Slashdot Mirror
Jeff Bezos Named Time Person of the Year
doomy writes "A pretty stunning story hit Associated Press's wire today. Apparently Jeff "king of cybercommerce" Bezos of Amazon.com fame would be named the Time Magazines's person of the year. The same wire states that Amazon was loosing millions of dollars while this award was given." I've stopped shopping at Amazon personally. Until they drop their lame patent stuff, I figure they don't want my business.
i think you're missing the most important thing that's going on here. bezos is one of the most high profile members of the group of people that have fundamentally changed the economy and the dynamics of the flow of information.
the economy has changed on several key levels in the larger field that bezos is shaping (with others). first of all, we're moving towards a service oriented society, and the increasing IT/IS infrastructure is a combination of service and products. this is part of the larger shift in american economics from a production society to a service society. secondly, on the economic front, think about the amazing amount of wealth funneled into the hands of younger and younger people. FORE, Inc., was recently bought out, and secretaries could retire on the money from their resulting stock options. never before have we seen such a resulting shift of money so fast, and such vast amounts as well. bezos and amazon.com lie at the heart of this revolution.
in terms of the flow of information, it has done two major things. first of all, it has shifted the power from those that hold and dole out information to those that seek it. we've gone from a supply based system to a demand based one. this is about as fundamental a shift as the invention of the printing press. the dot coms also lie at the heart of this radical, sweeping change. the second thing is that it has liberated access to information. think about the stuff you now get to read each morning. i get to read everything from science journals that my university doesn't get to intelligence reports that woul normally be difficult to get. i'm sure you're in the same boat, having unparalleled access to information. again, the dot coms have helped to shape and provide this revolution.
frankly, i think it would have been better to have a person like dyson or someone else who played such a fundamental role in shaping the current internet if they wanted to honor that, but that's just me. but then again i think the century was shaped by far more important people on all levels.
jose nazario jose@biocserver.cwru.edu
click here
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
Fatbrian, unfortunately, promotes spam. I've gotten advertisment mail from them on addresses that I NEVER use except to reply to user questions,and no one from fatbrain has ever contacted me via those addys. Other people have complained as well. So no one's hands are exactly clean in this mess...
"But they're suing over a blah blah blah," you're gonna say. Yes, they are. But who are they suing? Barnes & Noble.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, the saying goes, and I agree. I don't like Barnes & Noble, and here's why:
- They tried to buy Ingram Book Company, a wholesale book retailer. This would mean that thousands of independent book stores (the kind I like) would be dependent on B&N (their competitor) for books.
- The American Booksellers Association and two dozen independent booksellers have filed suit against B&N, contending that B&N "engaged in a pattern and practice of soliciting, inducing, and receiving secret, discriminatory, and illegal terms from publishers and distributors."
- B&N open up huge stores in strip malls, which are institutions I cannot support. Amazon.com doesn't do this.
"Yes," you're gonna say, "but if Amazon wins, then they can sue anyone over this with precedent."But why would they? B&N is a direct competitor and tried to buy out Amazon.com's main supplier. Amazon would have filed suit against B&N for *anything*. Yes, this is a stupid lawsuit, and it's a stupid patent, and all the rest. Fix the sickness, not the symptoms: reform the Patent Office.
I guess what really bugs me is that everyone's getting themselves worked up into a frenzy over this and not something more important. Patent lawsuits don't kill people, nor do they give people cancer. This is corporate warfare and it doesn't involve individuals.
What's a better topic for us to get riled about? Shit, kids, take your pick:
- US Companies selling defective products overseas
- Mobil Oil involved in Indonesian massacres
- 4,000 babies die every day due to being bottle-fed, thanks to companies like Nestle
But no, we have our panties in a twist because big, bad Amazon.com is suing someone over a stupid patent.I'm willing to boycott them and *all* big companies if an independent company is there to provide the same services with minimal price impact.
So, instead of flaming me and calling me a lackey shill and anal consort of The Man, how about offering solutions? Fatbrain sells most books that I want (ie, all the books I've bought in the past month or so). That's good. Where's a socially-responsible place I can buy CDs from?
See, shopping at Whitey & The Man Bookstore in lieu of Amazon isn't good, it just provides yet another stupid company with incentive to continue their stupid tactics. If you're going to boycott Amazon.com for patent issues, you shouldn't jump in the lap of another fucked up company.
