From the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, Amazon – that mall in the sky behemoth – has said they would alter its deliveries to prioritize necessities.
Need medicine – stat; socket set – not so much.
I applaud this.
As a frequent Amazon shopper – and if I wasn’t before I sure would be now – I’ve noticed delivery dates pushed out past the normal Prime delivery windows, and that’s just fine.
At the same time, I’ve been getting deliveries well within the normal Prime windows.
Case in point – my last order was for some extra charging cords for my new iPhone SE 2020 – hardly a necessity. These are extra power cords (just the cord – Lighting to USB).
Ordered May 1 before 9am. Promised delivery by end of day Sunday May 3.
Received 3:30pm Saturday, May 2nd.
Wow. Amazon is really making the most of its moment. Kudos.
On the other hand – I feel that Amazon is blowing a huge opportunity to polish its image and lead the change in income inequality (which is going to be one of the many defining battles moving forward).
To put it simply, Amazon is filthy rich. Yet its workers, protesting for safer working conditions – as well as better pay/benefits – are getting fired for these actions. Especially in the age of COVID-19, and even noting that Amazon does seem to be trying to up their worker-safety marks, terminations for making noises about this seem chickenshit.
To put it simply, Amazon is acting like a modern-day Robber Baron.
With its enormous wealth, Amazon could effort to push some of those huge profits down from management/stockholders to a lot of the people doing the actual work. I’m not dinging logistics or whatever, but at the end of the day, it’s the folks in and around the warehouses that make this Prime magic happen.
Amazon – to paraphrase the First Lady: Be better. Pay and care more – and reap the PR benefits to keep that profitable machine that is Amazon going and growing.
Yeah, pie in the sky liberal claptrap, but I really think Amazon has an opportunity here. Depending on the day, Amazon chief (and visionary) Jeff Bezos is the world’s first or second richest person.
Would falling to third or fourth really be the end of everything? And the pressure he could bring to bear on other large corporations?
Update (later same day) – Tim Bray quits over Amazon firing whistleblowers:
Remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised. So I resigned.
— Bray, in his 4/29/2020 blog entry
Bray – co-inventor of XML with an incredible résumé – was a VP earning $1 million+. His last day was May 1, 2020.
This is putting your money where your mouth is, big time. And it sends a loud message, as Bray is very well-known and seems the opposite of a tech jerk.
Good for Bray (whom I’ve followed on his blog for years).