There is something horrible about this little video. Why do the inhabitants of this suburban home require a recipe for pasta from a jar? Why can’t they turn the lights down using their hands? If the ad were an episode of “Black Mirror”, they would be clones living in a laboratory, attempting to follow the patterns of an outside world they’ve never seen. And yet the ad is not fantastical but descriptive. It’s unsettling because it’s an accurate portrayal of our new mail-order way of life, which Amazon has spent the past twenty-two years creating.
Eventually, governments all over the world will have to ask themselves the question: how big and powerful will we let corporations become? The more powerful they get, and the bigger and bigger the role of money in Washington DC and Brussels, the more I believe we have already reached the point where it’s time to start breaking up some of the most powerful corporations – like the oil giants, like Apple, like Google, like Amazon, and so on.
These companies play such a huge role in the core foundations and functioning of our societies, that we have to start taking steps to break them up. We’ve done it before, and we need to start thinking about doing it again.
Corporations exist to serve society – not the other way around. If, due to their sheer size and power, they become a liability, they have outlived their usefulness.
I just don’t know why precisely, but everything about Amazon is always a bit unsettling, at least their ads are. I have an Echo Dot myself (in Germany, no less) and it’s not all that creepy, but every once in a while it does something creepy as well.
Apple’s world revenues — $40B
US government revenues – $6560B
World wide Apple is 0.5% the size of the US government.
That is comparing revenues. If you compare government revenue to corporate profits (governments do not have Cost of Goods Sold) the ratio is over 1000 to 1.
Edited 2017-06-27 19:19 UTC
And the mafia in eastern US outranks Apple by billions upon billions. What was your point? Comparing compulsory business models with free ones is neither fair nor ingenuous. You can not NOT pay the government or the mafia, or they WILL hurt you. Apple does no such thing (that i am aware of) if you do not buy their products.
Quiet, you don’t want to give Apple ideas.
Quiet, you don’t want to give AMAZON Ideas.
There fixed it for you.
It would not surprise me if Amazon’s ‘grand plan’ was to be the only retailer left standing in the western world.
However, if everything is automated/robotised then no one would have a job and thus no money to spend with Amazon. What are you going to do then eh Jeff?
I’ve wondered this too.
As long as the last remaining elements of mankind buy at Amazon, I don’t think Jeff would mind owning all the money he can get, even though it would have no more validity once he has quit the Solar system with a Blue Origin rocket.
I don’t understand what you are arguing about, and your figures are wrong.
$40B is Apple’s net income, while the US government runs a deficit.
The sum of all taxes is used to pay salaries and to deliver goods (a road is a good.) and services (police, weather forecast, gazillions things …), often paying private companies to produce this good or service.
Apple’s total revenue is around 200B, Walmart is around 500B. Only one order of magnitude lower than the US gov. (states + federal).
LOL. Roads.
We spend way more every year delivering bombs to citizens of other sovereign territories than we spend on education and roads for our own citizens in our own territory.
LOL. Roads.
I wasn’t arguing about how reasonable was the way the money was being spent.
Money spent for war ends in the pockets of private companies. The thousands of billions is not used only to pay public agents, but to buy goods, as an aircraft carrier.
What’s wrong with that video? She has a couple ingredients and then asks for a recipe that uses those ingredients. Nothing wrong with that. Unless you want to be leet kitchen chef and complain about using a product from a jar.
Really, not that much of a crime. its not like they were asking for instructions on how to open the fast food package and calling that a recipe. Heck, turn on Food channel right now, and I think you have a 50% chance they are using a jarred ingredient. I’d love to make my own pasta sauce, and often do, but hell time savings is time savings. I’m not going to make my own from scratch every night, nor do I trust myself canning.
Is it wrong that they are taking advantage of technology? Or is the author saying it can be done as easy or easier without the amazon gadgets? Well, sure. Its an advertisement for them for early adopters. Its gonna be silly for a while. Just like we all laughed at people using the Internet on their phones 10 years ago.
It’s not only this add from amazon.
Taking into account all the services that Amazon currently offers you can literally do your own business on amazon without worrying too much (managed services and online hosting using amazon web services, storing your merchandise by renting out space in their storage facilities, outsourcing shipping fees through Prime services and literally not owning any physical stores).