If you really want to fuck over Amazon, use their webpage to pick out books (based on user reviews, etc.), then buy the books at SociallyResponsibleBookstore.com. You get the community and the karma. Woo hoo.
So... what non-stupid online CD stores are there?
[BTW, I haven't read *any* comments offering alternatives to Amazon. You're never going to get a boycott to work if you don't offer alternatives.]
-- I can't think of anything witty to put here. Sorry.
Bravo- though I don't think Allan Greenspan himself is necessarily a big deal, the office that he holds has radically changed economics. Most people don't even realize the power he holds. Great Paul Krugman paraphrased quote: "You want to know a simple formula for what the rate of unemployment will be in the next year? IT will exactly what Allan Greenspan wants it to be, plus or minus a tiny fraction of the fact that he is not quite God."
It's amazing the number of economic debates that are totally clueless on this point. When all the NAFTA discussions were going on, people kept harping on the jobs issue. But their Neo-Keynsian analysis is simply irrelevant in a world in which a cental bank sets interest rates.
"So what if he's losing money."
Well, basically, it's all a matter of when. If I started Amazon.com back in 1980 before almost anyone had anything "online" I'd obviously not make a profit. But should investors back me through 2 decades of negative profit, even if I could start paying off in 2002? It's an economic decision, and perhpas their money could have been spent more prouctively somewhere else. So it might be that Amazon is simply being held afloat because investors WANT to hold it afloat, not necessarily for any rational reason, not because its a good bussiness, but because they hope it will be someday. Essentailly, by unwriting their below markt book prices, they are artificially subsidizing a bussiness that could have never survived on its own in a real market. That may be a fair gamble, but keep in mind that the money COULD have gone into other things that might be more productive NOW, and when Amazon's time really did come, they could have invested in it then. What's going on isn't about making wise economic decisions now, it's about trying to second guess the future to make money. Just keep that in mind before anyone starts trumpeting this guy's acheivement. All he's done is coninced investors that he's a good bet- he hasn't proven that he is yet. I could start Videomania.com and sell video games at super reduced prices and be very popular, but that wouldn't make me worth artificaly supporting.
Also keep inmind that TIME is a complete fluff magazine now- it's essentially like Reader's Digest, except more insiduous. Every three months they have some kooky cover story about Angels. Oh, that's breaking news. And what they did with the recent Columbine article was both journaliztically unethical and downright sickening. I wouldn't trust them to pick Man of Anything, much less of the Century or the Year.
To those criticizing Cmdr. Taco for 'hypocrisy', it helps to have a shred of facts before lighting the flamethrowers..... BTW, the ACs who were most vehement, sure showing your moral courage.
The current book reviews all may point to Fatbrain, but there is also the fact that the large lists of suggested reading all point to amazon.com
Like other readers I'm more willing to accept a simple oversight rather than hypocracy, but now that it's been pointed out, I'd really like to see it changed.
Man (or Woman, or Thing) of the Year is generally given to the most influential person of the past year, positive or negative. Now, Bezos may be a hyper freak, but he has built up Amazon from the ground up into the Internet's first real Super Store, and proved to most of the brick-and-mortar types that e-commerce could really work. E-commerce, and hence Amazon and Bezos, have really revolutionized the way people think of doing business.
And so what if he's losing money... So was AOHell all those years, and now they're raking in the money hand over fist. As Garry Trudeau once said, "If you're not losing a lot of money, you're not being aggressive enough."
On a personal note, I know it's not what a lot of people here want to hear, but I almost won't shop at any place but Amazon. I've had really bad experiences with Barnes & Noble in the past, and while I haven't given Borders.com much of a try yet, they don't have the selection and variety of Amazon. So far I've been completely satisfied with Amazon's prices and customer service.
-- "God, Root, what is difference?" - Pitr, "User Friendly"
Seriously what did he really do to deserve this "honor". I wish Time would stop rewarding business skills and commercialism, and start honoring innovation and integrity.
It seems that they just wanted someone to capture the spirit of the digital revolution, and some clueless journalist just picked some ass out of the air, a name that people would recognize.
