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Comment by msutherl | Hacker News Reader

Great for consumers like us, but terrible for all of the people who work ridiculous hours under constant stress on warehouse floors or do deliveries day in and day out. I try to buy from brick & mortar shops purely because running a shop is a job that has a shred of dignity left in it.

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Yes, everyone who deals with the general public knows how unstressful and dignifying that is. That is, besides having to deal with blatant sexism[1], extreme ignorance[2], elderly genitalia[3], stealing[4], destruction of property[5], physical violence[6], bigotry[7], etc.

[1]: http://notalwaysright.com/man-up-and-let-a-woman-fix-it/2136...

[2]: http://notalwaysright.com/spyware-is-strength/21253

[3]: http://notalwaysright.com/at-least-we-know-her-natural-color...

[4]: http://notalwaysright.com/to-conjugate-a-thief/20886

[5]: http://notalwaysright.com/customers-can-be-tiring/20828

[6]: http://notalwaysright.com/cuffed-red-handed/20707

[7]: http://notalwaysright.com/bigotry-gets-served/20336

If you like that sort of thing, http://www.actsofgord.com/ is a bit old but very, very cathartic.

Thanks for the link. I remember being endlessly entertained by Gord's stories, I'll have to revisit them one of these days.

Right, so you have 7 links to the same site, all written from the point of view of the wronged assistance. Wow. If that is not proof of nothing, then I do not know what is.

Who else but "wronged assistance" would demonstrate their point?

When you talk about conditions at Amazon warehouses, I assume you're referring to this article (or similar): http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f...

You should know that Amazon bought Kiva Systems earlier this year, so they'll be replacing human picking with efficient robot picking over the next couple of years.

Your job becomes to stand there on a foam mat and move whichever item the laser points at from the cart to the box. This job will almost certainly be automated in the next decade as well, with something like FlexPicker.

Kiva Systems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvQKGev56qU

FlexPicker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHuDvVa7mkw

It's not intended as a proof. If you need proof that these behaviors exist, I'm afraid you'll have to spend some time in retail spaces.

Personally, I've seen all of these - and then some - simply by visiting shops in my daily life and knowing people who've worked in those places, and I'm reasonably sure that most people have as well.

Most comments on my post are supportive, for instance this one:

"You seem to be saying that as a defense of Amazon's treatment of warehouse workers. It's not. Read the Mother Jones article linked above [...] the unseen and unregulated treatment of the hidden workers who make our amazing lives possible is a huge, unsolved problem in the world."

But I'm getting down-voted. Do people seriously think that supporting mass mistreatment of workers is o.k.? I'm sorry, but automating factory floors is not inexpensive enough to happen on a mass scale yet, which means that consumer pressure for faster shipping = inhumane working conditions for the people who pack the boxes. This is a legitimate dilemma and I meant only to point out that out.

Yes, it's better than the alternative for the people working, since they're working there after all. But that doesn't make it o.k.

Yesterday I ordered a used book from Amazon, and remembering the static shocks in that Mother Jones article (btw, wearing a metal thimble to touch the shelves with seems like it would fix those shocks), I was faced with a moral dilemma. But how was I to solve it.

Pick one of the higher priced used book options? How do I know they aren't using the same distribution warehouse and just pocketing the difference.

Without a "doesn't treat workers like crap" seal of approval, I don't see what I could have done. I'd love to subscribe to a white-list/black-list of sellers on Amazon for various ethical measures but it isn't there.

I can't help but think that both of those jobs (warehouse/delivery) will be obsoleted in the near future with the development of more advanced robotics.

Maybe, but technocratic types have been proclaiming the imminent death of human involvement in logistics, at the hands of robotics, for many, many years now.

Some Amazon FCs are already fully automated (Marston Gate in Luton, UK for example), and they recently bought Kiva Systems for $775 million, who do just that (http://techland.time.com/2012/03/21/amazons-775-million-acqu...)

The nature of this is actually a bit different here (here being China). Undoubtedly, some of these products are coming from distribution centers. However, many of them come from small brick and mortar shops and they use this as a means to augment their business. It's pretty common for product pages to also feature the shops where the products are being sold from.

The distribution is generally done by courier companies. It's usually a guy on a bicycle with a bunch of packages that ends up either picking up the package or delivering it on the end. I've seen just about every means of transportation imaginable used to transport packages.

Of course, there are still people losing out and there are still distribution centers in the middle. Plus, there are the people working on the factory floors that are making the products in the first place.

Ordering online is incredibly convenient and it gives access to such a wide range of products that I can't imagine it going away any time soon. I think that in any system someone is going to end up losing out, but hopefully in the future the losses can at least be minimized through robotics and other technology.

A nice article about the conditions in one of such warehouses:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f...

Sounds like some people need to unionize.

It must be better than the alternative or they wouldn't be working there.

You seem to be saying that as a defense of Amazon's treatment of warehouse workers. It's not. Read the Mother Jones article linked above. When people are working in terrible conditions, and they believe those conditions are better than the alternative, that is not a good thing. It's heartrending.

I say this as someone who hates shopping in retail stores and can't wait to buy everything on Amazon. But the unseen and unregulated treatment of the hidden workers who make our amazing lives possible is a huge, unsolved problem in the world.

My point isn't that conditions are good, just that the alternative must be worse. By not shopping at Amazon you're taking the warehouse jobs away from those people and pushing them to whatever that worse alternative is. "Chemotherapy makes me sick, so I'll die of cancer instead".

Perhaps the alternative is worse because businesses are routinely given tax breaks/benefits in the hopes that they'll create jobs? This corporate welfare rarely works, but is incredibly popular with some municipalities. You never see a mayor or City Council offering tax breaks to mom and pop businesses. The end result is megastores that have unbeatable advantages.

This would only make sense if the sole effect of not shopping at Amazon was to end warehouse jobs. But the alternative to "shop at Amazon" isn't "set my money on fire." If I don't shop at Amazon, I'll either buy the same things somewhere else, or spend the money on something else, or invest it in something else. When you (and I) shift purchases to Amazon, we're voting to take jobs away from [whoever's involved in getting stuff to us via retail] and create jobs for [whoever's involved in getting stuff to us via the internet].

Part of what I'm responding to here is, your argument seems to boil down to: "it's OK for me to benefit from these people's suffering, because they aren't being physically forced to do it, so I must be doing them a favor." That's letting yourself off far too lightly. Our standards for which businesses we encourage should be higher than "do they have to physically compel their workers to show up" -- unless that really is the best we can ask for.

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