Amazon Bows To Pressure To Bring Same-Day Deliveries To Poor Areas (fortune.com) 178
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune:
After pressure from lawmakers, Amazon is revamping its same-day delivery service in response to complaints that it failed to provide service to poor, minority neighborhoods. The retail giant said it would bring its same-day delivery service to all Zip Codes in the 27 cities where its offered, not just in the wealthier areas, according to a Bloomberg report on Friday.
Re:Perfect (Score:4, Insightful)
Right... I mean, not only should they better themselves, but they should do it without the resources that anyone else has...
Re: Perfect (Score:1)
Volunteering to be a delivery driver? So easy to tell others how to spend their resources.
Re:Perfect (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think it's so much about whether or not they're minorities so much as it's about those particular areas having very low demand for services that cost more, thus they can't take advantage of economies of scale.
Case in point, I have a friend who lives all the way across the country in Boca Raton who often asks me to order shit for him via amazon prime and he pays me back with venmo. Boca Raton is neither poor nor primarily minority, and in fact he lives in a somewhat upscale area in particular. Yet, Amazon won't do same day service where he lives where they do offer same day delivery in every single zip code I've lived in in the Phoenix area.
As somewhat of an off tangent matter, he's Persian, which means that if he ever fills out a typical questionnaire asking about race/ethnicity in the US, the closest option he can pick to his ethnicity is either caucasian or white, even though neither precisely fit. You may as well call a Native American an Asian at that rate.
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Persians are Caucasian and Native Americans descent from Mongoloids who left Asia a long time ago, so why would you call them Asian?
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As somewhat of an off tangent matter, he's Persian, which means that if he ever fills out a typical questionnaire asking about race/ethnicity in the US, the closest option he can pick to his ethnicity is either caucasian or white, even though neither precisely fit. You may as well call a Native American an Asian at that rate.
News flash, most people don't get to pick their ethnicity. Caucasian is a race, not an ethnicity. Hispanic ethnicity is made up of a lot of people of the Caucasian race, etc. The whole ethnicity/race thing has been completely blurred by the 70's and 80's PC introduction of "African American" which is not a race and certainly confusing to people who actually come from Africa that could be of Negroid (black), Mongoloid (Asian) or Caucasian (white) race. When does "American" become and ethnicity anyway if
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The point of that was how ultimately useless those race/ethnicity surveys are.
Re: Perfect (Score:2)
The real crime is that someone has to pay for these surveys and it's either the taxpayer collectively or the group that is suffering from an unfair disproportionate application of the law. It's a crime because the surveys sweep a problem under a rug and it's costing that community money.
Why do we elect these knuckleheads?
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I don't think it's so much about whether or not they're minorities so much as it's about those particular areas having very low demand for services that cost more, thus they can't take advantage of economies of scale.
I don't think this has as much to do with economies of scale because the way in which deliveries are routed can be optimized if there are only a few deliveries in a low-demand zone.
The reasons cities want equal access for low-income areas are many and they include, for sure, non-discriminatory access. But they also include the preservation of future urban revitalization (aka gentrification). If highly-moblie affluent residents choose where to live based on amenities such as walkability, entertainment, resta
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Re:Perfect (Score:4, Insightful)
Right... I mean, not only should they better themselves, but they should do it without the resources that anyone else has...
You're kidding, right? When has "giving" instead of "earning" ever worked? It doesn't matter if its a poor neighborhood that receives excessive tax payer and government attention (free school lunch, no income tax, significantly higher usage of police, fire, and ambulance, neighborhood redevelopment tax credits, Medicare, disability, planned parenthood, free cell phones, protection from getting utility cutoff for non-payment, EBT/food stamps, etc) - poor remain poor due to poor decisions, not lack of resources. The same "hand-out" instead of "hand-up" or "tough love" mentality also fails in the affluent households - think of upper middle class parents with lazy, drug addicted adults still jobless and living at home where the parents think continually giving them things actually helps their kids better themselves - it's never worked.
