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Comment by TrainedMonkey | Hacker News Reader

Moral of the story is - people like their goods to be cheap, quickly delivered, and convenient to order. Amazon encompasses all of that and it seems that Otto's companies do not. I applaud his effort to put people ahead of profits, but unless he changes his business model amazon will continue to eclipse his empire.

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Counterpoint: Perhaps government should enact regulation to lift the floor to prevent a race to the bottom. Amazon warehouses shouldn't become the sweatshops of tomorrow.

Governments exist to protect their citizens, not their businesses.

>>Governments exist to protect their citizens, not their businesses.

I totally agree. The problem is that many people defend businesses because, they say, those businesses provide people with jobs. Following this line of thinking, they are willing to completely ignore the shitty practices of said businesses, because in their eyes, jobs > *.

"Amazon warehouses shouldn't become the sweatshops of tomorrow"

They already are...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25034598

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03k5kzp/Panorama_Amazo...

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week-amazo...

I'm aware. I have more faith in the German government protecting its citizens compared to the US government.

As mentioned in the article, it isn't really. There were mass protests by amazon employees in Germany last year. I don't know if anything really changed since then, but I kind of doubt it.

soon robots will eliminate those jobs completely anyway, the ultimate protection against low-wage jobs

The option then will be simple:

Pitchforks or a Basic Income.

Or performing some useful function that can't trivially be replaced by menial robotic labor?

Would you consider being a doctor a useful function? IBM's Watson already performs as well as a second year med student [http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/05/25/ibms-watso...].

Eventually, all jobs will be replaced by software or robotic labor. What then?

EDIT:

"Your Job Taught to Machines Puts Half U.S. Work at Risk" http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-12/your-job-taught-to-...

You get a job fixing the machines

In the past, the reaction to pitchfork was usually emigration

To where? An island with no poor people? The world is too small for emigration to be a solution anymore.

Just to a better run place.

Based on what? The Otto Group is battling unions in Hermes, like Amazon is battling unions in their warehouses. Is there any difference at all?

I know Europe like to view US as a big monster to scare kids: you better behave or big mean US will eat you!

But is there anything objective that the German gov't is going to help anyone anymore than the US gov't? Maybe healhcare?

> But is there anything objective that the German gov't is going to help anyone anymore than the US gov't? Maybe healhcare?

A substantial social safety net? Sane workplace hours and practices?

That would work in the short term, but in the long term they are just going to get rid of the employees entirely with robots. Which is of course, far worse, and already widely done in other industries, with no one protesting them.

Why is that worse?

The employees wouldn't be working there if the alternatives were better. They will go to an even worse job or become unemployed.

Convenience here really is the main reason. On otto you still mostly have to use categories, on amazon you have an exceptional search. You have third party sellers on amazon and a streamlined buying process.

Hard to ship your cheap product when your warehouse workers are on strike.

Different retailers target different sectors of the market and those sectors have varying levels of profit and growth. To me, Amazon seems to be aiming at the lower end, i.e. they focus on price rather than ethics, so they experience high growth in sales and relatively low profits.

I don't think everyone should copy them. It's like telling Apple to copy Acer or Samsung.

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