad that you can use freedom of speech without fear of defamation lawsuits, read newspapers on google news without paying, have cheaper goods thanks to businesses forgetting to collect taxes, and better quality cabs that will come to you immediately?

> they know how to bend governments to their will.

That's one of the best points about tech :)

Re: Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators

#29

Post by blueblisters » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

Ooh this is going to ruffle some feathers in the Indian Traders lobby. Although more regulation here is almost certainly going to be bad for consumers.

Re: Amazon documents reveal company’s strategy to dodge India’s regulators

#30

Post by KorematsuFred » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

kmeisthax wrote: post #11

I'm starting to think the reason why tech companies are so well-valued is purely due to regulatory evasion skills and a dash of political engineering. Effectively, every tech company has been given a pass on something . Facebook doesn't have to worry about defamation lawsuits. Google doesn't have to worry (as much) about copyright. Amazon built it's business on evading sales tax. Uber broke the back of your local cit…

> regulatory evasion skills

You will be surprised to know that from your corner store florist to Walmart and from Bank of America to your child's babysitter everyone is obstructed by regulators of all kinds and to some or large extent all businesses are successful because they have learned how to evade government regulation. I remember a lecture by Aetna CEO who said the only competitive advantage they have over competitors is that they have far better handle on the regulation.

If I were Amazon, I would do the same and as an Indian citizen I am greatly happy to see Amazon going so out of the way to help me get what I want.

> People in tech are being paid massively not because they're postdocs with good credentials and amazing skills, but because they know how to bend governments to their will.

It is other way around. The regulators in DC are confused as to how they will regulate the tech. They simply can not as the people are hooked to Instagram and Snapchat. If you give a free hand to DC people they would want every internet user to have a "internet license" and their search history be made available to every possible alphabet soup of government agency.