It’s nothing new. Investors and entrepreneurs have supported this for several years now. It’s just that maybe Amazon is becoming too big and people too dependent on it (not only consumers but producers and marketers as well).
There is a chance that one day you won’t have anywhere to go to buy food. You’ll either use Amazon services or else ..
I get the whole “giant companies are not the best idea” concept, but the critique of the video isn’t centered around that.
Its trying to mock people for using the technology.
The large companies that have been broken up, Standard Oil, At&t were because they got too big. I don’t think anyone mocked At&t users or standard oil users. Thats kind of low.
compare goods prices was hard, you should get lots of magazines and scan their pages for what you needed and then go to your land house/office phone to contact someone and check if it was still available and if the price changed. Many little things in electronics and mechanics were very hard to find and quite expensive. Every single time, your interlocutor would ask you many things trying to check if you were not a rival trying to undercut them. It was exhausting and many companies used to assign someone specifically to deal with this boring form of interaction.
People are lazy and averse to tiresome interactions (some are averse to any interaction). If a company gives them what they want and them can afford to pay for it what is the problem?
Lest see.
When someone wants to provide a service to members of a society, there are situations where some forms of regulations and policies must be in place. In almost all of them it should be to guarantee one of the following things:
1) safety (in its many forms);
2) fairness/justice (same);
3) access to whatever is a must (considered to be) on current state of the civilization in non-discriminatory terms to all members of public (be it education, minimum level of income, health treatment access or dignified treatment);
4) right to privacy on things that do not affect others.
Perhaps Amazon is infringing on 4?
Really, we all already had this discussion before and most of the time the conclusions were along the lines:
– make obligatory to have an user option authorizing commercialization of some specific forms of anonymised data;
– create a standard protocol and data format for user stored data so that no lock-in of the data is possible, i.e., the user must have access to all data collected from him;
– guarantee the deletion of all data under request;
– guarantee that, no matter whatever service is used, there must exist a way to transfer all data of the user to other providers or media if the user sees fit.
And no, the reason for corporations existence is not to serve society nor it is to be served from it. This line of thought is anachronic and does not reflect appropriately the state of interactions that exist nowadays.
Edited 2017-06-27 20:49 UTC
> Eventually, governments all over the world will have to ask themselves the question: how big and powerful will we let corporations become?
This implies governments are supposed to be advocates of the people.
> The more powerful they get, and the bigger and bigger the role of money in Washington DC and Brussels…
This implies governments are corrupt and in bed with corporations.
If you accept both of these premises, it’s clear the problem is the corrupt governments, not the corporations. Giving governments even more power in these cases would just make things worse. If you think it’s bad when the politicians write policy favorable to the corporations who fund them, wait until politicians have carte blanche authority to break up corporations they don’t like (i.e. corporations competing with those who write them the largest check).
Edited 2017-06-27 21:02 UTC
No, the problem is actually corrupt people. A harsh truth we don’t like to accept is that our society is rotten with corruption and dishonesty, and it’s rotten from the bottom up, not from the top down.
Novan_Leon,
Many people dislike government, but it’s important to recognize that government growth is byproduct of corporate greed. The more corporations became greedy, the more voters on average deem it necessary for government to intervene. Private companies used to pay retirement pensions, these have largely disappeared for most of us. Corporations used to pay for education and training, now candidates are expected to walk in with specialized degrees after paying for it themselves. Many employers including mine have been dropping health insurance coverage and/or requiring employees to pay a portion with wages. The banks caused a worldwide financial crisis for their profit. It’s no mystery as to why corporations are doing all of this, it’s all about profits for them. Meanwhile enormous gains in worker productivity has lead to even more profits, but has simultaneously reduced the demand for labor, resulting in flat incomes for the middle class as corporate profits increased.
In other words, the drive for corporate profits comes at the expense of society. Plenty of people resent large government, but at the same time it’s naive to think private corporations operating unchecked won’t cause negative consequences to society at large.
While I’m not keen on big government, a fundamental problem with many conservative propositions is that they often reward the wealthy class without doing anything whatsoever to address corporate imbalance. “Cutting taxes” is a popular refrain among politicians pushing the corporate welfare agenda, however today’s taxes are already at historic lows and cutting them further is just going to hurt the middle class more. If we look back to any earlier periods when the middle class was doing better, we actually see (considerably) higher tax rates on the wealthy.