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Wow, It saddens me that this was modded +5. The poor aren't asking for a handout, their asking for a hand-up and a level playing field. Not everyone has your opportunity, although I'm sure you'll tell us all how hard you had it, a great story about how you started out with nothing. Plenty of people would be glad to start with nothing, instead of deep in the negative.
And I'm sure your answer to all of this is more government "help". The real question is, if you actually care, then what are YOU personally doing to help someone "deep in the negative"...if you care to define what that means in the US anyway. It's not like we're born into a caste system or communism here. Again, a faceless "handout" from the government is not a hand-up. A hand-up can only come from an actual personal interaction of help that includes humility and appreciation from the receiver...not the
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Here's a quick reference article, in case you think private charities are some panoply that meets even a fraction of the need.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/mar/19/frank-keating/does-catholic-church-provide-half-social-s
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As to hinder more then help, there may be some truth in that. Policies that break apart families or prevent people from getting work because they ca
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Yes, because it's RACIST! /s
SWJ's don't let cold hard facts get in the way. Same day delivery must be offered equally, even if it doesn't make financial sense for Amazon to offer it. When this logic is applied to home loans, it should not have been surprising what the outcome was.
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Not engaging in blatant racial discrimination is nothing like intentionally writing bad loans because you have no skin in the game.
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This is more accidental, racial discrimination. Amazon is discriminating upon something other than race (average income of a residential area) but which happens to have a correlation with race, and thus can give the appearance of racial discrimination. But that is not their intention.
There's a popular conspiracy theory that says Planned Parenthood is secretly carrying out a eugenics program. The theory survives for much the same reason: Planned Parenthood does try to focus resources on low-income communitie
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There's a popular conspiracy theory that says Planned Parenthood is secretly carrying out a eugenics program. The theory survives for much the same reason: Planned Parenthood does try to focus resources on low-income communities, and low income communities in the US do tend to be black communities, so it gives the impression of an attempt to contracept or abort an ethnic minority out of existence.
Maybe that theory comes from the founder of Planned Parenthood - Margaret Sanger -
from Wikipedia "After World War I, Sanger increasingly appealed to the societal need to limit births by those least able to afford children. The affluent and educated already limited their child-bearing, while the poor and ignorant lacked access to contraception and information about birth-control.[98] Here she found an area of overlap with eugenicists.[98] She believed that they both sought to "assist the race toward the el
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That's certainly a part of the theory - though even the quote you give there makes no reference to race (in the ethnic sense). There's only one from her that does speak of racial targeting, and that was her expressing concern that the black community might be distrustful of a white-run contraception campaign and seeking the support of black leaders. It wouldn't matter anyway - an organisation is not bound to enforce the views of a long-dead founder, and her views were not at all out of the mainstream in the
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Not engaging in blatant racial discrimination is nothing like intentionally writing bad loans because you have no skin in the game.
Banks had no skin in the game because the government took all the risk. They did this purposely to enable the writing of mortgages to low income people who otherwise might not be able to qualify. At the time, banks were being charged with racism for not qualifying more low income people. So it was a political move by the government in the name of helping the poor. It was motivated by serving the poor, just as is the pressure on Amazon to serve the poor.
Now, if you want to read racism into that, if you vi
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It is now truly discriminating to the underprivileged because we are letting people who don't have the funds to pay for "same day", have the option to use it. Sort of like the Lottery.
Two thumbs up to the people who love to keep the poor man down..
You are winning the game.
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It doesn't make financial sense to provide sewage or clean water to some areas. It doesn't make financial sense to provide them with telephone service either. In fact, you have to wonder why the government wastes money maintaining the roads in those areas, I mean there are roads in more populated areas that need fixing and would benefit many more people.
Obviously this is a meritocracy though, so if these disadvantages have any negative effect on people's lives, well it's their own fault for not trying hard
Re: Perfect (Score:2)
I bet if righties looked back at the history of their respective countries they'd see a lot of formerly poor people helped out by being given a helping hand, whether by government our charity or just by an employee who wasn't a robber baron.
