What do you think about Amazon and Jeff Bezos?

[sushy00]

Today apparently Jeff Bezos spent 3 minutes in space. Space travel costs a lot of money and resources. Meanwhile I wonder if the circumstances of the workers at Amazon distribution centers have improved. I once came by this article that said workers at Amazon have to pee in bottles since they can't do that while being on the job.

So yeah, you can guess what I think of Amazon. What do you think?

[yumeryuu]

You base your entire opinion of Jeff Bezos by "I once came across an article..."

Considering he is not the one running the show for the people on the floor and have nothing to do with how he invests his money.

As far as a person - he started at a desk in the 90s. He had a vision. I respect that.

Steve Jobs had a vision.

Sir Richard Branson had a vision.

Mark Zuckerberg had a vision.

Just because he made his billions, and his workers on the floor don't see a piece of that, we gotta get a hate on. The more successful a person gets, the more we find wrong with them. His divorce was public, that sucks. But now he's got a mistress, just like all of the stories we write.

I order Amazon, you order amazon. You don't ACTUALLY care too much about the people working on the floor because we are all still ordering from Amazon. And Jeff gets richer.

[sushy00]

I actually do not order at Amazon. I never ordered anything there.

I do agree that I should not base my opinion on one article.

[IndigoShirtProd]

You don't ACTUALLY care too much about the people working on the floor because we are all still ordering from Amazon. And Jeff gets richer.

I think the issue I find with this argument is that these two things aren't mutually exclusive. You can contribute to a broken system and still want to change it. I say this as a person who does order from Amazon, but I try to do it as little as possible because I know the conditions at warehouses under this company can at times be awful, and borderline abusive.

I can't blame Bezos for being a product of capitalism, but you then shouldn't defend his wealth with the idea that he, and other billionaires, "had a vision." Yes they had visions at the expense of human lives and suffering. Inciting hatred and violence and holding up poor working conditions for the sake of their selfish vision. But I also cannot deny the convenience and the amount of joy their products and services have brought to millions of people the world over. Doesn't mean I have to be happy for them and their billions of dollars. I as a single person see the issues with a purely capitalist system, but that doesn't mean I can do much about it as it stands. And I think it's fine to critique billionaires, what are they honestly going to lose from it.

So as the OP asked, no I don't like Bezos, but I can't hate him either. Screw him and his billions, but if it "benefits" all of us in some way I can't be too mad.

[TAMAnnoying]

Peoples relationship with Amazon has always confused me- no one likes it yet everyone buys from it and supports if not SPONSORS audible. (I do neither - I buy from third parties or locally) but that’s my issue with Jeff, paying him isn’t gonna make him treat his workers better so it’s best to not support the company yet everyone is far too set in their ways to buy from Amazon and audible (unless everyone just dosnt realize audible is an Amazon company??)

Either way people confound me.

[sushy00]

Amazon is getting so huge that is getting harder to avoid it. In the Netherlands they launched Prime too.
I prefer to buy locally as well, but it is not always possible for everyone.

I also saw this documentary about Amazon, it was pretty interesting!

[Birbmagadon]

He's a consequence of capitalism and I hate what he represents: top 1% wealthy, playing with obscene amounts of money while people die in the gutter for not having enough to live, etc. I also think space exploration is the top 1%'s wet fantasy and is doomed to fail because we'll never have the means to terraform any other planet or live entirely autonomously in the sky.

As a person, though, I have no opinion on him. I don't know him so perhaps he's a great guy to be around. I am merely judging what he represents inside of the system, not the person he is.

[sushy00]

also am I the only one who finds that grin on the packages sinister-looking?

[TAMAnnoying]

My confusion and problem with people who are aggressive toward him and the company are the same people who buy the Amazon streaming service and audible. There’s always third party company’s and while they might not have as much to offer as Amazon- if more people subscribe or buy from them one day they will. There’s also that you don’t >>need<< to have a streaming service or online book store it’s a want not a necessity

[thecrystalrook]

There needs to be clarification here that having a vision does not make you an evil person. We all have a vision here as writers and illustrators. But, part of your vision should include the humane treatment of any of your potential workers.

