Amazon’s success lies in worker exploitation and intrusions into consumers’ private lives.

[onehandle]

The Amazonization of Everything

Media scholars like Siva Vaidhyanathan and Shoshana Zuboff have argued convincingly that ordinary citizens and regulators should be concerned about the immense power Google has amassed over many parts of our lives. Yet Amazon, nearly as ubiquitous, and also a frequent target of critical press, maintains a much less troubled public profile than Google.

This should hardly be the case. Amazon’s role in developing disturbing new workplace trends, especially for non-white-collar workers, should be of central concern for labor advocates. While both Amazon and Google famously maintain resort-like “campuses” to recruit and retain top IT workers, Amazon relies on a workforce three times the size of Google, not including its army of contingent workers, for critical aspects of its business.

As a 2011 story about the company’s Allentown, PA warehouse reported, many of Amazon’s warehouse workers are temps employed by a third-party staffing firm, and it manages its warehouse workers using the same web-centric, piecemeal, “just-in-time” methods it uses for other aspects of its supply chain, enterprise planning, and customer relationship management.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/amazon-google-facebook-privacy-bezos/

[TreasonousBastard]

1. This has been well known for years, but...

no one seems to care.

People who would never walk into a Wal-mart happily order everything from Amazon, even if it costs more and they could get it even faster by stopping at a local store.

Amazon actually adds little for people who in days past would order from Montgomery Ward or Sears, and doesn't even make a profit most quarters.

It has, however, spent a fortune trying to monopolize not just online and retail sales, but information gathering.

[phylny]

4. I live in a rural area.

My grocery store is close, about 10 minutes away, but the nearest store to buy merchandise (other than a Dollar Store) is 30 minute away - and it's WalMart.

If I want to buy anything for the house, for myself or my family, it's an hour away in either direction. I use Amazon to buy things I can't buy locally.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. A lot of people are in that situation...

my point is that mail order and catalog sales have been around for 100 years or so. What's so special about Amazon that they have managed to monopolize this business?

[phylny]

6. You have a good point.

It's possible that the speed of delivery and the variety of goods available, plus the ease of finding what you want through the search engine, makes Amazon so convenient to use.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

2. I have spent a lot of time in "logistics park" facilities, including some used by Amazon

With the exception of a few newer FedEx facilities that are luxurious by comparison, they're all the same. I'm not saying that is good or okay, but singling out Amazon is sort of silly when just about anything you order from anywhere is going to be fulfilled from a similar facility.

[pamela]

3. Wow, they actually mention MTurk

I tried using MTurk because I desperately need to find a way to make money from home. I made about $300.00 using it but I'm embarrassed to say how much time I put into making that money. It was depressing.