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It is silly that the politicians prioritized this as a way to "help the poor". Here is a handy checklist to help them prioritize better:
Priorities for helping the poor:
1. Jobs
2. Decent education
3. Affordable housing
4. Unleaded drinking water
Not a priority:
1. Expensive same-day delivery for junk that they don't need and can't afford.
What the hell are you mouthing off about? (Score:1)
Once again, those poor stupid incompetent minorities are rescued from having to better themselves in any conceivable way, thanks to us heroic progressives who are always around to babysit and control them for their own good.
These neighborhoods are poorly served and over-charged by local retailers.
It should tell the geek something when subscribing to Amazon Prime at $99/yr can save the urban poor time and money they do not have to spare. It is a revelation on the same scale as the Sears, Roebuck catalogs were to rural communities of all shapes and colors in the 1890s.
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And why do those local retailers over-charge? Because of low demand and higher rates of theft. The market prices things fairly, let it work.
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These neighborhoods are poorly served and over-charged by local retailers.
Then why don't the people living in these neighborhoods open competing shops, and drive the bad retailers out of business while making a nice profit?
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"Then why don't the people living in these neighborhoods open competing shops, and drive the bad retailers out of business while making a nice profit?"
That is the point of cooperatives, though for some reasons they are not popular in the US for setting up retail and grocery stores as elsewhere in the world. I grew up in a small remote town with one town cooperative grocery store. This was to ensure there was an accessible grocery store that did not price gouge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_co
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The last laugh goes to Amazon . . . (Score:3)
Once again, those poor stupid incompetent minorities are rescued from having to better themselves in any conceivable way, thanks to us heroic progressives who are always around to babysit and control them for their own good.
Amazon has just hired a specialist to handle deliveries to difficult areas.
His name is Aaron Hernandez.
A thought about no go zones (Score:2)
I honestly think things like this is the best for society. Not because it hurts the retailer because its exposed to theft or vandalism. But because it forces society to actually deal with no go zones.
Once they actually exist, they are mapped, and they should be dealt with.
Even if it ends with a escort of armed police to the no go zones to get the package delivered, its a start. I agree that a start isn't a means or a end, but its a start.
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It wasn't about no-go zones. It was a calculation involving the number of Amazon customers for a population in an area.
No, no it was not. It doesn't necessarily cost them more to deliver to other parts of the same city, especially in places like literally anywhere in the bay area, where the rich neighborhoods are closely interspersed with the poor ones. I lived in Bernal Heights, which is wealthy lesbian territory, and literally the bottom of the hill is a project with dumpsters in the street, and maybe stuff on fire too. Unless, of course, you've got trucks getting jacked.
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They're not going to be earning many dollars if their delivery people get robbed every 30 minutes.
Then Amazon shouldn't be in the delivery business. UPS and FedEx can get the job done.
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Re:Redlining... (Score:4, Informative)
My memory is fuzzy but I think some people call this concept free market capitalism.
It's called redlining in the financial industry, where banks don't open branch offices in poorer neighborhoods and those residents pay outrageous interest charges to payday lenders because they don't have access to basic banking services. Bernie Sanders had proposed letting the postal service offer basic banking services to all Americans. Something that the post office used to do a long time ago.
In fact, Sanders's idea is quite sensible. "Postal banking"—which just means that post offices run savings accounts, cash checks, and perform other basic financial services—is common in most of Asia and Europe, and only about 7 percent of the world's national postal systems don't offer some bank-like services. Postal banking is a really good way to reach people who haven't had access to standard savings accounts. One estimate figures that more than 1 billion people have used post offices for making deposits.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/bernie-sanders-lets-turn-post-offices-into-banks/411589/ [theatlantic.com]
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You are misconstruing two different types of access - physical access and creditworthiness.
Redlining in the financial industry is a well know problem that's been going on for decades. You're more likely to find multiple payday lenders than a bank branch in a poor neighborhood. You're also more likely to find more liquor stores, fast food restaurants, and industrial plants in a poor neighborhood. If the poor have no money, why are these business located here in an abundance?