I know that I am going to get flamed for this but lets try to be fair and mature about it. Good ol Bill "the evil tycoon" Gates donated billions to charity this year. While I dont agree with some of M$'s business tactics, I respect Bill Gates for this.
I think Time should make that "I kiss you guy" guy man of the year, just out of spite.
P.S. Happy Holidays :)
Clearly, Time meant to give the nod to Larry Wall, without whose efforts Amazon would still be working on their first C++ prototype. Not that Amazon has given a thing back to the Perl community...
I have informed them of their accidental error; I'm sure they'll correct it shortly. :)
--
Some keywords for the NSA in the Lord of the Rings universe: One Ring bind find Sauron quest Nazgul freedom
No, they shouldn't. Although I don't have first hand information, by all reports Mr. Bezos *is* a man. Furthermore, it would be entirely correct usage to prefer the masculine gender when speaking of a group, or even (as in the case of "Man of the Year") a non-specific exemplar. We are all "man" in the sense of "mankind", and there is nothing the least bit sexist about that.
It would be appropriate for Time to title the award "Woman of the Year" if the recipient of the Man of the Year honor is female, but naming anyone (man or woman) "Person of the Year" is insulting and degrading, and is really no better than "Primate of the Year", "Throbbing Glob of Protoplasm of the Year" or other inanities.
It's about time to squash this "PC" nonsense, and give both Men and Women the recognition they deserve rather than stripping them of their sex to pacify radically twisted whiners.
[flame off - I feel better now...]
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
So you would say that folks like Jeff Bezos are responsible for Rwanda, Kosovo and/or Chechnaya?
I believe that repressive government actions are rather prominent in all three places, and that they have nothing to do with greed or business.
D
----
I sent them a nice email telling them that I will not use Amazon until they give up this silly patent stuff. Here is their response.
Thank you for writing to Amazon.com.
The patent system is designed to encourage innovation, and we spent thousands of hours developing our 1-Click® shopping feature. This feature securely stores billing and shipping information so that returning customers need only click their mouse once, without re-entering or re-confirming that information, to purchase selected items conveniently.
In recognition of the innovative and unique nature of the 1-Click® technology, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Patent No. 5,960,411 to Amazon.com on September 28, 1999.
We're pleased that the court recognized the innovation underlying our 1-Click® feature by granting a preliminary injunction barring barnesandnoble.com from using it while our suit is pending.
I hope you'll understand that we are unable to discuss this case any further as we are currently in litigation. Thank you for taking the time to share your views with us.
Best regards,
Erik J. Macki
Happy Holidays from Amazon.com
Earth's Biggest Selection
http://www.amazon.com
==============================
KZ Auschwitz was (and is) in Poland so it was built later. KZ Dachau was in the village of the same name on the edge of Munich and had existed for years before 1939.
I suppose you could say that it was justified in the sense that he did have a huge influence on world affairs. How often did FDR (comparison: influence, nothing more) get it?
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Way back when Taco started with the Amazon links, it was just so he could get free books and music, which was just fine considering he was a starving student. Of course, now we can safely assume he's RICH, with no fiscal reason whatsoever to keep the Amazon links, and he's had since RMS's announcement to remove them.
Personally, I don't blindly subscribe to whatever RMS yowls about. I don't appreciate Amazon's patent, but B&N and every other megacorp chain are further entrenched and WORSE than Amazon IMO.
What bothers me is the gross and blatant hypocrisy of Taco to make such a statement while he continues to lead people to Amazon through his own high-traffic site.
--
#19845
I refuse to use the word e-commerce Amazon remains the gold standard for an e-commerce site 1999 certainly is the explosion of "e-commerce."
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Actually, looking at the agreement in the books section, it appears to be nothing more than an amazon.com associates agreement. The amazon.com associates terms and conditions includes the following line in section 11:
Either you or we may terminate this Agreement at any time, with or without cause, by giving the other party written notice of termination.
So slashdot is under no obligation to continue to supplying links to amazon.com.
"The two depend on each other."
I hate to say this, but that just doesn't make sense to me. amazon.com is, as far as I know, not deploying its own army, nor is it attempting to influence our government to fight. Furthermore, I see absolutely no reason why it would want to do either of those things.
