I've found that many people will spend a lot of time and energy defending large companies (and often their CEOs) against perceived bullying. Amazon, Tesla, Elon, Meta, etc etc. I don't really understand it.
Perhaps they have a different opinion than you do on the issue?
I don't have a POV on this particular case but it seems reasonable to assume that there are other (reasonable) people that have different values and judgements than you do. Just because these companies and CEOs have a lot of resources should not automatically kick in the "David v Goliath" instinct that most people have
> Just because these companies and CEOs have a lot of resources should not automatically kick in the "David v Goliath" instinct that most people have
David vs. Goliath was a story about overcoming subjugation and oppression. A lot of people have been very much put-upon by the metaphorical Goliath here in a number of ways. There are piss bottles available as evidence.
I'm amazed at how much the idea of pissing into a bottle offended the sensibilities of journalists. Given a choice between pissing in bottles or having the time saved as a longer lunch break, I'd guess most would chose the lunch break. The never ending screw turning cost optimization is the problem, but using that example lands really flat.
> The never ending screw turning cost optimization is the problem, but using that example lands really flat.
I worked in logistics (elsewhere) for a decade, and quit when conditions shifted to incentivize smoking meth and pissing in jugs. It's abusive and just fucking gross.
I assume you aren't pissing in jugs to save time for longer lunch breaks. Why not?
Nobody pisses in jugs unless they're forced to. The example only falls flat because Bezos escaped the gravity well in his dick-rocket and it's really fucking hard to hurl bottles of piss into space with a sling.
See my comment below. I'm talking about delivery drivers. You might be talking about fulfillment centers.
I disagree that nobody would voluntarily choose to pee in a bottle in the context of driving a delivery vehicle. But I do agree that the behavior in the context of being in a building that has a bathroom is a sign that something is horribly wrong.
Why do people have to make choices of how to spend their time? Because there is a finite amount of time in any given period, and most activities are mutually exclusive.
No, why are they forced to make this specific choice? Why would they need to deduct time from their lunch break in order to use the bathroom? Using the bathroom and eating lunch are not normally mutually exclusive activities, unless there is a third party enforcing such an exclusion.
Sorry, we might be talking past one another. When I hear about peeing in bottles, I think of the delivery drivers. This is the obvious place bottles would get used, and in my recollection this was most of the reporting on the pee bottles. I believe there was also reporting on workers in the brick and mortar fulfillment center using bottles to meet their quotas, which is perhaps what you are talking about.
For delivery routes, there's no simple solution for bathroom access (unless you want to talk about installing some step up from a "bottle" in all the vans). Meaning a driver will inevitably have to choose to spend time not delivering packages to leave the van and use an indoor bathroom.
If you are talking about the workers at the fulfillment centers, I do agree that is indefensible. That human need should be entirely owned by the business. If it takes workers too long to walk to the bathroom, or if Amazon insists on using time with security lines and whatnot, that's entirely on Amazon.
(Also to each their own, but using the bathroom and eating lunch are definitely mutually exclusive activities for me)
HN is run by a VC firm, and the explicit goal of the companies they fund is to grow very big very quickly. While HN's audience extends beyond that the VCs do leave behind a huge imprint.
and others spend a lot of time attacking large companies simply because they are large. In this case, AMZN. AMZN is like the cheapest place to buy things online. But it's not the only place. So, why is FTC going after them?
> others spend a lot of time attacking large companies simply because they are large
This isn't the FTC's complaint but search "How Amazon treats their workers" and see why large companies get attacked. Typically the only way you're going to become this large is by abusing people in some sort of way. Amazon abuses their workers, their sellers, etc. Meta abuses their users. Google abuses their users. Uber abuses their drivers.
I would love to see 20 Amazons where half have a decent quality of life for workers compared to 1 Amazon where it's just awful for everyone except maybe consumers (debatable), executives, and tech workers.
Search for "How Starbucks treats their workers" and see why large companies get attacked too. If you search for your favorite local coffee shop, you won't see such complaints.
But go to /r/starbucks and you'll sometimes hear that a lot of small shops are worse, for various reasons.
Large companies attract certain classes of criticism not by being worse, but by being more visible. Unfortunately, this actively masks some of the wrongs that they actually do.
Yes they are forced to work. If you don't have a job you starve, that's how our economy works. That's a very soft form of force (specifically, a sin of omission), but it is still force.
Likewise, quitting your job is extremely disruptive and carries risk of bankruptcy if you can't get on to another employer in time. It's not simply a matter of "switch to the best offer available".
I was alive before Uber, AMZN existed and nobody starved, people just worked elsewhere, so this assertion is just not true. People have to work, but they don't have to work for AMZN, they didn't before it existed. Sure, quitting is disruptive, but people are not actually forced to work for any company, come on.
You don't think the large companies that existed before Amazon abused those workers? Wal-Mart never did anything wrong to their workers? It's a repeating playbook.
The argument always boils down to "well it's allowed / that's just how you do things" and when the companies get told "No, that's actually not allowed and not how you should do things" the argument switches to "the FTC has been weaponized by The Other Side, even if they're doing pro-consumer things we shouldn't trust them because Big Govt."
Meanwhile, we have over 100 years over antitrust history and precedent pointing the other way. Sometimes Big Govt does need to step in and set the market right, because raw unfettered capitalism lacking regulation will always destroy itself. (For the record, and to preempt some strawmen, I don't think raw, unfettered socialism is The Way either.)
I guess I do that to some degree. Amazon is doing some bad things, but I have a difficult time seeing that without also seeing the good impacts that they've had.
I remember online retail before Amazon dominance. Return policies and return shipping was a real mess. Amazon actually greatly improved the customer service experience. It also changed some markets in ways that were undoubtedly pro-consumer.
It also has had a lot of negative impacts, as their model (including the free shipping concept) has made it practically impossible for small independent stores to compete in online sales.
Put another way, very few things are all bad or all good. A lot of internet commentary wants to magically keep the good and vaporize the bad, but it just doesn't work that way.