I'm okay with the concept of postal banking, though in an age of online banks, I'm not sure what real advantage it serves.
You expect poor people to own a computer to access online banking? Oh, wait. I forgot the Obama phone. They can do online ban
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It's not your memory that's fuzzy. It's your capacity for thinking. Free market capitalism is an imaginary superhero that doesn't and shouldn't exist without reasonable oversight and regulation. It is the theoretical "solution" that people who don't want to think too hard invoke, in a desperate attempt to feel like they're contributing to a conversation.
"But .. but .. the free market!"
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Except this whole article is about SAME DAY delivery, which no, UPS and FedEX can't do for Amazon - that's the WHOLE POINT.
They can already get 1-2 day delivery from UPS/FedEx/etc, but same day is done via Amazon couriers, and basically, they are hesitant to deliver to certain neighborhoods. It's basically like an Uber Black driver picking up in South Central LA. Will someone do it? Maybe, but they are going to charge $$$.
Re:Redlining... (Score:4, Informative)
Amazon isn't in the delivery business. They're in the retail business.
You haven't been keeping up with the news.
But some analysts believe that Amazon is putting together the pieces across the globe to launch a package-delivery service that will one day compete with UPS, FedEx and others. In addition to the Colis Prive deal, Amazon acquired the right to purchase 4.2 percent of Yodel, a United Kingdom parcel-delivery company, in 2014. Last month, Amazon announced adding thousands of trucks to its U.S. fleet to handle the growing load of packages it is shipping.
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazons-delivery-ambitions-take-on-industry-giants/ [seattletimes.com]
Re: Redlining... (Score:2)
Retail is the wrong word. For some reason we all forgot this stuff is called e-commerce.
Second Amazon is in the business of selling everything and logistically shipment is the last bit to be truly optimized with the kinds of data analytics that they are running in the rest of the distribution chain.
They can predict you will buy something before you buy it. The parcel companies can't optimize for that because they don't have the data.
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The Amazon analytics system didn't care either. It only cares about the number of Amazon customers and Prime subscribers in an area. Not enough customers, no reason to offer same day delivery. It shouldn't be surprising that people in poor areas have more important things to spend their money on than an Amazon subscription. That's the cold hard facts, but facts don't matter to SJW's.
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A low-risk dollar is objectively a better dollar.
If that was the case, Amazon shouldn't be in the delivery business. Not enough low-risk dollars to justify building out a delivery fleet.
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Not enough low-risk dollars to justify building out a delivery fleet.
How, exactly, do you know that? Are you privy to Amazon's Prime subscriber maps and same day delivery sales figures?
Or did you just make that up to fit your preferred conclusion?
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How, exactly, do you know that?
Because building out brick-and-mortar infrastructure is expensive.
Or did you just make that up to fit your preferred conclusion?
I recently had a half-dozen packages stolen from my post office box. An obvious inside job. The postal inspector inspector launched an investigation. I informed the vendors what happened, they sent out replacement packages. Because they had to offer free shipping to compete with Amazon and postal insurance pays a pittance, they had to eat the cost of $500 in merchandise. If the vendors are lucky, the postal inspector can recover the stolen pa
Re: Redlining... (Score:1)
It's negative dollars when your product is stolen and your driver was murdered.
But you wouldn't know that. You sit in your mansion on the hill, windows pointed away from the poor...never helping them. You disgust me.
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But you wouldn't know that. You sit in your mansion on the hill, windows pointed away from the poor...never helping them. You disgust me.
I live in a apartment complex in Silicon Valley where my Amazon packages routinely walk off when left behind by the mail carrier. Other than the people in the leasing office, I'm the only white person at this complex. I'm considered "poor" because I make only $50,000 per year as an IT support technician, don't own a McMansion, and take public transit. Boo-hoo!
The people who works minimum wage and speaks English as a second language thinks my situation is hilarious.
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I suspect that packages may be more likely to be stolen from rich neighborhoods than poor neighborhoods -- because they're much more likely to have something valuable in them. I live in a low income apartment complex project. and nobody has ever stolen any of my amazon packages, which are often left outside by my door for a day. Thieves and neighbors probably realize I can't afford any orders worth the risk of stealing.
