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

reuters.com

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

#51

Post by TT3351 »

op03 wrote: post #21
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.

Depending on which side of the bed I wake up on, I can lambast the US status quo as crony monopolists who own the government as well; yet I'm still nervous about the move "fast and break things" philosophy when it comes to real world markets, societies, and governments.

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

#53

Post by ska »

missedthecue wrote: post #36
ska wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Well there doesn't seem to be much data, hence my original comment. My assumptions are based primarily on my own anecdotal observation. I work a relatively low wage job with a lot of relatively low wage coworkers. Most of them make a deliberate effort every day to do as little work as possible, to the point that it occurred to me that they might be engaging in more effort than if they just did their jobs anyway. I'm…

> bringing light to a viewpoint most people haven't even ever considered.

Why do you think this statement is true?

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

#54

Post by lucideer »

908B64B197 wrote: post #40
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…

> Uber broke the back of your local city's taxi medallion scheme. Posted it in an other thread [0] but do we really want to go back to the medallion system? Pre-Uber, either the driver rented the car to a middleman who rented the medallion from a rich owner, or said owner was selling and financing (most banks won't touch these medallions!) a medallion at a ridiculous interest rate to a driver that planned to use it a…

Sounds like the old system was pretty bad, but also sounds like you're looking at Uber through extremely rose-tinted lenses.

> a pyramid scheme aimed at helping established rent-seeker take advantage of often poor new immigrants. Uber brought a breeze of fresh air

In what way is Uber not a rent-seeker taking advantage of often poor new immigrants?

The fact that the old system was so poor just lowers our standards for anything that may seek to replace it, but that's no reason to throw all critical thinking out the window.

--

Europe is a really good example to look at. Uber entered the market in most (all) European countries, but they simply couldn't compete with what already existed. (speaking only of Uber taxis; Uber Eats is doing fine in Europe)

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

#55

Post by 908B64B197 »

lucideer wrote: post #54
908B64B197 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber broke the back of your local city's taxi medallion scheme. Posted it in an other thread [0] but do we really want to go back to the medallion system? Pre-Uber, either the driver rented the car to a middleman who rented the medallion from a rich owner, or said owner was selling and financing (most banks won't touch these medallions!) a medallion at a ridiculous interest rate to a driver that planned to use it a…

Sounds like the old system was pretty bad, but also sounds like you're looking at Uber through extremely rose-tinted lenses. > a pyramid scheme aimed at helping established rent-seeker take advantage of often poor new immigrants. Uber brought a breeze of fresh air In what way is Uber not a rent-seeker taking advantage of often poor new immigrants? The fact that the old system was so poor just lowers our standards for…

> In what way is Uber not a rent-seeker taking advantage of often poor new immigrants?

Doesn't trap them.

Used cars are a liquid market (with a lot of transactions) with well established pricing. It's easy to buy and sell at the blue book's price and get cheap financing. This makes it easy to get into Ubering and out of it, as at any point you know exactly how much money the car is still worth.

Compare that to a taxi medallion, often financed through "alternate means" (no banks will touch them), completely opaque pricing (there's no market place, transactions are often done privately) and at the mercy of regulators (tomorrow the city council might create 10x the current amount of medallions out of thin air, thus crushing the price of existing ones).

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

#56

Post by suyash »

KorematsuFred wrote: post #32
suyash wrote: post #2

Amazon being shady with government what's new. It's a monopoly and only care about itself.

I am not sure why Amazon should care about anyone other than itself. To make profits though they have to serve an ordinary blok like me.

we all know what happens when companies sacrifice everything for profit - not good!

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

#57

Post by missedthecue »

ska wrote: post #53
missedthecue wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there doesn't seem to be much data, hence my original comment. My assumptions are based primarily on my own anecdotal observation. I work a relatively low wage job with a lot of relatively low wage coworkers. Most of them make a deliberate effort every day to do as little work as possible, to the point that it occurred to me that they might be engaging in more effort than if they just did their jobs anyway. I'm…

> bringing light to a viewpoint most people haven't even ever considered. Why do you think this statement is true?

I mean there isn't even any research on it. No one talks about it. I've never heard or read anyone make the point aside from myself. What set of criterion do you regard as sufficient to deem some fact under-appreciated?

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

#58

Post by ska »

missedthecue wrote: post #57
ska wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bringing light to a viewpoint most people haven't even ever considered. Why do you think this statement is true?

I mean there isn't even any research on it. No one talks about it. I've never heard or read anyone make the point aside from myself. What set of criterion do you regard as sufficient to deem some fact under-appreciated?

> I mean there isn't even any research on it. No one talks about it.

Neither of these statements can be true, as I've seen multiple examples of both. For what it's worth, one of the search terms you are looking for is "time theft" (as opposed to "wage theft"), the literature on this is also well developed as you might expect. And of course there are various types of related fraud (both in favor of employer and employee) which have been studied.

> I've never heard or read anyone make the point aside from myself.

This is plausible, but doesn't tell us much about anything but your own exposure.

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

#59

Post by portpecos »

c22 wrote: post #46
908B64B197 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber broke the back of your local city's taxi medallion scheme. Posted it in an other thread [0] but do we really want to go back to the medallion system? Pre-Uber, either the driver rented the car to a middleman who rented the medallion from a rich owner, or said owner was selling and financing (most banks won't touch these medallions!) a medallion at a ridiculous interest rate to a driver that planned to use it a…

Uber is just a different rent seeker, though. Over time the situation will likely just keep getting worse until it is as bad as the system it is replacing (many things about the ride-sharing ecosystem are already not great...) While it's always nice to see a broken rent-seeking system in our world become eroded we should not laude the transfer to another fiat regency.

By that statement, you can claim TaskRabbit and the like are also rent-seekers.

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

#60

Post by missedthecue »

ska wrote: post #58
missedthecue wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean there isn't even any research on it. No one talks about it. I've never heard or read anyone make the point aside from myself. What set of criterion do you regard as sufficient to deem some fact under-appreciated?

> I mean there isn't even any research on it. No one talks about it. Neither of these statements can be true, as I've seen multiple examples of both. For what it's worth, one of the search terms you are looking for is "time theft" (as opposed to "wage theft"), the literature on this is also well developed as you might expect. And of course there are various types of related fraud (both in favor of employer and employ…

So if you take some studies on time theft, it looks like it amounts to $400 billion annually, which is far and away in excess of the figure that the original poster said was the largest type of theft. This proves my original point.
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