The talk here about sticking at a job that makes you cry, when you have in demand skills and can work anywhere, is nuts to me.
Other comments on this post indicate that Google and FB pay more than Amazon, but I'd probably have to take a sizable pay cut to work elsewhere.
There are other companies besides Amazon that say this. Because of this, it can't possibly be true. The only way to know for sure is to brush up your resume and see if you can get some better offers. Don't take your boss's promise that you're well paid. They can't possibly be objective about it.
They purposely break up teams that get too big in order to keep with the idea of "two pizza teams", that is, a team small enough that two pizzas would be enough to feed everyone. The team and managers set the tone of culture at this level. At the next level up, the smaller teams coalesce into the upper org headed by a vp or whatever. The upper management here and the team managers sets the culture for cross team interactions.
It can therefore be possible to be on a good team if your managers are proactive and shield their team, but managers also have a ton on their plate and are beholden to the same power structures that are attempting to grind them into dust.
There was one manager that was beloved by all in the org because he took care of his direct reports - he saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship to a greenfield project in a different org. A bunch of senior engineers followed along shortly after.
But yeah it does sound a bit crazy to me as well. Perhaps some of their employees are there on work visa and don't want to risk them and their family having to relocate to another country again. But I don't think that's the case for all the people whom complain.
If there were an easy way out, the commenter would have found it. What he or she needs is respect, empathy, and support for finding a not-so-easy way out of it. If you can't do that, please don't reply, regardless of how annoying you find the comments.