Unfortunately they won't, people want their cheap crap right now no matter how much suffering it causes for the underprivileged.
Thousands of people have stopped buying anything from Amazon, and the only change in the world is that those people don’t get the convenience that Amazon provides; Amazon is still doing all the same things.
As an individual, your only two choices are: shop at Amazon and get the benefits and Amazon still exists exactly as it does today, or don’t shop at Amazon, don’t get the benefits, and Amazon still exists exactly as it does today. The only person that suffers if I stop shopping at Amazon is me, it doesn’t make one persons life better.
This is a Collective Action Problem, and it can’t be fixed by consumer choice.
I know this is an unpopular opinion on HN but it always comes back to governments being the ones who need to regulate industry because literally nobody else has both the incentives and the power to enact that kind of change. You either have industry self regulate, but as we’ve seen, the incentives just isn’t there for them to behave. Or the customers boycotting a business, and has been discussed already, customers can’t agree on a collective action large enough to make any difference at all.
If a boycott is organized and specific, with an obtainable demand, it can work. A general “we don’t like Amazon’s business practice so don’t shop there” won’t work, but a “everyone in our 2 million member group won’t shop there until you grant workers X benefit, and we will also boycott any partner company until it happens” has an actual chance of success, since there is a specific thing for Amazon to base a choice on (is the cost of the lost business more than benefit x). If I just don’t patronize them but don’t have a specific demand, Amazon isn’t going to be put into any sort of position to make a trade off decision.
A boycott is never going to put a company out of business.
Prices on things you'd actually want to buy, well known quality brand, are often the same price else where. With unknown brands you're usually better off paying more else where to make sure you get something that someone somewhere in the company decided wasn't totally terrible and worth selling instead of AliExpress drop seller garbage.
Which is funny because one step I've had to adopt to avoid fraud is going to the manufacturer's website to find where to buy the item. I can't trust the amazon listing that comes up on a search.
It's less about wanting cheap crap now and more about amazon having a huge market presence that makes avoiding them difficult.
But even before that, I feel like there is enough information on working at Amazon at this point that anyone with the ability to choose between Amazon and another job should pick the latter. Worker strikes are just as effective.
If you're successful at causing amazon to crumble and they lose their job, would you really feel good?
Imagine telling them they don't have job anymore because you know better than them whats good for them
This feels like a bit of a straw man — if Amazon start losing potential sales because people don't like how they're treating their workers, they'll fix their workers rights before they let the company crumble out of spite.
Customer pressure is a real lever in these scenarios.
Choice. Not having it makes you a victim.
We should not blame victims
> amazon to crumble and they lose their job, would you really feel good?
That is a false dichotomy
Amazon crowds out alternatives
Do you support that? Almost certainly not. So the only resolution is you don't actually believe this argument.
I'm guessing Amazon pays above average and that's why people keep working for them despite their reputation. The people there have a choice. Keep making more at Amazon but be treated poorly, and that's a choice they make.
If Amazon doesn't like a worker, they can fire them.
If a worker doesn't like Amazon, they can quit.
You can hate Amazon, thats fine, you can choose to never work for Amazon, thats fine, but lets not lie to ourselves. The people who choose to work at Amazon want to work there. They all applied, accepted the job, and show up every day.
No it doesn't, you're fully allowed to switch once you've paid off your debt. The debt that people chose to take on in exchange for housing, transportation, a new shot at life.
That's not my argument of course, but it's a hypothetical argument if you want to appeal to the "free market always good" type people.
> If Amazon doesn't like a worker, they can fire them.
> If a worker doesn't like Amazon, they can quit.
False dichotomy, you've run head-first into the hypocrisy of modern Capitalism. These actions do not have equal power because the labor market is not a free market.
Amazon firing a worker can literally cost them their life, whereas a worker leaving does nothing to Amazon. This is because the labor market is almost perfectly tipped, rigged, in the employer's (buyer's) favor.
In order to fix the leverage and create a free market, the employees would need to unionize, which is the correct solution here. Then, if Amazon does something evil, the employees can say "fix it or we walk" and that actually means something.
> The people who choose to work at Amazon want to work there
Your understanding of choice is infantile, almost comically so. You're purposefully leaving out the pressure of life from this decision. I think you'll find starvation a powerful coercive technique.