Comment on Ordered 20+ groceries from Amazon on Prime Day. Today my order arrived with each item packaged separately.

• Brokensilence410@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  As an ex-warehouse employee, I will go out of my way of I have to get something just to not buy something online. The conditions of most warehouses I’ve seen, especially in this heat, should be illegal.

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• InternetTubes@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  They can’t do this in Europe, plus they actually have decent refund policies where normal stores shit on you after purchase. Getting groceries from them is also a great convenience for the same reasons. Part of the order got missing? Free refund or same day delivery. Plus, some local stores charge even more for products without delivering them to your door.

  So at least in Europe, where they can unionize and can and do protest for their rights, I don’t see them as any worse than many other multinational chains that do the same. And if they had to stop operations in my country, there aren’t going to be a proportional number of stores that are going to start opening up. If the number of their employees does increase, it’s going to be for worse paying jobs.

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  • zzz@feddit.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    So at least in Europe, where they can unionize and can and do protest for their rights, I don’t see them as any worse than many other multinational chains that do the same.

    Do you happen to know whether they actually are unionized in EU countries though, or just could? Genuine question, as I couldn’t tell you (as a German citizen)

    Aside from that though, even if warehouse and delivery workers’ conditions were absolutely fine, their monopolistic tendencies are still somewhat of an issue. I’ll try not to turn this into a full essay, because this topic can get real philosophical REAL fast (we’re about 3 winded sentences away, I’d guesstimate).

    But: AWS aka Amazon’s cloud business prints SO incredibly much money that they can perhaps unfairly undercut a grocery competitor like Kroger’s, Aldi, and whatnot are their names, that they can start to have a really, really good advantage quite quickly (as hinted to by OP’s order above: not plastics, not electronics, not household goods – food). In case any reader isn’t aware, grocery chains’ margins are absurdly, comically low.

    The firm policies/microeconomics philosophy comes in here: how much cross-subsidizing should an undertaking actually be allowed to do? Europeans will perhaps see this a bit more strictly, whereas Americans might be inclined to answer close to unlimited here, but keep in mind, this can lead to Mega-everything-corp faster than you realize or like.

    I didn’t make all of this up on the spot just now, BTW (some first further “readings”). This has been a somewhat well known issue for some years now, and people knew there could be a day coming where we as a (global) society have to ask ourselves: How many areas can a company dominate in before it becomes too dangerous?

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    • InternetTubes@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_worker_organization#…

      Here’s some more info about unions in Europe.

      Amazon may be monopolistic, but I have access to more products through from different brand names than I do through the rest of the local multinational chains. I see your point, but it’s also pretty hard to address without favoring other potential mega-corporations nowadays. The core problem is that there is one country that can realistic regulate it, and it is profit driven. Individually, each country can try to compete by subsidizing the competition in the areas those companies succeed in, by say putting decent refund and customer care into the law, subsidizing insurance to that extent, and making distribution networks accessible to small business. Once those standards are in place, it becomes easier to prosecute Amazon for anti-competitive monopolistic practices if they don’t stick to them. The problem is, each country usually has their own interests that don’t care for that either, and it wouldn’t be international.

      Amazon should be divided into different businesses, but if US telecoms have proved anything, it’s that they usually end up working themselves back into the same group. But I see that as a separate more overarching issue than the rights of the workers it employs and the quality of their employment in their distribution warehouses.

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      • zzz@feddit.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

        Amazon may be monopolistic, but I have access to more products through from different brand names than I do through the rest of the local multinational chains.

        That’s the core issue, I think.

        Amazon might be the first major case of monopolistic tendencies where the firm’s behavior hasn’t been obviously disadvantageous (or obvious it will be in the not so distant future) to the consumers from the getgo. So you’d effectively be regulating and banning towards a worse consumer experience, as of now…

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• Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  As long as you weren’t buying empty bottles, that’s probably OK.

  And I thought it was the drivers that have to piss in bottles.

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• fidelacchius@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  No one’s forcing them to work there 🤷‍♂️. Start your own amazon.

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  • owsei@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    yeah, minimum wage worker, just beat one the biggest companies of human history

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    • fidelacchius@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      People said the same thing about Walmart but the great Jeff bezos worked hard and did it.

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      • Kethal@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

        People here are saying they want to pay Amazon’s competators, and your argument is that they shouldn’t do that because the workers should be starting their own Amazon competators…

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• Sarsaparilla@kbin.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  SDA is the union that represents Amazon workers in Australia.

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