The cost of next-day delivery | Hacker News Reader

The cost of next-day delivery

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20 pointsjmsflknr21 comments

> the Seattle-based giant dictates almost every aspect of that operation, down to what drivers wear, what vans they use, what routes they follow, and how many packages they must deliver each day.

This really isn’t true in my experience. I’ve seen plenty of Amazon packages delivered by people in Uhaul vans, minivans, etc not wearing Amazon apparel.

Same. I've seen them starting to use Amazon branded vans more often now, but occasionally still get deliveries from people in jeans and a tshirt driving an old sedan.

You have just missed Amazon Flex:

https://flex.amazon.com/

If you get any group of people to run 5 million errands a week by car, won’t some of them get into accidents, and do stupid things? How do Amazon’s drivers compare to baseline expectations?

TLDR:

1) Amazon offers fast package delivery.

2) To meet customer delivery expectations, Amazon hires contract delivery vans that are expected to deliver packages on schedule.

3) Sometimes, these vans get into car accidents that kill people.

4) When sued for wrongful death, Amazon denies responsibility for car accident fatalities involving the delivery company they contract with.

is there anything new / interesting here that I'm missing?

No. Nothing else.

I understand that "Faster, better, cheaper" is a mantra for businesses like this, but there's a limit - you can only get so close. The public has forced business to do this. Perhaps businesses should push back just a little...

When you choose a later delivery option does Amazon actually treat the package differently and their people better? I'm not convinced that the order doesn't just sit in their system until ship date where it is blended in with all the other orders for same day delivery.

>When you choose a later delivery option does Amazon actually treat the package differently and their people better?

No.

Yes, a few important things. Read it again

Sounds like a job for robots.

No need, they have biorobots

Bio robots are better off doing higher level, fulfilling, mental work instead of dangerous grunt work.

Bio robots are cheaper to procure, maintain and repurpose, and easier to replace when damaged than actual robots in most cases, making them preferable for menial and dangerous grunt work.

Also there aren't enough "higher level, fulfilling, mental work" jobs to go around, and there will be even fewer once those begin to be automated as well.

Plus, if Amazon unleashed a fleet of robots, every accident would be scrutinized by press and possibly by authorities. With bio robots they can literally cause carnage and no one cares.

And some of us enjoy physically demanding, hard work. Do it for fun actually! But that's because we spend most days not doing it I guess.

After reading this article, I'm happy to report that Capitalism is alive and well everybody!

This isn't capitalism. This is a bug in capitalism which regulation needs to fix right now.

Is the bug you're referring to coercing people of a lower caste into overworking for next to nothing? Or escaping blame from what shell companies are doing at your orders?

Sarcasm aside, both of these things have been an issue for centuries. And while I'm not anti-regulation by any stretch, I think we've found that regulation doesn't work too well when the company(ies) being regulated have more money than god. We need a new weapon.

Both of these.

It's a fact that capitalism is the only economic system that's not ended in bloodshed. Having an underclass is a horrible outcome, it's just more desirable than the alternative. We need to figure out how to fix the bugs, not toss out the foundation of civilisation.

This is precisely capitalism. The market has decided that this degree of exploitation is preferable to longer delivery times and higher prices to offset labor costs, and Amazon has capitalized on that market need, and maximized their profits.

Correcting the market by increasing the cost of non-compliance is also, still capitalism.

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