I think the great untold story of the late 20th century is how money replaced war as a way of keeping score. Germany is no longer attacking its neighbors; it's building Mercedes-Benz cars instead. Japan is not bombing Pearl Harbour; it's sending us cars and consumer electronics. And the countries resorting to military force are the ones behind, not the ones ahead.
I would concede that we sometimes have wars over things such as oil supplies and the like, but compared to the "good old days" where men were men, women were women, and terrifying percentages of us died, I rather like our current world.
D
----
When without loss of blood he reduced Czechoslovakia to a German puppet state, forced a drastic revision of Europe's defensive alliances, and won a free hand for himself in Eastern Europe by getting a "hands-off" promise from powerful Britain (and later France), Adolf Hitler without doubt became 1938's Man of the Year.
-Time Magazine, Jan 2, 1939.
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
They definitely /are/ cheaper. They were charging $14 for the hardcover edition of The Power Broker by Robert Caro - while everyone else was at around $28-35.
On the other hand, I really love the amazon shopping ambiance, with the great customer reviews and so on. It's hard to duplicate that on another site.
Personally, I think the amazon.com one-click suit is (perhaps even somewhat justified) revenge against B&N's suit over "Earth's Biggest Bookstore" slogan. Because of that prior suit I frankly find it a bit hard to get upset at amazon.
D
----
...therefore, if you dislike Amazon, the most damaging thing you could do is buy A LOT of books from them. In fact, RMS's call for a boycott really ends up saving amazon.com money.
This is still off-topic, but I feel compelled to try and clear this up some...Hitler got MOTY because they thought he was a great leader, not just because he was influential. This sounds ridiculous, but consider the situation.
First off, one of the problems throughout the war was that virtually no one actually read his book, Mein Kampf--and you'd know why if you ever tried (I did back in HS German...entirely aside from the content, it's a terribly written book: dry, boring, and rambling). Second, he did have an (apparently) good effect on Germany. The trains ran on time, crime dropped to negligible amounts, the ludicrous amounts of inflation were throttled way back, etc.
Add to this the fact that people didn't want to believe anything different (remember appeasement?) because the world was very tired of war, and it's easy to see how a magazine could give the award to Hitler. Really, even after the Final Solution was in place, and the knowledge of the horrors of concentration camps was "public," people still didn't really believe it. It wasn't until very late in the war that photographs were leaked, and they literally stunned the world. AFAIK, most American GI's liberating the camps didn't believe what he was doing until they saw it.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
No, I don't work there or have any connection with them, other than being a regular customer.
True, we all die eventually.
But a lot fewer of us die in wars, and I think that's an uncontestably Good Thing.
D
----
The agreement that Slashdot has with Amazon is most likely the very non-binding Associates program. You put links to their wares from your site, and when people select those by clicking through from your site, they get a kickback on those items. You can end your association program by simply removing the links from your pages. I'm willing to give people a poke and a chance before using the "H" word. I know how easy it is to have twelve things going at once and simply FORGET one of them. May I suggest that those in command here choose the Associates program from Borders, or another company they don't have a beef with.
Actually, I just checked in the book section and noticed that many of the books have links to fatbrain. I think they were originally amazon links. Nice.
and I'd say that's having a tiny impact on todays society.
As would I. In retrospect, I'm not terribly surprised that some e-commerce/Internet/Web guy got it. But, you're right - in the grand scheme of things, e-commerce hasn;t changed a whole lot of anything.
In other words, this nomination is a mixed blessing, at best.
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
you have to admit, this is incredibly accurate of time. ok, so amazon has not made a single dollar since they were formed. so what? their stock is doing quite well, and that's the real story of the year economically -- stock doing exceptionally well in the tech and dot-com area with companies that have yet to turn a profit. look at redhat, akimai, VA Linux... none of them have done well yet, though their stocks are doing very, very well.
secondly, this whole absurdity in the lawsuit over the one-click-shopping patent is indeed also a milestone in american history. in a world where arbitrary patents can be given out (cf. the two guys who have a patent on using a laser pointer to amuse a cat), this is utterly symbolic of how absurd the whole mess has become. a small GIF formatted graphic using the word 'Go' in a sans serif font... what a load of horsepucky.
so, the next time you say, "oh, what a crock", think about what amazon is all about, and then take a look at the larger economic and tech world this past year, and you'll see that they are indeed leaders in that arena.
