Amazon Offers To Return Pulled Orwell Ebooks

Back in July, Amazon faced public outrage over their decision to delete ebook copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from the Kindles of customers who purchased them. Shortly thereafter, CEO Jeff Bezos offered an apology, acknowledging that Amazon handled the situation in a "stupid" and "thoughtless" manner. Now, they're offering something more substantial: anyone who had an ebook deleted can now have it restored, apparently with annotations intact. Any customer who isn't interested in a new copy can get either an Amazon gift certificate or a check for $30.

Comments

Re:The lesson here is.

[digitalunity]

WalMart is the prototypical company when it comes to self-serving conglomerates that are so large and so evil that no one person could stop it. It's like a rolling freight train with so many people interested in it's financial success that nothing could stop it, short of terrorists blowing up a bunch of stores. Even that wouldn't work I think, since they have like 4,000 stores.

Every decision the company makes, even down to workplace safety is pulled from actuarial tables, risk management formulas and cost/benefit reports. The company has no ethics, no morality, no desire to benefit it's employees beyond what is required to keep them from quitting at a rate they cannot train new employees. Like the individuals in an execution each playing a small part, each individual in WalMart fills a small, largely benign role in the contraption. The cumulative actions sustain a great evil drain on the US economy, decimating local economies in small towns across the country.

For all the good the free market has done, WalMart is the yardstick for measuring where capitalism goes horribly wrong.