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Amazon Bows To Pressure To Bring Same-Day Deliveries To Poor Areas (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune:
After pressure from lawmakers, Amazon is revamping its same-day delivery service in response to complaints that it failed to provide service to poor, minority neighborhoods. The retail giant said it would bring its same-day delivery service to all Zip Codes in the 27 cities where its offered, not just in the wealthier areas, according to a Bloomberg report on Friday.
Right... I mean, not only should they better themselves, but they should do it without the resources that anyone else has...
The Amazon analytics system didn't care either. It only cares about the number of Amazon customers and Prime subscribers in an area. Not enough customers, no reason to offer same day delivery. It shouldn't be surprising that people in poor areas have more important things to spend their money on than an Amazon subscription. That's the cold hard facts, but facts don't matter to SJW's.
Yes, because it's RACIST! /s
SWJ's don't let cold hard facts get in the way. Same day delivery must be offered equally, even if it doesn't make financial sense for Amazon to offer it. When this logic is applied to home loans, it should not have been surprising what the outcome was.
They understand it perfectly, which is why they didn't go where there are no dollars.
There are no Maserati dealers in poor areas either. I wonder why not?
I don't think it's so much about whether or not they're minorities so much as it's about those particular areas having very low demand for services that cost more, thus they can't take advantage of economies of scale.
Case in point, I have a friend who lives all the way across the country in Boca Raton who often asks me to order shit for him via amazon prime and he pays me back with venmo. Boca Raton is neither poor nor primarily minority, and in fact he lives in a somewhat upscale area in particular. Yet, Amazon won't do same day service where he lives where they do offer same day delivery in every single zip code I've lived in in the Phoenix area.
As somewhat of an off tangent matter, he's Persian, which means that if he ever fills out a typical questionnaire asking about race/ethnicity in the US, the closest option he can pick to his ethnicity is either caucasian or white, even though neither precisely fit. You may as well call a Native American an Asian at that rate.
How about if we make it our business to not decide how everyone else is permitted to run their business? My memory is fuzzy but I think some people call this concept free market capitalism.
Amazon isn't in the delivery business. They're in the retail business.
You haven't been keeping up with the news.
But some analysts believe that Amazon is putting together the pieces across the globe to launch a package-delivery service that will one day compete with UPS, FedEx and others. In addition to the Colis Prive deal, Amazon acquired the right to purchase 4.2 percent of Yodel, a United Kingdom parcel-delivery company, in 2014. Last month, Amazon announced adding thousands of trucks to its U.S. fleet to handle the growing load of packages it is shipping.
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazons-delivery-ambitions-take-on-industry-giants/
My memory is fuzzy but I think some people call this concept free market capitalism.
It's called redlining in the financial industry, where banks don't open branch offices in poorer neighborhoods and those residents pay outrageous interest charges to payday lenders because they don't have access to basic banking services. Bernie Sanders had proposed letting the postal service offer basic banking services to all Americans. Something that the post office used to do a long time ago.
In fact, Sanders's idea is quite sensible. "Postal banking"—which just means that post offices run savings accounts, cash checks, and perform other basic financial services—is common in most of Asia and Europe, and only about 7 percent of the world's national postal systems don't offer some bank-like services. Postal banking is a really good way to reach people who haven't had access to standard savings accounts. One estimate figures that more than 1 billion people have used post offices for making deposits.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/bernie-sanders-lets-turn-post-offices-into-banks/411589/
Same day delivery is a luxury. As a business you want to please as many of your customers as possible as it correlates to making a profit.
Wealthier neighborhoods order more stuff. Those customers in effect do get (and rightly so) more of a consideration when it comes to service. Smaller areas that correspond to more business. You need fewer drivers than for servicing an entire city. Those customers are paying for better service by doing more business with amazon.
I will give better service to customers that deserve it. Period.
Same day delivery is a luxury. As a business you want to please as many of your customers as possible as it correlates to making a profit.
Wealthier neighborhoods order more stuff. Those customers in effect do get (and rightly so) more of a consideration when it comes to service. Smaller areas that correspond to more business. You need fewer drivers than for servicing an entire city. Those customers are paying for better service by doing more business with amazon.
I will give better service to customers that deserve it. Period.
Out of curiosity, does that position include other luxuries such as cable and internet service?
I bet those companies could roll out good service to "selected" areas that give a great profit, and ignore the marginal profit areas.
Or how about phone service? The per-person infrastructure cost for people in rural areas is staggering!
Maybe we should let the phone company dial back their service in unprofitable areas.
Or how about electricity? Same thing.
It is silly that the politicians prioritized this as a way to "help the poor". Here is a handy checklist to help them prioritize better:
Priorities for helping the poor:
1. Jobs
2. Decent education
3. Affordable housing
4. Unleaded drinking water
Not a priority:
1. Expensive same-day delivery for junk that they don't need and can't afford.
As a next step, they will be forcing Starbucks to open the exact same number of stores in poor, depressed areas as in the center of the city.
Also, city servants will have to spread their living quarters evenly across the cities.
In related news, touristic tour operators will change their sightseeing routes so that an appropriate amount of time is devoted to the dreariest parts of the city. The legislature is divided on the issue of forcing the tourists to take an equal amount of photos in every area, because the egalitarian push will clash with the desire not to offend inhabitants of the slums with the feeling that they are into some kind of zoo. The delicate balancing of these opposing traits is what keep your tax dollars at work.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Once again, those poor stupid incompetent minorities are rescued from having to better themselves in any conceivable way, thanks to us heroic progressives who are always around to babysit and control them for their own good.
Amazon has just hired a specialist to handle deliveries to difficult areas.