jose nazario jose@biocserver.cwru.edu
CmdrTaco has stopped shopping at Amazon personally, yet still promotes buying books there in the books section.. Hmmm :)
Time magazine selects a guy who creates a online business man of the year.. simply because it was "e-commerce"?! Tell me, if another company had gone IPO this year and been valued more than amazon.com would they have been a contender? No. Case in point: VA Research IPO. Of course, they're not the hip and trendy "e-commerce".. oh well then, right? Hrmph. I was so looking forward to finding out who man of the century would be... but maybe that anticipation was misplaced - Time magazine is just cashing in on the hype and popularity. Whoever's the most popular in the polls is gonna be the winner, which will be completely independent of who had the most influence on modern day living.
My vote for who should have been man of the year: The head of NASA. Trying to keep people interested in space exploration, trying to push the envelope by making more out of less. Dealing with politicians more concerned about tax breaks for their district than the exploration of the final frontier. God, it's enough to make me cry. Hell, the entire NASA team should have gotten an award - "company of the decade" or something.
Listen - I work tech support at Amazon.com, and though I don't necessarily agree with all of the bullshit that is spewed out from the all-knowing corporate mouth, remember that Jeff Bezos is NOT Amazon.com. The gurus in legal have as much or more to do with any patent stupidity as Jeff, and Amazon's official take, even when spiced up with a few of Jeff's words, is brought to you by the grace of a PR department, just as in any other large scale corporation.
Personally, I find the whole idea of a "man of the year" to be basically moronic, but, having met Jeff, I don't see why he doesn't fit the bill as well as anyone else. Whether or not you agree with his business practices, they have achieved a very high profile state due both to how unusual they are and just plain old media hype. Personally, Jeff was VERY cool, super-intelligent, and not at all holier-than-thou. He has an active sense of humor, and is really interested in pretty much anything (not just money, eh?), including obscure technical stuff like public key encryption and the relative benefits of IMAP vs. POP mail configuration. And before you go off about how unprofitable Amazon.com is, take a look at the borg factor: How much of that unprofitability is due to infrastructure overhead & direct business expenses, and how much is due to rapid expansion and business acquisition. Relative to what things'll be like 10 years from now, it's a hysterically open field, full of opportunities that are only going to do a corporation any good if they are acted upong NOW, not later when the pie has been fully divvied up and eaten. Do I philosophically agree with big corporation money gobbling madness? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Too much focus of power in a small group of individuals opens the door for major uncoolness, but conversely makes it possible to achieve some truly excellent things. How long is your wait time when you call Amazon customer service? Did the right item appear at the right address on time in good condition? Probable answers: Very short, and yes. Can other companies STILL promise delivery before Christmas? Definite answer: No.
Aye, I know, this grows lengthy. In short, all I'm trying to say is:
A: Amazon may or may not succeed in the long run, but no other competing company is even close in terms of foreseeable potential. Of course it's a gamble. It's a volatile market in unexplored business territory. The payoff, however, stands to be huge.
B: No, Amazon is not built entirely on ideals of co-prosperity and friendship between competitors. Yes, Amazon is capable of exerting muscle in questionable ways to consolidate it's hold on online retailing. Is this worse than what other companies in it's position would do? Almost certainly not. Amazon.com is exciting, it's cool, it's a great place to work (they put up with my bullshit, right?), but it IS a megagoliath money hungry corporation, with all that entails. Get real, don't expect Mother Theresa.
C: Jeff Bezos is cool. If you ever met him, you'd probably be much more zen about having him as (I still think the very concept is stupid) Time Magazine's man of the year.
Please forgive length of message. Brain eaten by moths.
"I don't marshal my words to be quotable" - Captain Sodium, Gigsville...
Choosing someone who made a lot of money is nicely symbolic, I think. In the first part of the century, our world was defined by war. As the 20th century comes to a close, it's defined by money.
I have to say, I think the latter is better, don't you?
D
----
1980-era South Africa sells diamonds. So long as they keep doing a good job, carrying a wide size assortment, and offering me a good rate, I will continue to be a customer. To not support them because of a petty human rights squabble is the real disgrace, in my eyes.
Nazi Germany sells good products. So as long...
