Jeff Bezos is coming out of his shell, and it only took $100+ billion to get started:
As he was shaping Amazon into one of the world's most valuable companies, Mr. Bezos developed a reputation as a brilliant but mysterious and coldblooded corporate titan. He preferred to hunker down in Amazon's hometown, Seattle, at least partly because he thought it was better for Amazon's growing business, largely avoiding public causes and the black-tie circuit. But while Mr. Bezos — who at 53 is the world's richest person, with a net worth of more than $100 billion — can afford virtually any luxury, obscurity is no longer among them.
Amazon, now a behemoth valued at more than $600 billion, has become one of the faces of "big tech," along with Apple, Alphabet's Google and Facebook. These companies are facing a backlash. Amazon is under the microscope for what critics say is its corrosive effect on jobs and competition, and Mr. Bezos has become a bête noire for President Trump, who repeatedly singles out him and Amazon for scorn on Twitter. "People are starting to get scared of Amazon," said Steve Case, a co-founder of America Online, who recently started an investment fund focused on start-ups in underserved areas, with Mr. Bezos among its contributors. "If Jeff continues to hang out in Seattle, he's going to get a lot more incoming. Even for just defense reasons, he has to now play offense."
Mr. Bezos' portfolio of other ventures has thrust him farther into the spotlight. Four years ago, he bought The Washington Post for $250 million, jump-starting a renaissance of the paper. In 2016, Mr. Bezos bought a $23 million home in Washington, one of the city's most expensive, which is undergoing extensive renovations to make it a suitable party spot for the city's political class. Nearby neighbors include former President Barack Obama and his family, and Mr. Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner.
Mr. Bezos' space start-up, Blue Origin, is also making its efforts more public, giving him another stage. The company is trying to rescue Earth by helping to move pollution-belching heavy industries off the planet.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @09:47AM (15 children)
I try not to do business with people who hate our president. Trouble is, Amazon pretty much owns the market for damn near everything. If you go looking for something you can't find locally, somebody has created an Amazon store for it.
There are some exceptions, oddly including textbooks! AbeBooks and TextbookRush can be cheaper, at least from my IP address with my browser, etc.
My old go-to place for hardware, newegg, is now Chinese. I really liked the patent stance, but that is probably in the past. I hear the lawyer moved on. Anyway, I'm not eager to support non-American stuff.
A nice thing about avoiding Amazon and Newegg is that you can avoid the confusing mix of suppliers. There are places that only sell their own stuff. Amazon is dirty about this: people set up stores then send in inventory for Amazon to fulfill, some of it real and some of it fake, and then Amazon mixes it all together. You can get fake goods despite ordering from an honest Amazon merchant.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @11:32AM (2 children)
Hahaha, good luck not starving to death then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @11:43AM
Mr. Trump has that covered. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @12:06AM
Who do you think owns all the farms? It's sure as hell not Nancy Pelosi.
(Score: 4, Informative) by TheRaven on Tuesday January 16 2018, @11:59AM
But that Amazon store is not always the cheapest place to buy it. Two recent examples from my personal experience:
Yesterday, I bought some books (I got the first of James S. A. Corey's Expanse series for Christmas and ordered the next few in the series). I first found them on Amazon, but a quick look at the author's web page pointed me to three other places that sold them, one of which was about 15% cheaper per book than Amazon.
For Christmas, I bought my mother an electrically assisted tricycle. The manufacturer had an Amazon store, but they also sold directly. I can get a 3% discount on Amazon orders via a coupons scheme thing, so the manufacturer's store was more expensive. I told them this and they offered me a 5% discount to buy directly from them. Again, not buying on Amazon was cheaper.
