Well shit
Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
241–250 of 298 posts
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's an ads vector Eventually people will say "Alexa buy my groceries" Alexa will buy from the highest bidder
This has been promised for a long time, but from my perspective, I don't really see this getting any closer to reality. But for what it's worth, I think there's a conflict of interest here. No one is going to believe that Amazon won't prioritize Fresh or Whole Foods for these orders - even if they don't.
I use Ocado for my groceries. By default they will deliver based on a combination of things I've marked as "every X unit of time" and a predicted/suggested set based on past purchases. Then I can log in before a deadline to amend it. 90% of the basket typically remains unchanged, and quite regularly I can't be bothered to even log in to check what it's selected for me because I know it'll be close enough unless there's something specific I absolutely need this week.
No reason why Amazon can't do something similar. They only need it to be "good enough" that people start getting used to not always needing to ask for it to list what is in the upcoming order.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#243This is so completely normal in these industries that it is a non-headline. Companies that have so much cash they can employ 100K+ developers on top of goodness knows how many designers, PMs, POs etc. of course they hire and fire. They can afford to offer above-average conditions when the markets need it and everyone goes flocking there only to be surprised when their job is taken away at the next point the sharehold…
> that someone's Christmas might be not as expected. You should have sympathy for PEOPLE. Every one of the PEOPLE effected by any lay off or industry change is a person. It could be your relative, it could be you, ti could be me. Let's get out of the "I don't feel too bad for that person that's not me" and try to have compassion for fellow humans. edit: spelling typo
His post did seem to have sympathy, directed more at those that have a lot less than a 200k tc.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just don't see the path to profitability for Alexa. Like, sure, it's neat, but how does it make any money? Do they sell the devices at a profit? Does usage of the devices lead to increased sales on Amazon.com? Are those sales that wouldn't have taken place on the app/website otherwise?
> Does usage of the devices lead to increased sales on Amazon.com? Are those sales that wouldn't have taken place on the app/website otherwise? That seems reasonable. Customers can order directly through the device ("Alexa, order some toilet paper"), that's low friction and lets Amazon rank options to their benefit. Plus regularly using Alexa keeps Amazon primed (no pun intended) in the customer's mind so next time t…
But is any of that profitable enough to justify having literally thousands of developers, probably costing a quarter million each on average? That kind of overhead isn't sustainable.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#245Something I've never understood about layoffs is that large corporations have nearly unlimited borrowing power. Amazon's market cap is just over $1 trillion, so it could probably borrow up to ~10x or $10 trillion against that (almost half the US GDP). Isn't that enough money to keep employees through a downturn? The flip side is that individuals have almost no borrowing power. The bottom 40% of the US population has…
Why would they keep employees through a downturn? They're profit-driven entities. Of course they're going to dump externalities onto the public any chance they get, and we should strive to limit their capacity to do so... But in this case I'm not sure what you mean exactly? Nor do I understand what you mean about bringing antitrust because of layoffs? That sounds much more difficult to justify than most of the other…
There are alternative ways to deal with a downturn, in the past German companies have successfully introduced part-time employment for all employees to avoid having to layoff employees. This avoids employee knowledge and experience from leaving, making it easier to scale back up once economy picks up again.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277267537_Securing_...
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why would they keep employees through a downturn? They're profit-driven entities. Because keeping people paid for a year during a downturn is cheaper than firing them and then rehiring and retraining someone else a year later?
Under what reasoning is it cheaper to keep them?
Under the reasoning that hiring is expensive and training is extremely expensive?
1. The salary of a current employee will always be lower than the salary of a new hire, even a year later,
2. The hiring process itself costs tens of thousands of dollars,
3. A new joiner is useless for 2 months, needs to be babysat for 4 more and will ask constant questions for 6 more (if not 18). This costs the company a lot in terms of support that has to be provided from more senior (in tenure) employees.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
Voice devices are actually very handy for those with mobility impairments. That being said, I have yet to meet anybody who actually uses these voice assistants daily (other than the aforementioned people with mobility issues).
My family uses ours daily and they're fully integrated into our routines. They're our alarm clocks that wake us, and are how we check the weather to decide how to get dressed in the morning. I ask them to turn on the lights in the morning, and to turn them off at night. Alexa locks my front door and closes my garage before bed. In the kitchen, every time we cook, we ask Alexa to preheat the oven or air fryer, and ask…
It's not good practice to connect your security systems to your voice assistant, especially door locks. Maybe this isn't the case in your home, but in smaller apartments it's certainly possible for a malicious actor to say "Hey {voice_assistant}, unlock front door", and they gain access. It's the modern day "open sesame".
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#248This is just the latest round of cuts at Amazon: "From April through September, it reduced head count by almost 80,000 people, primarily shrinking its hourly staff through high attrition." Also: "Amazon froze hiring in several smaller teams in September. In October, it stopped filling more than 10,000 open roles in its core retail business. Two weeks ago, it froze corporate hiring across the company, including its cl…
There's a big difference between reducing the number of hourly workers (warehouse, drivers) and cutting 10,000 corporate jobs.
True. The hourly workers are more likely to be living paycheque-to-paycheque, and their lives will be more impacted than a tech worker with 12 months of runway and job prospects everywhere.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
My family uses ours daily and they're fully integrated into our routines. They're our alarm clocks that wake us, and are how we check the weather to decide how to get dressed in the morning. I ask them to turn on the lights in the morning, and to turn them off at night. Alexa locks my front door and closes my garage before bed. In the kitchen, every time we cook, we ask Alexa to preheat the oven or air fryer, and ask…
It's not good practice to connect your security systems to your voice assistant, especially door locks. Maybe this isn't the case in your home, but in smaller apartments it's certainly possible for a malicious actor to say "Hey {voice_assistant}, unlock front door", and they gain access. It's the modern day "open sesame".
They thought of that many years ago, before adding lock support to Alexa. You can lock the door with a simple command, but unlocking or opening requires a pin code. Nobody can get into my house by shouting through the windows.