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Organised thieves might also recognise the disparity in investigation though. Steal packages from the slums, the police couldn't care less - even if the crime is reported they'll just fill in the form and file it away. Steal packages from a rich enough district that the people there actually have influence and you risk instigating an actual investigation - the sort where they look at CCTV footage and numberplate recognition records, or even station an unmarked car and some bait packages. A thief would need
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The drug dealer living at his apartment complex makes more than $50k, and he's probably the one stealing his Amazon shit too.
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The drug dealer living at his apartment complex makes more than $50k, and he's probably the one stealing his Amazon shit too.
When I first moved into my apartment 10+ years ago, you could walk around the complex and smell 20 different kinds of weeds. Drug dealer moved out a long time ago. Today you could probably smell 20 different kinds of curry.
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Making only $50k doing IT in Silly Valley? Sounds like you're doing something wrong.
Like what exactly? Not everyone in Silicon Valley is a newly minted millionaire.
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with the wage depression in active full-out attack on engineers (if you are h1b, you are fine; if you were born here, you can go die in a cardboard box down by the river for all the ceo's could care) - its FULLY understandable that even skilled and experienced software guys will be at poverty level in this area.
I can directly speak to that. been out of work for a while now, my savings are dangerously low and I'm not sure what is going to happen if I can't find work before the money runs out.
h1b is destroyi
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if you are an h1b, you will likely share a room with a roomate and if you are in a house, the house will be packed with people from your country.
The H1Bs that I know are single males living alone in a brand new condo that they bought. They complain about the high ceilings all the time. Almost as bad as the hipsters complaining about their 30 minute commute from San Francisco.
I can fully understand someone being skilled, born here and trying to work their ass off to make ends meet and still being in poverty level, relatively.
Most people get into trouble because they want the big house, big cars, big women and big kids. That's very expensive to do in Silicon Valley. If you live a modest lifestyle, you're considered "poor" for not keeping up with the Jones.
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Utterly unqualified new college grads are making $100k+ these days.
Must be a bachelor degree. I only got two associates degrees. The first one is A.A. degree in General Education after I graduated from eight years of Special Ed, skipped high school, and went to community college. A decade later I got A.S. in computer programming to get into IT.
For fuck's sake either ask for more (you seem sharp enough!) or stop complaining.
I'm not complaining. I don't have a problem living in Silicon Valley on $50,000 per year. Everyone else has a problem that I'm living in Silicon Valley on $50,000 per year.
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The guys serving fries at McDonalds are making more money than you. Find another job.
I make a lot more than minimum wage ($15 per hour).
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Like doing tier 1 support for COMCAST.
I'm a senior system administrator for government IT.
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Ahh...but what if there aren't enough dollars being spent in these locations to justify the investment required to enable the 1 day service?
This is a far more likely explanation for the lack of offering the service to these areas in the first place than the discrimination card the article seems to want to play instead.
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They understand it perfectly, which is why they didn't go where there are no dollars.
first world problems (Score:1)
omg had to wait extra days, that's like oppression
fewer choices (Score:4, Insightful)
There are no Maserati dealers in poor areas either. I wonder why not?
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Sure there are. They just deal carjacked ones.
Nope. Stolen exotics either get taken on a joyride and abandoned (or crashed and abandoned) or they get put into a container and shipped to the middle east where they blend in with all the other exotics, and probably get run into the ground and then abandoned in the desert, or just parked in a garage for all eternity. The mideast was just chock full of awesome barn scores (mostly Mercedes, they used to just fucking love to import those) until we blew it up.
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Or scrapped for parts. It's very hard to fence an entire car, but the parts alone are worth a fair bit and much easier to shift.
Do poor neighborhoods buy as much stuff as others? (Score:1)
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To Amazon it's all the same regardless because either way they're in the red. The up side for them is that any competition basically has to follow suit. It's just another way to raise the barrier to entry, for them.
