Hacker News Reader

Comment by walterbell | Hacker News Reader

In what way is this story "skeptical and/or negative"? It quotes Bezos and summarizes Amazon's lobbying objectives, i.e. the article is itself engaging in lobbying.

View on HN

Yeah, I don't think people notice advertorials or understand motives for things like this. Its just to get the news out that amazon is open for business in the upcoming election cycle.

I suppose that some people believe all lobbying is bad.

walterbell makes a good point I hadn't thought of though: from a board of directors point of view, this may be a positive piece that encourages investors.

I don't really see any negative spin at all. Amazon is portrayed as a business just trying to get things done in "backwards" Washington DC.

They are made out to seem like they don't even know what they are doing, "Amazon is really having to learn how to navigate all these things," even though they are spending nearly 10 million dollars on lobbying, have numerous contracts with the federal government and have a former whitehouse press secretary as a senior vp?

This is pretty much an amazon fluff piece.

It's what zwily said. Among the majority population, lobbying is seen as what businesses do to get laws written that are favorable to their interests, including tax breaks, energy subsidies, etc. In concept people understand that when a congressperson needs to learn about something in order to make a decision, he or she should be talking to experts. In practice (the perception is) those experts tend to try to persuade more than educate. So, in the example of the drones flying for example, the lawmakers may be learning of all of the good outcomes of easing FAA regs and letting Amazon fly drones, and may even distinguish between large companies (or another grouping in which Amazon falls) and a grouping that their competitors may fall into (say, smaller companies) in a way that becomes a barrier to entry for the competitors. This will obviously be seen as reasonable in some sense, but there may have been a better way to do things that didn't raise the barrier for competition. Amazon lobbyists are unlikely to help the congressperson understand that other way.

At least, that's how some perceive it.

Are you saying this is not how it is? There is a lot of downvoting of anti-lobbying sentiment here, but I haven't seen a reasonable explanation as to why yet, and I'm curious. Everything I've read tends to indicate that it's a net negative for society when well funded, non-objective parties essentially write the laws.

I think it can be that way, but I don't know if it always is. For instance, in making marine laws for pleasure boaters lobbying occurs where a group (BoatUS, for example, or the non-profit United States Power Squadrons) will push for a law (or to prevent one) without a real profit motive. These are about things like requiring people to wear life jackets in dinghies or being allowed to anchor in certain regions.

Lobbying of the DC public has a role, but should not be mistaken for journalism.

Lobbying by large corporations is bad, period. This is not just "speech", this is a wheel of bribery and legislation-writing. It is replacing any hope of democracy with corporate rule.

It's not all bad, but the bad outweighs the good by such a large value that the net sum is harmful to society. We would be better off without it. The problem with lobbying is it is a feedback loop which affects further lobbying, and lobbyists today have far too much power. It's because money is involved.

Hmm, interesting point.

I think that most companies that engage in lobbying try to keep such activity relatively quiet, and aren't interested in having it exposed or written about.

I'm not saying that lobbying is bad; I realize that it's part of the process. But I do think that many lobbyists prefer a lack of transparency and exposure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com