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Amazon Expands Home Services To 20 New Cities, Seeks 'Home Assistants' (arstechnica.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the door-to-door-services dept.

Amazon today said it has expanded its Home Services business to 20 new cities across the country. Home Services is an under-the-radar offering from Amazon that lets customers hire professionals for things like plumbing, furniture assembly, car repair, home cleaning, and more. From a report on ArsTechnica:Home Services launched in 2015 and is now available in cities including Boulder, Colorado; New Haven, Connecticut; Indianapolis, Indiana; Trenton, New Jersey; and San Antonio, Texas (among other places). The expansion comes as Amazon seeks applicants for a new position called Home Assistant. The Seattle Times reported a couple of listings in the Seattle area for those jobs, which call for applicants with hospitality or service experience. Home Assistants would be "helping Amazon customers keep their home" by "tidying up around the home, laundry, and helping put groceries and essentials like toilet paper and paper towels away."

23 comments

  1. Notification squad unite! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is YouTube, right?

  2. What else can amazon stick a brand on? Pfft. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Log in to Amazon fecal services for our quality excretion network. Don't just crap, amazon-crap."

  3. Did they advertise on Backpage? by bigdady92 · · Score: 1

    I heard that was the place for all in home assistance of value. That's what I'm told...by my friend.

    --
    Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
  4. Amazon Escorts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am available to be a home assistant for lonely women. Especially the under serviced chubby ones. Don't judge me.

  5. Soon all restaurants will be Taco Bell by elrous0 · · Score: 1

    Just as soon as Amazon buys Taco Bell.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Soon all restaurants will be Taco Bell by dysmal · · Score: 2

      All restaurants will be Taco Bell because they've always been Taco Bell. There has never been any other restaurant. Just like Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

  6. I have a bad feeling about this. by Presto+Vivace · · Score: 1

    I just have a bad feeling about this.

  7. Furniture assembly by Yvan256 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Furniture assembly, eh? Well, I already know how to program in assembly. I can't imagine furniture assembly being much different.

    1. Re:Furniture assembly by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      I can't imagine furniture assembly being much different.

      Programming in furniture assembly is a bitch and a half. When you are finished with your program, either you have too many instructions left over, in which case the program is missing essential code, or you don't have enough instructions to actually finish the program at all.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  8. Business opportunity by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The local unions need to sit down with some local devs and figure out their own solution or become irrelevant.

    "Alexa, schedule a plumber for tuesday" is infinitely easier than wading through the phone book (as most of these trades don't even have websites), calling up a guy and scheduling it around their schedule (not mine).

    1. Re:Business opportunity by Jaime2 · · Score: 1

      Nah.. they'll just blow the competition's cars up. Not joking.

    2. Re:Business opportunity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We all know labor unions can be crooked. Don't dismiss the entire concept of organized labor over a few anecdotal instances of corruption. Laborers without the ability to band together are historically treated just slightly above the level of slaves, as they similarly have no real other survival options than to keep working at the will of the higher class.

    3. Re:Business opportunity by Jaime2 · · Score: 1

      Not anecdotal, that's the city I was born in. They once tore up a park that was cleaned up by volunteers because they felt the city should have hired union workers to do it.

  9. Has been tried; does Amazon really want this? by bradley13 · · Score: 2

    Damn, memory's going: wasn't there a site that tried to do this? Give it your location and the kind of task you had (plumbing, electrical, whatever), and it would match you to one of the people who had registered with the site to offer their services.

    Ah, here it is: Thumbtack. It doesn't have the best reviews, from professionals trying to use it to get contracts: some people think it's doing like dating sites, only with virtual customers instead of virtual women.

    It's not a bad idea, but you need a lot of professionals to reach critical mass. You also need a good ratings system, because anyone can claim to be a professional, but quality varies...um...widely. Ideally, you'd like to keep the incompetents out in the first place, just like a store should avoid carrying counterfeit products.

    This will also open the door to the same kinds of issues that Uber and Lyft have: Are these professionals (if they are individuals) really independent contractors, or are they employees? Who is liable, when the amateur plumber floods your house? Really, it's not an area I would expect Amazon to dabble in - it seems to me that they are just inviting all sorts of unpleasant legal problems.

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
    1. Re:Has been tried; does Amazon really want this? by swb · · Score: 1

      Who would hire someone to come into their home off Amazon?

      I could sort of see this work if Amazon had a transparent background check process and some kind of difficult to rig quality rating system.

      But really, someone in my home doing personal services? I need more than just 4 stars and an online rating, I need to talk to the people they've worked for in the recent past and a fair amount of personal information.

    2. Re:Has been tried; does Amazon really want this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, if these people aren't properly licensed and all I might as well just be doing the jobs myself for all the liability that comes with it.

  10. We used to have these people by H3lldr0p · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They were called maids. At some point that got changed to hired help and a few less savory things.

    At one time we had a middle class that could afford to support people who worked in their home. Short of a gigantic economic shift that's still true. I'm at a severe loss as to how Amazon is going to make this affordable and simultaneously worthwhile for people to pursue as gainful employment.

    1. Re:We used to have these people by youngone · · Score: 2

      I'm at a severe loss as to how Amazon is going to make this affordable and simultaneously worthwhile for people to pursue as gainful employment.

      Amazon are going to exploit someone. Either the customer or the tradesmen (probably the tradesmen).

      As an aside, I had a lift in an Uber car last week, and asked the driver how he liked it. He said it was his last shift, as he couldn't make any money out of it.

    2. Re: We used to have these people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These are difficult jobs to automate or outsource. As we automate or outsource jobs like radiology and truck driving, this could be what's left. If we had universal healthcare you could sort of live on this.

    3. Re:We used to have these people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yup.
      Two things- nowhere on their site is an indication of expected wages for any of the jobs. Say somebody wanted their Isotopes sorted, weighed and arranged in alphabetical order, and yes I once did this. I figure $100/hr with a four hour minimum. I can provide my own microscale. Beryllium is pretty easy. Tin... oh that is a bitch. Obviously, this is a little specialized.
      But putting away Paper Towels? Note that for this Job, Amazon requires applicants to have a College degree, for a menial minimum Wage Job for a few minutes, from which Amazon takes a 10% cut. Oliver Twist probably did better, and he didn't have to supply his own car.

  11. W2 or more misclassified 1099's? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    We need more workers rights and not people who are being forced to pay for stuff like uniforms fees with them not even being W2's or have stuff like min wage.

  12. To Whom They Will Issue Microscopic Payments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...just like Mechanical Turks and Uber drivers.

  13. i built something similar by jason777 · · Score: 1

    Not spamming or anything, but as a hobby I built something similar and started on it before amazon had this. Its called myKhee and we are focused on small home projects only. There is an expedited verification, and is geared towards amateurs. Home owners post quick projects, and people find them quickly on a map to complete them for quick cash. The idea is let people make quick cash by finding things they think they can do close by, and the home owners gets it done quickly.

    I think this is a better model than amazon's because there's minimal red tape, projects can be found quickly and easily, and it's totally free.