For a lot of things recently, I've found that Amazon is the most convenient, but you're paying a premium for that. This isn't even a particularly new development. About 7 years ago, I bought an outside table and chairs from Amazon. After buying it, I discovered that if you went to the same seller's non-Amazon store, it was 20% cheaper - the 6-seat variant in their store was the same price as the 4-seat variant on Amazon.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2, Insightful) by bobthecimmerian on Tuesday January 16 2018, @12:08PM (1 child)
It's not difficult to do business without Amazon. It's just inconvenient. More work to find their websites, typically poorer search features (though search on Amazon.com isn't great), etc... or just drive to a local place and get stuff.
Amazon is conquering the world through convenience.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @12:32PM
Hahaha, "understatement" is not doing that description justice. The search on Amazon is horribad, sorting by price or customer ranking is just broken. Given Amazon's attention to detail, this leaves as the only possible conclusion that it's a maze deliberately designed to get you to click on as many articles as possible.
I go to Amazon for the reviews (although these are often poisoned by astroturfing), but definitely avoiding the search function as often as it can be helped.
(Score: 2, Troll) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 16 2018, @12:45PM
> Anyway, I'm not eager to support non-American stuff.
Why not?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @01:00PM (4 children)
I don't do business with bullies. Amazon has used their size and reputation to beat up many small publishers (and probably other small suppliers too), I've posted a personal example here in the past.
Up until recently, I've managed to avoid buying from them completely, with no major loss of convenience. However, a few things bought from eBay sellers have come in Amazon boxes--anyone know if there is a way to see who is using Amazon for fulfillment?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 16 2018, @03:35PM (2 children)
And if you had an account, you'd be able to google for that example by using your account name.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @04:11PM
He could've copied and pasted a link to the comment also. Obviously he's bullshitting.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @04:08AM
I do have an account and I choose to post as AC (there is a nice little check box for this option). I'm always logged in, and view at -1 nearly all the time. Here's one of my earlier posts on this topic,
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=9048&cid=224197#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
If I'd dug back deeper, I think I gave more detail in another Amazon discussion, before this one, but it didn't pop up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @04:10PM
Same reason I never shop at Walmart.
(Score: 1) by jshmlr on Tuesday January 16 2018, @01:05PM (2 children)
I've gotten pretty good at avoiding Amazon. I'm fortunate to live in an area with multiple Walmart and a nice Target (although they're not much better) and 3-4 different grocers. When I do need to buy something I can't find in locally, I first look on eBay or go directly to the manufacturer.
Need nothing, then see what happens.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by termigator on Tuesday January 16 2018, @04:55PM (1 child)
And you consider Walmart better than Amazon?
If you are avoiding Amazon because of its business practices, Walmart is no better, and historically, much worse. We can thank Walmart for promoting the lowest common denominator, destroying local businesses, suppressing worker rights, out-sourcing of manufacturing (check on how they got product suppliers to bid against each other for Walmart to carry their products), and how tax payers are subsidizing Walmart due to the low wages they pay (employees require welfare to live).
Walmarts recent announcement of increasing pay is a PR sham. Employees are still being paid below a living wage, the $1,000 bonus will only be received by an extreme minority of employees (and does nothing to boost regular wages), and whatever the total amount is that Walmart is paying, it is counteracted with the layoffs of Sam's Club employees (robbing Peter to pay Paul).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @09:43PM
I hate how Walmart has abandoned the made-in-USA preference of the founder, but Amazon never had that preference.
The stuff about destroying local businesses and forcing manufacturers to bid against each other is a big hint that Walmart has some monopoly power. This is bad, but I won't hold it against Walmart. The government is supposed to break up monopolies, and the government is failing at that.
I don't blame Walmart from taking advantage of welfare. I blame the government for providing welfare. Without that, Walmart would be forced to pay more.
Rather than getting angry at Walmart for not paying a living wage, we should be angry at full-grown adults who take jobs from teenagers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @04:53PM
Jeff Bezos' office in 1999
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRndBLkXcAAPEFW.jpg [twimg.com]
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DSEAwuOUEAArO31.jpg [twimg.com]
Jeff Bezos forcing everyone in Amazon to move to service oriented interfaces in 2002 was a big important step.