I would have told them to go take a hike (Score:4, Insightful)
Same day delivery is a luxury. As a business you want to please as many of your customers as possible as it correlates to making a profit.
Wealthier neighborhoods order more stuff. Those customers in effect do get (and rightly so) more of a consideration when it comes to service. Smaller areas that correspond to more business. You need fewer drivers than for servicing an entire city. Those customers are paying for better service by doing more business with amazon.
I will give better service to customers that deserve it. Period.
Some questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Same day delivery is a luxury. As a business you want to please as many of your customers as possible as it correlates to making a profit.
Wealthier neighborhoods order more stuff. Those customers in effect do get (and rightly so) more of a consideration when it comes to service. Smaller areas that correspond to more business. You need fewer drivers than for servicing an entire city. Those customers are paying for better service by doing more business with amazon.
I will give better service to customers that deserve it. Period.
Out of curiosity, does that position include other luxuries such as cable and internet service?
I bet those companies could roll out good service to "selected" areas that give a great profit, and ignore the marginal profit areas.
Or how about phone service? The per-person infrastructure cost for people in rural areas is staggering!
Maybe we should let the phone company dial back their service in unprofitable areas.
Or how about electricity? Same thing.
Oh please (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can't see the difference you are being deliberately dense. If Amazon offered NO service to an area, that's one thing, however same day delivery service is a pure luxury. Not only is it not necessary to get something same day, you can always get it next day or later, it is something you cannot get in all areas period, or on all items. Not every city or state has same day delivery, and even if your area does, only some items have it as they have to be stocked at the local warehouse.
So trying to argue that not bringing it to some area is somehow the same as not having electricity is asinine.
Further, you discover that in fact some services are NOT available in all areas. Move to a really rural area and try to get cable service. You'll find out the cable company will just flat out say no. The cost is too far in excess of the returns, they won't run the wire. You have to settle for satellite.
Also things like electricity and phone are different in that they are public utilities, specially regulated and subsidized. You generally have no choice in who your electric transport provider is, there's only one grid, and so the government regulates it. Part of that regulation can be provisions for access to difficult areas, paid for by taxes and fees. Part of your phone bill is fees to pay for phone service to remote locations where there is tens of thousands of dollars in radio links and long-haul lines so that the person who gets the service can pay the same as you.
So if you are arguing Amazon should be a regulated utility ok, but that is a different argument, also a pretty nonsensical one given that they are a retail goods store, just one of many.
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Nobody will argue that necessities for a modern lifestyle shouldn't be made available to all.
They will however argue that same-day delivery from Amazon is not a necessity for a modern lifestyle. OP opened with, "same day delivery is a luxury." Not sure where you get off implying
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Extreme arguments are not 'the same thing'.
Whenever things like this come up, I always defer to the idea of what is 'reasonable' for a person to do.
Yeah electricity, phone, cable... what would a rural person have to do if the electric company didn't provide service to their area? Yeah, their ability to use appliances and communicate drops dramatically... maybe even disappears.
What does a person do if Amazon doesn't offer same day shipping? They umm... you know... wait a day. The 'cost' not just in terms of
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People who do valuable things for others can afford to hire others to do valuable things for them. Meanwhile, people who just sit at home watching TV during the day, doing nothing for anyone, have fewer opportunities.
You seem to think non-workers should have a whole range of valuable service choices to choose from, even when they don't provide any service to anyone themselves. Why is that?
Re:I would have told them to go take a hike (Score:4, Insightful)
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Chances are it's not cost effective due to the impact of crime on business.
That the area happens to be an area filled with black people likely never crossed anyone's mind. Chances are whoever (could well be an algorithm) made the decision to serve or not server certain areas did so based on profitability. Chances are also good that whoever made the decision lives in another part of the country, or could even be in a different country altogether. If you aren't a local, how are you going to know?
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A better question is why do people stay in Roxbury if it's run down and crime-ridden and hopeless?
If you look around for a new place, there's always somewhere else to go eventually. My only guess is that the people there are trapped by subsidy checks that will be taken away from them if they improve anything. Perhaps you have a better guess?
