Okay so wait, we have corporations trying to turn the public against a competitor for being "too successful," in the hopes that it will let them use the apparatus of government to hobble said competitor in any way without repercussions, and no one is upset about this? Instead, we just go along with this fake-grassroots idea of "oh yeah Amazon is an evil empire"? This doesn't process for me.<p>I mean seriously, Amazon is so superior to the competition that they're left trying to use institutionalized violence to stop them; that can only make things worse on the economics side. Why are we forgetting that?<p>And before you talk about how Amazon acts monopolistically by promoting their own or favorite products, it's <i>their</i> platform, they have a right to do that and they're not forcing sellers to use them. The sellers, if they really think they have a better chance elsewhere, can leave. And Amazon doesn't owe them the best possible service. It might make it worse for users, but again no one is forcing you to use Amazon. Use Walmart all you want!
I'm surprised more cyberpunk authors didn't anticipate that wars between corporations wouldn't be fought using hackers or "street samurai", but with teams of propagandists competing to do a better job of bullshitting the general public.<p>Yes, I'm calling marketers and advertisers propagandists. As far as I'm concerned, marketing and advertising are nothing but private-sector psyops.
"Campaign against Amazon funded by those that are against Amazon" might be burying the lede.<p>Far more interesting imho:<p>>The grass-roots support cited by the group was also not what it appeared to be. The labor union says it was listed as a member of the group without permission and says a document purporting to show that it gave permission has a forged signature. The Boston professor says the group, with his permission, ghost-wrote an op-ed for him about Amazon but that he didn’t know he would be named as a member. The California businessman was dead for months before his name was removed from the group’s website this year.
I think the takeaway is companies should compete on ethics but be transparent about it. If corporations openly call out each other's malignant actions that's a huge win for us all in holding them to a higher standard.<p>I don't believe the "poor Amazon" angle for a moment though. A lot of the "campaign" against Amazon takes place in EU courtrooms where no rival company is focusing our attention on their transgressions. A lot of stuff Amazon chooses to do is morally unjust and should be illegal - they <i>choose</i> to include bathroom break time with productivity calculations that determines who gets fired. Bezoz just clawed back 1900 workers' healthcare to indistinguishably enrich himself.<p>France fined them for abusing vendors -<p><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/04/france-fines-amazon-4-million-imposing-abusive-conditions-vendors/" rel="nofollow">https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/04/france-fines-ama...</a><p>EU is investigating them to see if they abuse vendors with the vendors' own sales data -<p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/19/eu-probing-amazons-use-of-data-on-third-party-merchants.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/19/eu-probing-amazons-use-of-da...</a><p>Reversing corrupt tax deals -<p><a href="https://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/amazon-apple-tax-eu/2017/10/04/id/817521/" rel="nofollow">https://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/amazon-apple-tax-...</a>
Grassroots organizing is dead. Nowadays you have a bunch of groups funded by ridiculously wealthy foundations and donors who are chasing the ghost of grassroots organizing which has been dead for years.<p>I work for a small nonprofit which claims to run grassroots advocacy campaigns. We are in the environmental sector, but I'm sure it is similar in other areas. A solid 70% of our funding comes from large foundations. We pick an issue, get people fired up on social media about it, then call it grassroots just because a bunch of people supported it.
This is why I tend to try to keep a healthy skepticism about a great deal of the negative press on Amazon's warehouse working conditions, pushes to unionize, etc. So much of it lacks real context needed to actually inform, and just looks like click-bait or campaigns to drive negative sentiment, or to inhibit their ability to perform.<p>And really, that should I guess be the default way one consume's news in general, no matter what its about. (Even the parent article!)
Does Oracle really think they are competing with Amazon over a $10B government contract? That’s like Peugeot thinking they are competing with Volvo for a shipping fleet or something.
Most of the grassroot campaigns, if not all, are organized and financed by individuals and companies for their benefit or for political benefit. In the olden days, loyalty would organize a distant revolt so the king would be forced to march to a distant land. In the meantime, benefits will accumulate, either by making king poorer, distracting him, or by coup d'etat. Same thing here. I don't believe for a moment that any of the grassroot campaigns, either political or business, are spontaneous nowadays. Maybe 0.001% are, but that's it.
Idk why they don’t just slam them on lead paint and fake products. You could make a fucking Super Bowl level ad and do serious damage to amazon on real issues.
I whole heartedly tried to read this. I couldn't. The constant updates of the stock symbol numbers, grabbing my attention every time, and causing reflows most of the time made it impossible.
It’s funny because the whole “Amazon ambassador” thing is just Amazon doing the same thing in reverse.<p>What I hate most about the 21st century is how almost nothing feels genuine anymore. The news, any sort of campaign, even “science” in a lot of cases are just people using money to tell us what to think. Maybe it’s been like this for decades and we’re just now waking up to it, but regardless it just makes it all feel hollow
they are using amazon's own tactics: <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/8/20726863/amazon-pays-warehouse-employees-twitter-fc-ambassadors-quillette" rel="nofollow">https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/8/20726863/amazon-pays-war...</a>
I'm skeptical of the substance of this article because WSJ and Amazon share an owner.<p>I typically like the WSJ's reporting, but this honestly feels like a topic they should be recusing themselves from.
Poor, Poor Amazon. Amazon is run by the richest person in the entire world who will come to the oligarch's aid?<p>Amazon paid NO income taxes last year. I am against Amazon for that reason alone.