I've twice done tech work for charities (the second being my current contract) and this is going to affect some charities, particularly the ones that rely on donors, over others that rely on grant money.
Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
401–410 of 581 posts
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#402"Once AmazonSmile closes, charities will still be able to seek support from Amazon customers by creating their own wish lists."
So, Amazon's tired of revenue going out instead of coming in....
Sure, the argument can be made that Amazon does let charities join their affiliate program https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/node/topic/GYV3PYE...>
But how many of those smaller charities are going to want to deal with all that fine print just to set a 24 hour browser cookie?
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
There warehouses are significantly worse than average in terms of injuries per hour. They also frequently sell fraudulent items directly harming consumers. I can’t think of a metric where they aren’t worse than the average retailer.
>There warehouses are significantly worse than average in terms of injuries per hour. Per man hour? Amazon is rich and super high volume relatively speaking. I got the impression their warehouses were pretty damn good compared to other warehouses handling consumer goods because the cost of hiccups is so high and they have a huge target on their back.
> I got the impression their warehouses were pretty damn good compared to other warehouses
This is the correct impression. Amazon warehouses are almost always a step up in both pay and quality of life vs. the other local employment options.
Source: many friends work(ed) the industry. Amazon was seen as trading your autonomy in for a better overall place to work.
The memes about their warehouses being the worst in the world only really exist in white collar circles.
I could never work for them in such a job, because I require too much autonomy to be happy. I don't deal will with strict metric systems that they enforce. However, others really do enjoy that aspect of not having to put an ounce of thought or problem solving into their dayjob.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
Injuries per item picked is obviously the inferior of the two, and fairly poor on its own as well.
If I sit on ass all day, I assume my injury rate will be lower. Using an injury rate on items picked (or items picked per man hour) could at least show the correlation between increased productivity and injuries.
The point is that then you'd have a job that would let you sit on ass all day in this case. if Amazon warehouse workers could sit their ass half the day or have better working conditions, their injury rate would be lower too.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#405> "our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin" If that's the supposed reason, I call bullshit. Could've just reduced the number of charities.
Unpopular opinion, but charities are like carbon credits. Most of the money goes into people’s pockets and very less percentage of the donations actually make it towards helping the cause they run on. Very few legitimately use the money in the way we expect it to be used. So I’m okay with them losing $400M.
You can vet your own charities (i.e. checking their 990's to see who gets paid what) and make decisions from there.
Just because the charity sausage gets made in ways that isn't always appealing doesn't mean there aren't charities that have impact.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the sins of Amazon are any worse than most other major U.S. retailers.
> I don't think the sins of Amazon are any worse than most other major U.S. retailers. monopolies are bad, for consumers and for competitors. Even if you build your monopoly "fairly" by inventing a better mousetrap, putting the competition out of business is a reward that that is unfair and does not belong to the owner of the mousetrap. For example, Amazon could be split into 3 smaller Amazon mousetraps that compete…
>Even if you build your monopoly "fairly" by inventing a better mousetrap, putting the competition out of business is a reward that that is unfair and does not belong to the owner of the mousetrap.
Antitrust laws exist to protect consumers, and if you're forcing consumers to buy inferior mousetraps, you're not helping.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#407> "our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin" If that's the supposed reason, I call bullshit. Could've just reduced the number of charities.
As a customer, I don't care if their overall impact is spread thin, it's my money going to a charity I chose.
Technically it's Amazon's money, not yours. You can't write the donations off on your taxes, for example.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unpopular opinion, but charities are like carbon credits. Most of the money goes into people’s pockets and very less percentage of the donations actually make it towards helping the cause they run on. Very few legitimately use the money in the way we expect it to be used. So I’m okay with them losing $400M.
That's truest of the big ones, imo. "Power corrupts" etc., even when that power is a non-profit. I upvoted you since the sentiment is correct. The nice thing about AmazonSmile is that you could pick from the small ones you know well and trust. Now, Amazon will donate to the biggest ones without our choice, which is definitely worse.
>Now, Amazon will donate to the biggest ones without our choice, which is definitely worse.
Worse, Amazon has set up their own charities to donate to.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#409> “After almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped. With so many eligible organizations — more than 1 million globally — our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin,” the company wrote.
SO WHAT!? Any money is helpful. This is such a BS argument for getting rid of it.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#410> "our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin" If that's the supposed reason, I call bullshit. Could've just reduced the number of charities.
And seriously, why should that matter; it's their customers who are selecting the charities, not Amazon.
Because no PR opportunity for Amazon. But I agree, it's a feeble dishonest excuse. Better to simply say "Because we're cutting costs", instead of weeping how it failed to set the world on fire with glowing PR for their munificence.
Personally I try hard to avoid sending my business to Amazon whenever there's an alternative, and this was one of the good things about them.