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I would expect that it was simply analytics. Take the ZIP codes in a city. Amazon knows the number of prime subscribers in each ZIP code. They know the dollars worth of sales in every ZIP code. Divide either figure by the square mileage of the ZIP code, and you get an easy metric. If it's above a certain threshold, add same-day. If it's not, don't. I'm sure in reality, the metrics are more complex... a combination of the two I mentioned, plus travel speeds on the roads in each ZIP code, distance from
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If you want to live in a mertiocracy, then everyone has to have the same opportunities. While same day delivery might seem frivolous, like many important things you can't arbitrarily pick what counts and what doesn't. For example, bus and taxi services refusing to go to certain areas to clearly going to disadvantage those areas.
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And when taxi drivers keep getting robbed there, they have a full right to not send them.
Sorry, but fuck the part of the city where crime is the highest and you risk the lives of others to provide service. Pizza places that refuse to deliver to the poor parts are smart. You don't have your employees killed over a pizza and $40, It's the smartest thing to do.
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So true. Business needs to make profit, and limited resources need to distributed so that it maximizes shareholder value. For example, if you are the water company, wealthier neighborhoods use more water, and in effect rightfully get more of a consideration when it comes to services, quality and whether or not you will repair that broken pipe. You need less pipes, just thicker ones. These customers are paying for better water by filling their pools with lots and lots of it, while the poor just drink it and
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Really, is it so far removed? I'm quite sure that 99% of Amazons revenue is not from diamond rings and yachts. Maybe not from necessities like water, but the exaggeration merely illuminates the point.
Do we want to live in a society where everything depends on money? Are we homo sapiens, or homo economicus?
Next... (Score:3)
As a next step, they will be forcing Starbucks to open the exact same number of stores in poor, depressed areas as in the center of the city.
Also, city servants will have to spread their living quarters evenly across the cities.
In related news, touristic tour operators will change their sightseeing routes so that an appropriate amount of time is devoted to the dreariest parts of the city. The legislature is divided on the issue of forcing the tourists to take an equal amount of photos in every area, because the egalitarian push will clash with the desire not to offend inhabitants of the slums with the feeling that they are into some kind of zoo. The delicate balancing of these opposing traits is what keep your tax dollars at work.
Yet Another Argument Based on Race / Income (Score:3, Insightful)
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Is this really a problem? (Score:2)
How many ghetto denizens use Amazon to begin with, much less wanting to/being able to pay extra for same day delivery?
typical progressive attack on minorities (Score:3)
This means that Amazon is effectively going to subsidize delivery business into areas where they are making a loss. But now that they are forced to deliver there, they are effectively going to compete with local businesses at those subsidized prices, and they are likely going to skim off their most profitable customers. It's the local equivalent of what politicians always complain about in international trade: dumping.
The net effect is going to be that these areas are going to be more dependent on a corporate behemoth, small businesses are going to disappear, and poorer people are going to have even less choice. Progressive lawmakers like Ed Markey are really doing everything they can to drive up prices, kill minority businesses, and generally impoverish minority communities.
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Fact is: Amazon didn't consider it profitable to go into these areas. That means that other businesses there (perhaps locally and minority owned) meet the demand that exists there more efficiently. If forcing Amazon to deliver to those areas has any effect, it's going to be that Amazon is now going to compete with those local businesses. And if they have to expand their business to those areas anyway, they are going to make sure that they are minimizing their losses, which means that they will try to drive
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Just because you get it faster from amazon does not mean it will be fresh.
Many food items are kept in storage for months before they are shipped out from amazon and typically there is no way to know before buying which amazon seller has the freshest stock or even how long its been sitting there in stock. Chocolate does go bad and twizzlers over a month old are as tough as Goodyear tires.
Amazon doesn't offer same day where I live anyway.
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This actually applies to other stuff as well - there are many products that actually do have an "expiry date" and just bec
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I never pay for "next day delivery" because that could never happen in my small, far away town.
"Same day delivery" sounds like either a miracle or a lie.