Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/08/as-opposition-grows-maybe-ama.html
Amazon’s plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a NYC campus is under fire from locals, as more details are revealed of what was promised to Jeff Bezos’ empire.
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Break. Up. Monopolies.
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Interviewer: “So, Mr Bezos, what do you think of extortion?”
JB: “It’s a horrible thing when a so-called news organization engages in bribery and blackmail for political ends.”
I: “and what about demanding massive corporate subsidies from local governments in exchange for promises to locate some of your company’s workers there? Isn’t that also extortion?”
JB: “Error, error, analyse error, examine error.”
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I am finally curious enough to ask: How?
- Split the assets and org chart evenly into a bunch of competitors?
- Split the services offered into separate companies but still potentially monopolies?
- Some sort of regional split like the Bells?
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I’m no anti-trust expert, but when cities and corporations aren’t courting eachother, but rather the courtship is exploitatively one-sided, the corps are Too Big. Option 1 works for my untrained eye once things have gotten out of control, but ideally an ounce of prevention would keep anyone from getting this big in the first place.
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First, don’t buy anything from Amazon.
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Given all the secrecy, I’m unclear how much of what’s been promised has even been revealed at this point, nor how much the final deal could alter things.
It seems like Amazon always intended to go to New York, to the point where they turned down better offers elsewhere, so presumably the city could offer them a much less sweet deal and still get them to move there. Assuming that’s what New York decided it wanted - I’m skeptical that bringing in one large company is such a good idea, after seeing big giveaways to corporations locally - lots of resources put into a deal with one company that then changed its mind, causing the loss of everything. Plus, it’s New York - plenty of other companies would like to be there.
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Nuke from orbit.
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Good luck with that.
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I have never bought anything from Amazon.
I can’t imagine I’m alone.
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Wash Post had the exclusive? Gee, wonder how that worked out. No doubt some gumshoe journalism right there. 
amazon.com is hardly the limit of amazon’s reach tho.
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Aparently some websites I visit use AWS. But I can’t control that.
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and that’s part of the point.
there’s whole foods, of course, and kindle. imdb, and other properties.
there’s also stuff like boingboing which use affiliate products to help keep the lights on.
point being, you don’t need to buy from amazon to help support it. ( that living without amazon link has more details )
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Send them to one of those red states full of millionaire cultists. They’re pretty desperate to kiss Bezos ass, and throw tax breaks his way. Meanwhile I’ll sit back and enjoy the fire.
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I am free of these however. I was given a Dot for Christmas and I gave it away.
I’m not completely virtuous, I admit. I patronize Apple and Google.
So how is Amazon not considered the same business model as Foxconn?
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Turns out “shit” smells like “shit” even if you smear Bezos on it.
I wouldn’t call Amazon a monopoly. They represent about half of all US e-commerce, but only about 5% of all US retail. On a global basis, they are 1% of all retail.
Walmart’s annual revenues in 2018 were more than double Amazon’s at $500B vs $233B. Walmart’s EBITDA is still higher at $32B vs $25B.
And then on the international stage, you have Alibaba, Otto, JD, etc.