You have to go back to the great depression to find taxes lower than today’s levels…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/15/top-marginal-tax-rates-cha…
Edited 2017-06-27 23:37 UTC
I would like to remember a sentence emitted for no other than the celebrated Adam Smith about self-interest and competition:
“It is not from the benevolence (kindness) of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” .. “he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.”
The problem is, the competition now is not inside a specific market the government has proper controls upon, nor do the employees have left important deterrent power, the management don’t care about the future, the current and soon available technology will make people direct interference on productions of goods and sales obsolete and the interests of countries where the relationship between business and central governments are unhealthy, to say the least, we have a situation where all this is aligning to create a perfect storm to shake the American middle class boat.
Edited 2017-06-28 01:01 UTC
acobar,
Agreed. I think Adam Smith’s philosophy is valid, but mostly holds true when certain assumptions are in place. Assumptions like healthy competition and balanced negotiating power. When the social or legal structures are so one sided, it becomes less of a negotiation and more of an ultimatum…I was going to post some examples like microsoft, etc, but I’m really too tired to keep going, haha.
One of the key ingredients to the Cyberpunk genre is that the Mega Corporations own everything. People are commodities and tech is so cheap (quality vs price) that poor people can get robotic arm replacements that look terrible, while the rich can get artificial limbs that look perfectly natural, but with increased strength.
The corporation side is really close, and the tech is probably only a decade away… Just think, a lot of the RPG and novels took place in 2020-2040, so they really were not that far off.
While huge corporations SHOULD be broken up, it can’t happen in modern society. We lost the ability to break up corporations when the appeals court threw out the order to break up Microsoft. It was cemented when the govt bailed out Wall Street instead breaking up the banks involved in bankrupting the world. “Too big to fail” is now the goal of every corporation in the world, with the ones at the top having reached this magic goal: you can’t be broken up, and you can’t be allowed to fail because you’re too big.
Corporations, like other societies don’t (and SHOULDN’T) exist to serve “society”, They exist to empower and protect the people who are members of the corporation.
This is true whether you are talking about Apple, a homeowners association, a labor union, or a charity.
daddio,
You are right, there’s no expectation for modern corporations to fulfill social needs. It’s open for debate whether or not they “should” provide for social needs, but if they are not going to then for better or worse it dictates that public governments step up to provide for social needs that are ignored by private corporations.
This wouldn’t be so bad, except that not only are corporations dismissing their own role as social pillars, some go even further and lobby against government social programs as well – the implied end result being a decrease in the standard of living for the middle class.
This is the battle currently raging in the US with this president in particular.
Edited 2017-06-28 04:16 UTC
Too simple I’m afraid. Many organisations have constitutions or charters, voluntarily adopted or imposed by law, which literally require them to serve society or a particular subset of it in a specific way. Members are often just one of several types of stakeholders in whose interests the organisation is bound to act.
I agree with you here.
(and disagree with those who say they exist ONLY to make money).
My point was that they exist to serve their own purpose which is self-determined.
It is reasonable to expect honest and honorable behavior from agents of a corporation, but not to put the good of the “collective” ahead of their own interests.
“Corporations exist to serve society” – no they’re not, the government exists to serve society, corporations exist to make money. Which is why we need a government to keep them in check.
And allows them incredible tax reductions and escape the astronomical profits in tax heavens, instead to profit citizens and labor workers.
*wink, wink* Apple and Ireland.
You beat me to it. You are totally right. The corporations exist to make money, that’s it. They don’t care about anything else. If they aren’t making money, they don’t exist.
Sure, they go bankrupt.
Bank. Rupt. Of money.
What else ?
Only theyre too big to fail .. and peoples tax money go out to save them.
Banks, perhaps, but I don’t think governments will use tax payers’ money to make Apple afloat if ever they come to bankruptcy.
And it depend on countries, Island has left its bank sink as they were faulty, just like any other business would have fallen if investing into toxic stuff.
Now that governments depends so much on banks, that’s another point that should be raised, but on a different topic.
They’ve bailed out airlines and car companies, so what makes you think they won’t bail out ANY huge corporation?
OK, fair enough, it’s not only banks But you know, it’s JOBS they saved. It’s good for their re-election.
And what would you do with thousands of worker depending on public aid that cannot do something else and would be too costly to reconvert?
Hi,
The society’s reasons for allowing corporations to exist (and make profit) is to create wealth (jobs and “return on investment” for shareholders) and improve the availability and quality of goods and services.