You get the picture. Now, there are obviously some scale issues here. I certainly don't equate the pursuit of unreasonable intellectual property rights with genocide. But the basic principle is the same: your financial support helps preserve the status quo and discourages change of the behavior you find objectionable.
The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
While I generally don't hold "Time Magazine" in very high regard (being barely a step up from the tabloid), this sort of award reinforces my distaste for pop-news, particularly when it has anything to do with technology.
Now, of course Time magazine's strategy is to capitalize from this tech hype, so Bezos is an easy choice. Enough people will buy the magazine just because they envy the new computer-billionaires.
Let us consider Bezos' accomplishments:
1) Generating a huge, moneylosing web site to sell various products over the internet.
2) Convincing thousands of investors to hand over billions of dollars to support it.
3) Generating more baseless 'net-hype than anyone before him.
4) Deciding to do battle against competitors with stupid and obvious patents, rather than with thoughtful, innovative business strategies and by providing more value to their customers.
He's never created any value whatsoever for his stockholders, but he's certainly gotten them to convince others to invest - sounds like a big ponzi scheme to me.
When it's all said and done, it looks like their best engineered, most innovatively created, and best marketed product is..... their stock.
For this, I would suggest bestowing the first "Huckster of the year" award upon Bezos.
Insert history geek commentary: Hitler did not exactly detail the "Final Solution" until considerably later in the game, when he and some of his boys got together at a conference held for that purpose. "Final Solution" was not really part of Mein Kampf; that book was just about afixing blame on someone other than Franz Josef for Germany's blunders and subsequent punishment in WWI. Now, back on topic. A&E picked Alan Greenspan as their Biography of the Year. I also recall Yasir Arafat getting Time's Man O' the Year. And sharing a Nobel Peace Prize. Hey, the goons in the mainstream media have to laud someone. They really think they control what goes on. But an award is so arbitrary and unimpressive, that most people end up exactly where they started: not giving a rat's ass! I'm really surprised that this little news blurb made it on /. anyway. I'm sure that someone will say "Oh, it's the first time a .com businessman (or insert technojargon phrase here) has won such a prestigious award." Yeah, so what? The real award that Bezos has gotten can be seen in his bank account. Time Magazine? PFEH!!!
Windows is going the way of phlogiston...
However, that does not mean that it will be more profitable, and quite unlike the OS and application market, it will tend away from monopoly by its nature, rather than towards it. In the long term, I think it will be extremely difficult for Amazon to justify its market cap, unless it buys, say, a few Bolivian copper mines.
And if you think about these sites, they are strong evidence, that Amazon will never be very proitable - the competition on the net is just too strong (on-topic again!).
things. take. time.
Whatever happened to their lawsuit with Amazon Bookstore? Last I heard, Amazon was dishing out some pretty bottom-of-the-barrel tactics in dealing with these people...
--
http://www.aikiweb.com - AikiWeb Aikido Information
OK, So Bezos gets POTY(Person of the Year) while his company, never having made a profit, is 300 million dollars in the hole for this year. Can I just spend all of my salaray next year and be Person of the Year?
Of course, there is also the fact that POTY has always been about influence, not "likeability". Yeah, Hitler was POTY in the 30's, but the man did have an influence, no doubt about it. Probably were better choices, but I bet Bezos was picked becasue Amazon is famous. It's not like they are gonna pick Redhat's CEO. Most people don't recognize the name. Bezos is an e-commerce symbol, nothing more nothing less.
I read an article about Bezos a few months ago, in I think the New York Times Magazine.
This man managed to turn a little website sitting on a SPARCstation 5 into a multi-national empire in just a matter of 2 or 3 years. Amazon.com was the pioneer for online merchandising (I refuse to use the word e-commerce), and despite for a couple of minor issues (i.e. the '1-click' patent issue, but we won't go down that path here) Amazon remains the gold standard for an e-commerce site.
Amazon.com showed the unwashed masses that they won't get burned by buying things online. In addition, their prices are slightly better than the national book mega-store chains (Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc).
Frankly, I say he deserves the title of "Man of the Year" since 1999 certainly is the explosion of "e-commerce." Sure, there have been minor hiccups in the system (like the whole patent issue). However, things like the automobile, phones, and computers (gasp!) had issues when they were first emerging, and today we take them for granted.