While Jeff Bezos himself doesn't walk around cracking a whip at his employees, the company he created and today profits off of is responsible. I need to make this as clear as possible, becoming a billionaire is not possible without mass exploitation of the working class. You need a massive amount of workers, working absurd hours, for little pay. It's an unfathomable amount of money that the mass majority will never even come close to achieving. Imagine how long it can take the average person to reach $1 million. Now do that again 1000 times. You cannot even reasonably spend that amount of money in a single lifetime. This is why we judge Bezos and other billionaires as harshly as we do. He hoards wealth and will never put it back into the economy. What's worse, he works no harder than a typical office worker (you can look up his daily routine, he's talked about it in interviews. It's really boring) and reaps in absurd amounts of money as his shares of Amazon increase in value. And it's easy enough for him to liquidate chunks of it when he needs it given the demand of Amazon stock. Meanwhile, his workers are breaking their asses, peeing in bottles, literally dying on the job (guy had a heart attack and was left there for 20 minutes) but GOD FORBID you take a bathroom break.

I can confirm the poor working conditions. A good friend of mine worked in one of their warehouses for a couple of years. He was literally doing the work of 2 people and was fantastic at his job. He got fired because he had 2 minutes of unclocked time on one occasion so he could use the bathroom.

Now, as for the "yet you continue to buy from them" argument. It's nearly impossible for many to avoid. If you're in a food desert, you probably rely on them to get groceries. Or often they're just the cheapest option. Or you don't have a car, so delivery is your only option and Amazon just happens to be the fastest. Moreso, Amazon makes majority of their money through AWS. So if you use Twitch, Netflix etc, you are still supporting them indirectly. To make this clear, participating in a structure of capitalism does not make you a hypocrite. Participation in the system is forced to survive.

tldr; a person with this amount of money and with a company as large as amazon is dangerous

[nathanKmcwilliams]

I'm really more concerned about his grip on the media. He owns an entire newspaper, The Washington Post, Don't know how active he is with it, but it's just another way that the media controls the populace.

And honestly, all of the big tech honchos are just as bad to me. They act like they're a gift to mankind and meddle in the political scene. They own politicians, and have way too much power over what people can say or not say. They appear altruistic, but I don't believe it for a second.

[crowstories]

As someone working for a small online retailer, I will not shop from amazon, since they would love to put me out of a job. They have a predatory practice of inviting retailers to sell via amazon (they asked us, we declined) then once they have the data on what sells best for that brand, they make their own cheaper version and drive the smaller company out of business.

I also can't be okay with anybody hoarding that much wealth while poor people continue to suffer and die from lack of access to basic necessities. There will always be someone in the comments ready to step up and defend the billionaires, as if anybody can actually earn that much money without exploiting other people, but nobody needs that much money, and hoarding it is actively causing suffering.

[chestnutriceeee]

For anyone wondering just how much money is a lot of money. Here is a good website to put in perspective the wealth of billionaires and Jeff Bezos

Wealth, shown to scale

[Birbmagadon]

They appear altruistic

You find them altruistic? How? Musk, Bezos, etc all look like megalomaniacs to me... But perhaps it's just me?

[nathanKmcwilliams]

To people who don't think past the mainstream news headlines, I'd say yes, they appear that way.

[Birbmagadon]

That's fair... (Looking at you and your memes, Elon). But yeah, it certainly feels like PR moves more than genuine engagement so perhaps that's why it may not work on everyone.

[thecrystalrook]

Yea this is accurate. Far too many people are praising Bezos for being the pioneer of future space travel now, but in reality he's probably just trying to become Space Lord Bezos.

...Think I'm gonna have to get some space pirates on this guy's ass

[Iris-Grimoire]

Every day people like him wake up and go "we're going to perpetuate the hell world we're in, make it worse, and have so much money we couldn't possibly spend it in five lifetimes".

So, it would've been nice if he didn't come back from space, ever? Maybe the other people up top could've gone and stayed too.

Also, it's already a big thread on twitter, no one willingly stayed on space for more than a year so far - zero g, muscle problems, radiation, it's all still there in the best parts of the current space stations. If it's horrible for people who trained their whole lives to become astronauts, no, rich guy who never had a problem in his life isn't actually going to live to see a colony he'd want to stay in.

[LunarScyphozoa]

Kill him. Kill him with fire.

[sushy00]

I find it such a waste of resources that he went to space for three minutes. We all have to reduce our emissions, yet here he is shooting another rocket in the sky. (other parties are guilty of that too, it is not just Bezos in this case)