A corporation’s reason to exist is to make profit; but that is just an incentive (given to them by society) to improve the availability and quality of goods and services, to benefit society.
– Brendan
Nobody is keeping governments in check, which are far more dangerous and powerful than any corporation.
I’ve played enough Syndicate to know where this is going.
It’s funny how Apple is singled out while Microsoft gets a free pass. They are WAY worse as far as monopolies go.What’s that I smell? Sniff…Sniff,,, Hypocrisy.
Hi,
It’s funny how something can be “singled out” when it’s used in a group of 2 or more related things in an example.
– Brendan
Why do we think governments are somehow beneficent? They are far more corrupt and powerful than the even the worst corporations. In fact the power inherent in government attracts the most corrupt people in society. If we think we want to break up corporations, we should break up government first.
Except the government is the only power the average person has to stand up to powerful corporations and interests. This is why in the EU companies like Google and Apple don’t get away with the nonsense they do here. Every since Reagan’s, ‘The government is the problem’ position, conservatives have been tearing down all the protections that were hard-won over the last 100 years. Unions? Check! Separation of Banking and Investments? Check. Environmental protections? Check! Thus the middle class has been almost entirely destroyed. What these people fail to tell you is that when the government, of, by, and for the people cedes its job, the plutocrats are more than happy to step in and take over. They frame it as freedom of the people, when it is actually enslavement of the 99%.
Or people… You know… could stop voluntarily giving those businesses their money and create alternatives.
In a free market businesses are successful because they serve their customers. By definition. If a business is getting benefits from government then you should stop the cronyism. Not attack business.
Governments are by definition nonvoluntary and hold a monopoly on certain activities. That’s a dangerous tool to wield. If you expand the set of things to control to include economic activities then those in the economic sphere have reason to control that power. Just as when you give government power over social concepts (marriage) those who have an interest will try to control it.
This is history and political theory 101.
Corporations are also dangerous because they’re, in essence, immortal. They’ll never die. They act like spoiled, petulant, enabled toddlers, and are run by people who exhibit pretty much the same behavior. They care little for anyone, or anything, and do all they can to grow and keep growing.
You just have to look at the size of the kind of people who should be concerned about this. Everyone’s ideology cracks when it hits their own addictions. And americans are addicted to sugary junk/fast food. Which in turn leads them to be too overweight to get around easily to do their own shopping. Even the brands labeled healthy at things like whole foods tend to be absolute garbage from a nutritional standpoint. Nothing’s going to change until the millennial’s kids grow up having seen their parents dropping dead from weight related health issues.
It’s a LOT more complicated than that. Like MANY other Americans with a weight problem, I don’t eat ANY sugary foods or junk food. I can’t remember the last time I ate out or bought a bag of sugar. I cook all my own meals from scratch as much as possible, and avoid products with any kind of syrup added for sweetening. I eat two small meals a day, and don’t drink sugary drinks of any kind, or juice that has added sugar.
One article on weight issues I’ve seen in the last couple years that looks interesting is on gut bacteria. The cultures you see today are far different from the cultures from 50-some years back, and doctors are beginning to suspect that this might be a BIG factor in not gaining weight like today’s population does.
You actually think governments decide ANYTHING AT ALL ?
From an ecological and with the growing population, the Amazon model is one of the better choice for the future : rationalization to the extreme.
Just put everything on blockchain… no participants in the middle, just the people transacting.
The US government has been a liability for decades now.
The government is put there by the banks to serve the banks. They would shoot a bullet through any of our heads if it would help them get more power. Serving the people is not even on their to-do list. Merely pretending to do so to prevent the people from finding out the truth about them is.
And do not bother voting, both options are bad and in any case they do not care about your vote. It’s just a puppet show to keep us docile.
And why would I care about how big tech corporations get? The Federal Reserve is already more powerful than the government. The Federal REserve is a private corporation and it control the US government. So in a sense the US is a corporation. One huge corporation, meant to bring power to a small number of Satanic parasites at the expense of all us honest folks. So when are we going to break this one up?
Eventually, governments all over the world will have to ask themselves the question: how big and powerful will we let corporations become?
When are we going to ask ourselves the question how big and powerful will we let governments get?
Thomas suffers from the same brain damage that other leftists do. He’s European, so no wonder.