First off: everything you have said about "voting with your dollars" I legit and totally agree with you.
I also obviously have FEELZ about this, and so:
My brother was in the Navy, and I was at first excited when he left to have more time with his kids (even when on shore leave, he still had to spend nights guarding the aircraft carrier and every fourth weekend or something). Plus I was never really a fan of my brother working directly for the military industrial complex and worried for the state of his soul or whatnot.
Then he got a job for Amazon at one of their warehouses as a manager which was pretty brutal (both in terms of what he had to do, the not-climate-controlled-part, and I don't think he ever treated employees that way in the Navy). Later he climbed into corporate in Seattle, and now he works 60+ hours a week, is on call most weekends, is sometimes still *in* Seattle at 9 pm dining clients or teleconferencing overseas or fixing a software bug. His kids are in daycare or school 12 hours a day during the school week (which he and his wife can afford with his Amazon job and her doctoring).
Plus at least with the Navy, any ethical violations could technically be held accountable to Congressional committee or military tribunal or whatnot. I feel this is more likely than Amazon going to court over most of the shit that they do.
Not that I pity my brother -- he has made his choices and has his fancy house and savings accounts for college for his kids -- but holy chickens, batman. The whole NYTimes article about how Amazon treats white collar workers is not something I doubt (nor do I doubt any of the reports I hear about any of their other workers.)
I recently read something about Amazon not selling devices in their store that don't read Kindle ebooks? So no Nooks or whatever. Which in my brain I was all, "Maybe now there will be an anti-Trust suit!" But so far nothing, and even then the fines would be a drop in Amazon's profit bucket.
Also my parents still subscribe to WaPo (Bezos' private propaganda machine!) and their coverage of both Amazon and other corporations is really...like, they throw some *serious* shade in the direction of competitors. I can't remember exact wording but it's things like, "Target, the struggling big-box behemoth, is redesigning their retail stores in big cities in an effort to stay relevant with millenial shoppers." Or "Gamestop announces sale of classic video games as shoppers move online." >.> Or anytime there's something negative with Amazon going on, it's covered deeeep in the A section in a tiny column next to something negative about a competitor. And they also ran a multi-part front page series on the dangers of drones which I think was a push to be all, "Look we need modern drone regulations they could land on your lawn because of hobbyists! Wouldn't it be better if a company like Amazon controlled drones? Why isn't the FCC issuing new regulations already!"
Re: If you're going to lie, lie BIG
I also obviously have FEELZ about this, and so:
My brother was in the Navy, and I was at first excited when he left to have more time with his kids (even when on shore leave, he still had to spend nights guarding the aircraft carrier and every fourth weekend or something). Plus I was never really a fan of my brother working directly for the military industrial complex and worried for the state of his soul or whatnot.
Then he got a job for Amazon at one of their warehouses as a manager which was pretty brutal (both in terms of what he had to do, the not-climate-controlled-part, and I don't think he ever treated employees that way in the Navy). Later he climbed into corporate in Seattle, and now he works 60+ hours a week, is on call most weekends, is sometimes still *in* Seattle at 9 pm dining clients or teleconferencing overseas or fixing a software bug. His kids are in daycare or school 12 hours a day during the school week (which he and his wife can afford with his Amazon job and her doctoring).
Plus at least with the Navy, any ethical violations could technically be held accountable to Congressional committee or military tribunal or whatnot. I feel this is more likely than Amazon going to court over most of the shit that they do.
Not that I pity my brother -- he has made his choices and has his fancy house and savings accounts for college for his kids -- but holy chickens, batman. The whole NYTimes article about how Amazon treats white collar workers is not something I doubt (nor do I doubt any of the reports I hear about any of their other workers.)
I recently read something about Amazon not selling devices in their store that don't read Kindle ebooks? So no Nooks or whatever. Which in my brain I was all, "Maybe now there will be an anti-Trust suit!" But so far nothing, and even then the fines would be a drop in Amazon's profit bucket.
Also my parents still subscribe to WaPo (Bezos' private propaganda machine!) and their coverage of both Amazon and other corporations is really...like, they throw some *serious* shade in the direction of competitors. I can't remember exact wording but it's things like, "Target, the struggling big-box behemoth, is redesigning their retail stores in big cities in an effort to stay relevant with millenial shoppers." Or "Gamestop announces sale of classic video games as shoppers move online." >.> Or anytime there's something negative with Amazon going on, it's covered deeeep in the A section in a tiny column next to something negative about a competitor. And they also ran a multi-part front page series on the dangers of drones which I think was a push to be all, "Look we need modern drone regulations they could land on your lawn because of hobbyists! Wouldn't it be better if a company like Amazon controlled drones? Why isn't the FCC issuing new regulations already!"
/rant