His name is Aaron Hernandez.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
If you can't see the difference you are being deliberately dense. If Amazon offered NO service to an area, that's one thing, however same day delivery service is a pure luxury. Not only is it not necessary to get something same day, you can always get it next day or later, it is something you cannot get in all areas period, or on all items. Not every city or state has same day delivery, and even if your area does, only some items have it as they have to be stocked at the local warehouse.
So trying to argue that not bringing it to some area is somehow the same as not having electricity is asinine.
Further, you discover that in fact some services are NOT available in all areas. Move to a really rural area and try to get cable service. You'll find out the cable company will just flat out say no. The cost is too far in excess of the returns, they won't run the wire. You have to settle for satellite.
Also things like electricity and phone are different in that they are public utilities, specially regulated and subsidized. You generally have no choice in who your electric transport provider is, there's only one grid, and so the government regulates it. Part of that regulation can be provisions for access to difficult areas, paid for by taxes and fees. Part of your phone bill is fees to pay for phone service to remote locations where there is tens of thousands of dollars in radio links and long-haul lines so that the person who gets the service can pay the same as you.
So if you are arguing Amazon should be a regulated utility ok, but that is a different argument, also a pretty nonsensical one given that they are a retail goods store, just one of many.
It's not your memory that's fuzzy. It's your capacity for thinking. Free market capitalism is an imaginary superhero that doesn't and shouldn't exist without reasonable oversight and regulation. It is the theoretical "solution" that people who don't want to think too hard invoke, in a desperate attempt to feel like they're contributing to a conversation.
"But .. but .. the free market!"
"Old man yells at systemd"
Any subject can be viewed through a racial or economic lens, but does that mean the argument has legitimacy or merit? Methinks not. Step 1: Pick a historically disadvantaged minority or a currently underperforming group. Step 2: Data mine some negative, unique aspect of said group. Step 3: Start a crusade to right the perceived wrong. Example: Pick a group like Native Americans. Point out that they don't have the same access to the myriad varieties of pasta sauce as everyone else. Write a Bloomberg article about the injustice of Prego's distribution strategy and then watch the ad dollars roll in from the click bait piece. This absurd example is effectively what Bloomberg did with its analysis. Good grief. Amazon would be happy to make money off of quadriplegics if it could. Race has nothing to do with its strategy. Leave the company alone.
Right... I mean, not only should they better themselves, but they should do it without the resources that anyone else has...
You're kidding, right? When has "giving" instead of "earning" ever worked? It doesn't matter if its a poor neighborhood that receives excessive tax payer and government attention (free school lunch, no income tax, significantly higher usage of police, fire, and ambulance, neighborhood redevelopment tax credits, Medicare, disability, planned parenthood, free cell phones, protection from getting utility cutoff for non-payment, EBT/food stamps, etc) - poor remain poor due to poor decisions, not lack of resources. The same "hand-out" instead of "hand-up" or "tough love" mentality also fails in the affluent households - think of upper middle class parents with lazy, drug addicted adults still jobless and living at home where the parents think continually giving them things actually helps their kids better themselves - it's never worked.
This means that Amazon is effectively going to subsidize delivery business into areas where they are making a loss. But now that they are forced to deliver there, they are effectively going to compete with local businesses at those subsidized prices, and they are likely going to skim off their most profitable customers. It's the local equivalent of what politicians always complain about in international trade: dumping.
The net effect is going to be that these areas are going to be more dependent on a corporate behemoth, small businesses are going to disappear, and poorer people are going to have even less choice. Progressive lawmakers like Ed Markey are really doing everything they can to drive up prices, kill minority businesses, and generally impoverish minority communities.
As somewhat of an off tangent matter, he's Persian, which means that if he ever fills out a typical questionnaire asking about race/ethnicity in the US, the closest option he can pick to his ethnicity is either caucasian or white, even though neither precisely fit. You may as well call a Native American an Asian at that rate.
News flash, most people don't get to pick their ethnicity. Caucasian is a race, not an ethnicity. Hispanic ethnicity is made up of a lot of people of the Caucasian race, etc. The whole ethnicity/race thing has been completely blurred by the 70's and 80's PC introduction of "African American" which is not a race and certainly confusing to people who actually come from Africa that could be of Negroid (black), Mongoloid (Asian) or Caucasian (white) race. When does "American" become and ethnicity anyway if we're all supposed to be equal in the end.
There's a popular conspiracy theory that says Planned Parenthood is secretly carrying out a eugenics program. The theory survives for much the same reason: Planned Parenthood does try to focus resources on low-income communities, and low income communities in the US do tend to be black communities, so it gives the impression of an attempt to contracept or abort an ethnic minority out of existence.
Maybe that theory comes from the founder of Planned Parenthood - Margaret Sanger -
from Wikipedia "After World War I, Sanger increasingly appealed to the societal need to limit births by those least able to afford children. The affluent and educated already limited their child-bearing, while the poor and ignorant lacked access to contraception and information about birth-control.[98] Here she found an area of overlap with eugenicists.[98] She believed that they both sought to "assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit." They differed in that "eugenists imply or insist that a woman's first duty is to the state; we contend that her duty to herself is her duty to the state."[99] Sanger was a proponent of negative eugenics, which aims to improve human hereditary traits through social intervention by reducing the reproduction of those who were considered unfit.[100] In "The Morality of Birth Control," a 1921 speech, she divided society into three groups: the "educated and informed" class that regulated the size of their families, the "intelligent and responsible" who desired to control their families in spite of lacking the means or the knowledge, and the "irresponsible and reckless people" whose religious scruples "prevent their exercising control over their numbers." Sanger concludes, "There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped"