[HN Gopher] Amazon is bypassing supply chain chaos with chartere... ___________________________________________________________________ Amazon is bypassing supply chain chaos with chartered ships and long-haul planes Author : thunderbong Score : 293 points Date : 2021-12-05 16:27 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com) | ghostly_s wrote: | > "Who else would think of putting something going into an | obscure port in Washington, and then trucking it down to L.A.? | Most people are thinking, well, just bring the ship into L.A. But | then you're experiencing those two-week and three-weeks delay. So | Amazon's really taken advantage of some of the niche strategies I | believe that the market needs to employ," | | What? Surely, everyone is thinking of this? | rootusrootus wrote: | > What? Surely, everyone is thinking of this? | | Exactly my thought. Amazon hardly has a monopoly on good ideas. | They may have a culture that rewards impulsive strategies, | though. | judge2020 wrote: | > This season, a handful of other major retailers -- Walmart, | Costco, Home Depot, Ikea and Target -- are also chartering | their own vessels to bypass the busiest ports and get their | goods unloaded sooner. | Hokusai wrote: | Then why is the title 'Amazon is'?. It seems that just | mentioning Amazon brings more clicks, I guess. | Forge36 wrote: | Thinking maybe. Execution is hard, the extra truck overhead may | make it a non-starter for many | throwawayboise wrote: | Amazon's scale makes some things workable for them that would | not work economically at smaller scales. | Closi wrote: | Not really, lots of companies are sharing space on charter | vessels at the moment, and trunking networks are pretty | well developed. | | Lots of retailers are doing exactly what this article | describes, it's not just Amazon. In fact, I know a company | that only ships c5 containers a day that is renting space | on a charter vessel, so you don't need Amazon-scale to do | this. | roughly wrote: | They do also seem to be willing to or have a culture of | taking bets like this that I suspect a lot of the other | companies of their size don't - it sounds like they started | working on this back in 2015, and I imagine it's been a | pretty big investment so far. I'm not an Amazon fan, but | not a lot of other companies out there seem to be willing | to take bets like that. | dbavaria wrote: | This article sounds more like a PR piece for Amazon. At this | rate, I wouldn't be surprised if in the coming weeks Amazon | singlehandedly saves Christmas. | justicezyx wrote: | That would be a nice PR project! I think you are onto the | right idea here. Let's seem what happens after the Christmas. | pysogge wrote: | Maybe we will see seaports as a service in a few years. | jcims wrote: | I have and claim zero expertise in this area but it seems that | there is an emerging trend towards supply chain contraction with | hard goods. Certainly the lesson of the last 24 months seems to | be that lack of strategic risk management in the supply chain can | cripple you when things go south. This was always obvious | conceptually but the discipline seemed lacking. | | Yet software and software-based services seem to be going the | opposite direction. Certainly supply chain security issues are | beginning to surface but I don't see anyone contracting the | dependency graph with stacks on stacks of SaaS products. | mcguire wrote: | NASA's email system is outsourced to Outlook.com. This is the | first time I've ever seen anything potentially secured allowed | out of internal networks. | judge2020 wrote: | The Azure, AWS, and and Google data centers are some of the | most secure facilities on the planet, maybe even rivaling | that of our nuclear missile silos. If us-east-1 got nuked or | went offline [for months], we'd probably see an instant | depression in the U.S. economy as so many parts of life | break, so it's in the DoD's best interest to protect Virginia | and North Carolina extremely well[0]. | | Azure even offers multiple levels of clouds that can house | government secrets[1], although I couldn't find a way to tell | whether an outlook hostname is part of a higher-security | region or not. | | 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28825009 | | 1: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-government- | top-... | jcims wrote: | I did a bunch of security contract work for NASA and have | worked in security capacities for other government and | financial institutions. Honestly I think a lot of the | migration to cloud providers is a form of mutiny against | the ever increasing cost of running highly regulated | workloads in your own data center. It's nearly impossible | to do anything in a reasonable amount of time when you've | got layer upon layer of regulatory and internal audit | oversight. It's not just basic processes but governance | around those processes and governance around the governance | of those processes. It's a nightmare. | nimish wrote: | I believe someone once characterized AWS success as | stemming from hacking around procurement and IT policies | in sclerotic organizations. One approval, one admin => | all services. | ghshephard wrote: | Did anyone else find this somewhat surprising: | | "The seasonal workers are unloading and loading, picking and | packing at more than 250 new facilities Amazon says it's opened | in the U.S. just in 2021..." | | 250 new warehouse facilities opened in the United States in 2021. | Five new facilties per _state_? And, obviously, some states would | only have gotten 1 or 2 (or maybe less) - so some states would | have been getting 10-15.... | | That just seems like a suspiciously high number to me, I'm not | sure if I buy it. | trenning wrote: | Looking around the surrounding Seattle area I see a ton of new | warehousing going up. From SODO to Tacoma there are major | projects. I'm not in that industry at all, just observational | and noticing a lot of it is Amazon related. They've also been | buying a lot of empty lots between Seattle and Kent for their | delivery vehicle parking. | | I want to say there's been a few articles that have discussed | commercial property boom of new warehousing. | huitzitziltzin wrote: | 1. What possible reason could they have to lie about it? | | 2. It's likely that this information could be confirmed in | other publicly available information. | | 3. They were the beneficiaries of a gigantic positive shock to | demand for their services in the last half of 2020 which | continued through 2021 so the number seems very plausible to | me. | ghshephard wrote: | Ahh, I'm wondering if they got it (uncredited) from this: | | https://www.commercialsearch.com/news/amazon-to-open-more-th... | | So - not just warehouses, but also delivery stations. I can buy | that. | willhinsa wrote: | I heard an anecdote 15 years ago that Walmart at the time | opened 600 new stores a year. If that anecdote was true, this | isn't that surprising to me with such a large shift we've | experienced during the pandemic of increasing online purchases. | It might be expanding too quickly, but it doesn't seem insane | to me. | dillondoyle wrote: | I think that's a believable number based on the info I've heard | out of MN. evidently AMZN is crazy about their privacy and | contracts so might be impossible for us to know unless we work | directly. | | The bigger more shocking number would be the huge % of | commercial space bought up by PE and blackrock type etf money, | & REITs. often paying shockingly high prices because they're | bidding against each other & their investors keep pouring money | in. | samwillis wrote: | My theory on how this works is as (nearly) everyone shopping on | Amazon is logged in they know where you are probably going to | ask to ship your order to. And so they show you search result | tailored to what is in stock at your nearest Amazon warehouse. | That way they don't have to distribute the same stock to all | warehouses. | | Try searching Amazon in a privet window, you get very different | result and prices (from different sellers) for the same | products. I think that's down to what's regionally distributed | near you. | ghshephard wrote: | You definitely get different shipping times for different | products based on your location - so presumably they are | cross referencing what is in your local distribution center | to get you that shipping time. | teeray wrote: | "Facilities" may be grander language than the reality. I know | of one new facility near where I grew up which was a new mall | that could never find tenants. It sat vacant for a decade. | Amazon leased the whole thing and uses it as a warehouse. The | parking lot is filled with their last-mile delivery vans. | mixmastamyk wrote: | Yes, they've taken over vacant buildings in our area as well. | Hard to complain about that but some folks still do. | loonster wrote: | Mourning the lost potential. | | There is a grocery store near me that sat vacant for | several years. Finally a storage company took it over. It's | a good thing that something is there, just wish it was an | actual grocery store. | massysett wrote: | My area in suburban Washington DC USA is filled with old | grocery stores. Just within several miles of my home, one | is now a trampoline park, one is an Amish market, and one | is an LA Fitness. | | My theory is that between huge warehouse stores, newer | huge supermarkets, Dollar General, and Walmart (even non- | supercenter ones) selling lots of food, and online | shopping nibbling at the margins, marginal supermarkets | are getting pushed out. There's another supermarket not | far from my house that I doubt will make it. | | I have no idea what it's like near you but where I am I | don't think I'll be seeing any new supermarkets. | ehsankia wrote: | A whole mall+parking lot is probably as grand if not grander | than I was imagining an average facility to be. | anonnyj wrote: | Is it so surprising in light of the absolute pummeling brick | and mortar got during covid? | logicalmonster wrote: | I can buy it because I don't think we've yet gotten anywhere | close to a full accounting of the second order effects of the | collective reaction to Covid-19: not just in terms of negative | health impacts of the shutdowns, but also the long-term | economic devastation. | | At the same time as many governors were effectively shutting | down hordes of small businesses for daring to stay open even | while Amazon and other big firms were doing record-setting | business, scammers rushed to claim many of the government loans | meant to keep actual businesses afloat. I think many real | businesses got completely hosed. | | Don't expect to hear an inkling about this forced transfer of | wealth from Main Street to Wall Street from self-described | progressives who are currently focusing on enriching Big | Pharma. They might start to focus on the economy again when | it's entirely too late. | unethical_ban wrote: | I agree that the wealth transfer is awful, but your take is | so wrong. Sanders was talking about it explicitly and | continues to do so, and many progressives think the impact on | small business during the pandemic is awful. | | But you seem to think that vaccine advocacy is a bad faith | attempt at giving pharma money rather than a good faith | attempt at pu lic health and economic recovery. I think is a | ridiculous opinion. | throwawayboise wrote: | > this forced transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall | Street | | Another reason some people think the entire crisis was | engineered, if not the virus itself, then it was certainly | seized as an "opportunity" | errantspark wrote: | What would be awesome is if instead of this we gave a fuck ton of | money to the post office and tried to solve this problem for | everyone and also eroded amazon's competitive advantage. That's | the sort of infra we need, it's frankly embarrassing that we're | not looking at amazon as a country and thinking "why don't we | just enable remote commerce like this for everyone as a societal | good". | | P.S. Let the post office do banking too so we can take some wall | street's pie as well. | ozzythecat wrote: | Unless the Post office has some strong incentive to compete, | such as a private company, there's no reason to believe the | Post office would be even half as effective as Amazon. | | Amazons incentive, whether you agree with it or not, is to grow | their company and show value to stakeholders. It's quantitative | numbers. They can certainly lie, but at the end of the day the | market will punish them. | | The USPS is driven by what incentives? Politics? Future pension | obligations? | | In reality, government ends up being a bloated mess, waste of | tax payer dollar. Don't believe me? | | How many campaigns have we seen just in our own lifetimes of | candidates promising "change", "making America great", fixing | healthcare, infrastructure, reforming education. One of the two | parties does win every election. Fundamentally, what has | changed? | | Regulating private companies might be the answer. But | government has proven itself to NOT be the answer. | goostavos wrote: | I agree. I'm kind've stumped by people's belief that you can | just throw money at something and have it work. Doubly so for | a government organization that's steeped in politics. Amazon | is freaking lightening in a bottle. Last night, I was | ordering Christmas presents at 12:30am, and they were at my | door by 9:30am. That's completely _insane._ | | Government programs are frequently and mysteriously hamstrung | by not having enough money as the sole explanatory variable | for why they failed at X or why business Y performs more | efficiently. It's never an organizational failure, the wrong | people, the wrong incentives, just more money is all that's | needed. If we'd properly funded the USPS 20 years ago, surely | we'd all have same day shipping for pennies, right...? Money | would've enabled that? | pbhjpbhj wrote: | >there's no reason to believe the Post office would be even | half as effective as Amazon.// | | I never understand this argument, take Amazon now. Pay | everyone the same to do the same job, but don't pay | dividends, reinvest profits (or pay them as if taxes). How | does it suddenly become everyone is incompetent and can't do | their job? | | Why is it capitalists think people can only work if there's a | rich person creaming off a profit? | | Explain, please. | whiddershins wrote: | Because logistics is mind boggling difficult. | | I would say the burden of proof is on anyone who thinks | they could fund or create an org that can match Amazon's. | kevinventullo wrote: | _Pay everyone the same to do the same job..._ | | The federal pay ceiling in 2021 is $172,500 per year. | That's about what a SWE new grad at Amazon makes in their | first year out of college. | kortilla wrote: | > Pay everyone the same to do the same job | | That's the crux of the issue. Government employees across | all branches are capped into pay scales that don't compete | with private. More importantly, that absolutely cannot get | anything like profit sharing or stock grants so nobody is | invested in the financial success of the operation. | | > Why is it capitalists think people can only work if | there's a rich person creaming off a profit? | | Because in the real world, all of the employees are | benefiting from the profit as well. Every company has | bonuses/promotions for exceeding performance doing good for | the company. | | Why is it that socialists thing working for a company | produces the same incentives as working for the government? | s1artibartfast wrote: | The problem is bureaucratic and union capture. | | You would have very different results if you took the same | people, removed performance bonuses, removed merit | promotion, instituted seniority promotion and seniority pay | scales. | | You remove all incentive to take risks, perform, or | innovate. | | In such an environment, there is only downside to do | anything more than the bare minimum. | Kalium wrote: | > P.S. Let the post office do banking too so we can take some | wall street's pie as well. | | They did that for a while. Wall Street ate the Post Office's | pie, rather than the other way around. Which is why the US | postal system's banking service shut down. | | Which is not to say postal banking is a bad idea, but that | perhaps we should be careful with our expectations. | mgaunard wrote: | Vertical integration is what makes the service that Amazon | provides so good. | | Splitting things into different siloed entities just leads to | inefficiencies. | [deleted] | derefr wrote: | Counterargument: as someone who doesn't live in the US, I | personally benefit from the international logistics | infrastructure built by private US companies fed mostly by | demand from US private citizens. But I don't benefit at all | from well-funded US public _domestic_ logistics services. | | International logistics can't really be solved at the national | level, because the _interests involved_ aren 't | national/unilateral -- they're international/multilateral. | | (You could maybe make an argument for treatied multilateral | investment into public logistics infrastructure tied to said | treaties, maybe led by the Universal Postal Union -- something | similar to the Paris Agreement, but with global-economic goals | rather than global-ecological ones. But that's a very different | thing from just saying that one country's citizens should | demand their own government nationalize a particular service.) | GhettoComputers wrote: | US citizens don't benefit from forced spam, or bad service | from from USPS either. They could go paperless for most | official documents but they need to give these spammers a | reason to stay afloat: "official documents". | AngryData wrote: | Many parts of the US still do not have reliable internet or | anything other than degraded phone lines that barely | service 56k with cell service that gives 1 bar part of the | time, which is a huge barrier to paperless service. Also | they still need a way to send government documents, jury | and court summons, ect. My own internet is wireless | microwave transceiver which only works because I live on a | hill, the people around me in the bowls and swamps barely | have workable cell service even outside their house. And | that is all on top of the fact that internet and devices to | connect to the internet cost a significant amount of money | to maintain, and paying private companies should not be a | requirement to live your life on your own property. | GhettoComputers wrote: | The USPS doesn't serve all households, you of all people | should know that. Degraded phone lines can fax. They're | lucky they don't get spammed. | rubyist5eva wrote: | Because if there's one thing that makes the government run well | is more spending! | rootusrootus wrote: | That is quite possibly true. The primary goal of government | is not efficiency. We need to quit making that some kind of | top priority. The first thing government should be is | _effective_. This is fundamentally why mixing for-profit | businesses into government functions always ends up a | clusterfck. | rubyist5eva wrote: | Spending more creates more bureaucracy and makes government | _less effective_ , which was the point of my sarcastic | quip. | kortilla wrote: | > We need to quit making that some kind of top priority. | | Then how do we pay for it? You're either making the | customers pay the true cost or you're just stealing it from | the entire tax base. | | If you do the latter then it's unfair to any business | competing in the same category and they will all eventually | go out of business because they have to be sustainable. | | So we end up with less efficiency and absolutely no other | options. | golemotron wrote: | Please read the history of post office budgets and spending. | rootusrootus wrote: | They've actually done pretty well, given the amount of | politics that gets played with their funding. | bogota wrote: | It's great wishful thinking but I really dont think our | government can pull it off at this point. Maybe 30 years ago | but not in today's environment of everyone trying to screw the | other side over at all costs. | | Personally im happy we at least have one company who can get me | stuff in a decent amount of time. But i gets it's fun to throw | out f the big company the government should do that. It's not | like it took thousands of well paid people years and years of | work to develop that supply chain so im sure it's as simple as | "let the government do it". | | It's the same in every Uber/Lyft comment thread. "It's just a | simple backend app why do they need so many people". "I could | do that in a year with a small team". Yeah have fun dealing | with every single state, city, country's different regulations | and requirements. "It's JUST an app". | | I realize a lot of engineers have this problem. They | oversimplify everything except the code they are working on and | dismiss it as easy or unnecessary. I did early in my career as | well but im surprised how prevent it is here. | roughly wrote: | > I really dont think our government can pull it off at this | point | | That's not, to be clear, for reasons of technical capacity. | The vaccine drive that started in ~February or so of this | year was pretty good evidence that the government is still | capable of doing big things. | akiselev wrote: | _> fuck ton of money_ | | _> tried to solve this problem for everyone_ | | It doesn't sound like the GP was oversimplifying the problem, | quite the opposite - wanting to spend a "fuck ton of money" | to _try_ to solve something implies that it is a complex | problem that may not be solved with a "fuck ton of money". | adventured wrote: | > I did early in my career as well but im surprised how | prevent it is here. | | Most of the people here have never run or attempted to create | a business. That's true about the general population as well. | As you hint at, it comes from lack of life experience at | doing a thing. | | You get a similar naivety from the average consumer that | fantasizes about starting a restaurant because they have | strong opinions about food; they've eaten at many | restaurants, they've made food at home thousands of times, | how hard could it be. | newhotelowner wrote: | Amazon uses USPS for small and rural cities. Only USPS delivers | my Amazon packages at my business. Amazon vans delivers at my | home. My business & my home is 20 miles apart. | bloqs wrote: | One of the few certainties in life, along with death and taxes, | is that a Government body/or institution (any government) will | be less efficient, the more money it has. | kyletns wrote: | Great write up on the USPS banking pilot: | https://prospect.org/economy/postal-banking-test-in-the-bron... | | Not a fun outcome but the fight isn't over, yet. | thepasswordis wrote: | The post office is unfortunately vulnerable to political | pressure. Both from their unions, and from the federal | government. | | Imagine the nightmare of Pete Buttigieg sending down dictates | to the post office as he tries to build political career. Look | at what's happening in CA right now: just park the ships far | enough offshore that you can't see them and then claim the | problem is solved because there aren't as many ships waiting, | charge the people who are already losing money because they | can't get their containers out of the port fines, and punish | them further, claiming this as a political win because it | punishes the businesses. | | Absolutely no thank you. This is an actual problem that needs | real solutions, not politicians grubbing power. | jorblumesea wrote: | Those people are in theory at least, elected by the American | people. Meanwhile Amazon is beholden to whom, wealthy board | members and stock holders? How is that better? | GhettoComputers wrote: | Look at reality. Do you want packages stuck at harbor? | jorblumesea wrote: | My packages are stuck in a harbor regardless. Many major | shippers, both public and private are having issues. | micromacrofoot wrote: | Amazon doesn't really seem to have a long-term solution... | they had to ease drug testing requirements at one point | recently because their turnover is so high that they were | running out of people. | | Their last mile drivers are contracted companies that treat | their employees so poorly that it's somewhat typical for them | to leave their keys in the van and quit on the spot. | newhotelowner wrote: | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/18/trump-a. | .. | spamizbad wrote: | The post office does things that private carriers are unable | to do: deliver a high volume of units to any valid address. | FedEx pushes a fraction of the volume of USPS and is buckling | under the strain of the current labor shortage[1] | | [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-04/labor- | sho... | pxeboot wrote: | The Post Office doesn't actually deliver to every address. | There are hundreds of rural areas where residents get a | free PO Box in the nearest town, without the option of home | delivery. | lern_too_spel wrote: | FedEx is so bad now that I avoid buying from sellers that | use FedEx for shipping. The last few times I had a FedEx | delivery, the delivery status went to pending twice, and | the deliveries were a week late. Looking at the Google Maps | reviews of the distribution centers where the packages sat, | I consider myself lucky to have received the packages at | all. | wolverine876 wrote: | The US Post Office delivered the mail on time for generations | until the prior administration got its hands on it. | landryraccoon wrote: | This comment is pretty disingenuous. Your argument implies | that ANY public service is not worth improving, because any | government agency is vulnerable to political pressure. | | If you think your elected leaders are not competent and | professional, then fire them and elect leaders that will | improve the government. If you want a better post office, we | need to FIX the post office, not destroy it. | | This sort of argument is the one that leads to hypocritically | de-funding the post office by playing politics, then since | it's too political pointing to it and saying "See? The | government can't do anything right", then completely | dismantling it. | | Other countries manage to have public services that actually | work. I don't believe that the American people are somehow | genetically predisposed to having a bad government. | kortilla wrote: | > Other countries manage to have public services that | actually work. | | Which countries have something competing with Amazon? | | > I don't believe that the American people are somehow | genetically predisposed to having a bad government. | | All governments are bad. The American people just happen to | have alternatives that have revealed how bad some of the | overlapping government orgs are so they make a lot of noise | about how bad government departments are. | | > If you think your elected leaders are not competent and | professional, then fire them and elect leaders that will | improve the government. If you want a better post office, | we need to FIX the post office, not destroy it. | | The whole thing is fucked from an incentives perspective. | No government employee has motivation to try hard or | innovate. There is no shared bonus structure to bring that | on in any branch of the government. | | When government is competing with an industry, it's either | going to need to run at a loss and live off of other tax | revenue or it just won't be competitive for whoever the | customers are. | oblio wrote: | Look up Eni and Enrico Mattei: | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Mattei | | Mattei took over the relatively small national oil | company in Italy, expanded it aggressively until it was | able to compete with the Seven Sisters (Exxon, BP, etc, | all not state owned). State owned companies can | definitely compete. | | Should I add that Mattei died under mysterious | circumstances? | kwertyoowiyop wrote: | Any government employee care to weigh in on whether | you're motivated to try hard and innovate? I don't think | I'm being hopelessly optimistic, believing we've got a | lot of good people in government service, doing their | best. | fragmede wrote: | > Which countries have something competing with Amazon? | | All of them? Mail-order catalogs preceded the Internet, | even! If you're referring to which other countries have | let capitalism run amok to the same degrees - none, we're | the only ones that stupid. | wutwutwutwut wrote: | > Which countries have something competing with Amazon? | | Amazon have tried to enter the Swedish market and it has | been a complete train wreck. The other businesses who | were initially worried ended up just confused over how | they could screw up as bad as they did. | adventured wrote: | Amazon has made a lot of mistakes in its history. They | can keep trying at the Swedish market perpetually until | they get it right. | [deleted] | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _that ANY public service is not worth improving_ | | The argument is specific to logistics. Our government has a | poor track record in that domain outside the military. | | Instead of doubling down on a concentrated bet, increasing | competition would seem to be the solution. For example, the | federal government could grant porting rights on its | property, thereby breaking the Ports of LA & Long Beach's | monopoly. | fivea wrote: | > The argument is specific to logistics. Our government | has a poor track record in that domain outside the | military. | | US public services have a long track record of being | actively sabotaged by governments. See the US Post Office | being undermined by Trump's appointment of DeJoy. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _US public services have a long track record of being | actively sabotaged by governments. See the US Post Office | being undermined by Trump 's appointment of DeJoy._ | | Why they have a poor track record is a separate | discussion. | fivea wrote: | > Why they have a poor track record is a separate | discussion. | | The whole point is that if you're trying to dismiss an | obvious option for it's track record, even though it is | quite capable and able to do the legwork, then being | aware of the root cause of that problem, and the fact | that it's an artificial constraint with ideological | roots, is very much central to the discussion. | throwawayboise wrote: | The post office was a mess long before Trump. | bllguo wrote: | > I don't believe that the American people are somehow | genetically predisposed to having a bad government. | | I sure do. Nothing is going to change until rejection of | authority is no longer foundational to the culture. We | literally convinced ourselves that dysfunction and gridlock | are features of the system, not bugs. | jen20 wrote: | That's cultural, not genetic. | bllguo wrote: | sure, that's more accurate. I kind of assumed that's what | they meant. in any case changing either significantly is | a long shot | throwawayboise wrote: | In the USA, the best and most competent and professional | people have better options than elected office. | adolph wrote: | > instead of this we gave a fuck ton of money to the post | office | | Or the post office could find a sustainable and growth economic | model . . . at which point it might be indistinguishable from | Amazon/Walmart/Safeway/etc. | cronix wrote: | Amazon doesn't send me shit I don't order and don't want. More | than 95% of my mail is junk mail and there's nothing I can do | about it. Circulating what the vast majority of people would | consider as junk is the only thing really keeping the USPS in | operation. Well that and they don't have to turn a profit and | also have the protection of law to keep them going. | throwawayboise wrote: | You can make a big dent in your junk mail by opting out at | various direct marketing associations. It's a bit of a pain, | and won't stop all of it, and you have to redo it | periodically, but it does make a difference. | | Now I just bin everything that's not first class, directly | addressed to me by name before I even bring it into the | house. | deep-root wrote: | Alternative take: USPS is really quite a remarkable business | and worth learning about as a case study - from their fleet, | to eating 90s darling FedEx alive, to overcoming artificially | created political pressures (eg PECA), to becoming Amazon's | chief US delivery partner, and much more. | | Was curious: "marketing" mail was 18% of USPS revenue[1] | (2020) and dropping. Low share of total earnings compared to | Meta, Google, and soon Amazon's ad revenue. | | [1] https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national- | releases/2020/1113-... | pixl97 wrote: | >Amazon doesn't send me shit I don't order and don't want | | Give it 10 years when Amazon is looking for new ways to | increase profitability and shit's shipped to your door that | you have to schedule a ship back or you'll end up being | charged for it. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | They already do it by hiding the "add to cart" button in | favor of periodic shipments for certain consumables. | GhettoComputers wrote: | My brother in hated of USPS being an unnatural monopoly! http | s://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=GhettoComputers&next... | | Its incredible how many people support this horrible service | and think selling stamps makes it profitable. | alpha_squared wrote: | USPS would be, and historically has been, profitable if it | weren't for the politicians actively trying to drag it down | with arbitrary, arcane rules to protect their donors. | cronix wrote: | > if it weren't for the politicians actively trying to drag | it down with arbitrary, arcane rules to protect their | donors. | | Is there a sector/program in the gov't where that isn't the | case? Every entity that is created is just a new fiefdom to | expand and lord over from the time it's created to | infinity. | thepasswordis wrote: | If the USPS wasn't a government agency, I would weld my | mailbox shut and never look back. | | USPS is profitable because we all accept the idea that | companies are allowed to pay somebody to load _literal | trash_ through a hole in the side of my house. | rileymat2 wrote: | https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2020/04/14/post- | office-p... | | It is interesting, because shouldn't the expectation be | that a pension be funded as the benefits accrue? That seems | like the safe sustainable way to run things. | gruez wrote: | > arbitrary, arcane rules to protect their donors. | | like what? The ones I heard of were prefunding the pension | plans, but I'm not sure how that benefits any of "their | donors" | pzduniak wrote: | USPS being weak (AFAIK primarily because of this law) | benefits their competition, who are lobbying against | "fixing" it. | ceejayoz wrote: | > I'm not sure how that benefits any of "their donors" | | You can't see how kneecapping the USPS might help FedEx, | UPS, and Amazon? | | The point of making the USPS pre-fund their pension | obligations was to be able to turn around and say "look | at the horrible state of their finances, government is | clearly so inefficient, we should privatize it". | hk__2 wrote: | > More than 95% of my mail is junk mail and there's nothing I | can do about it. | | This can be fixed. In France for example, it's illegal to put | junk mail in a mailbox that has a "stop pub" (= no junk mail) | sticker on it. I have one, and as a result <5% of my mail is | junk mail. | GhettoComputers wrote: | Not in America. It's not illegal and it seems you still get | junk mail. | JackFr wrote: | > What would be awesome is if instead of this we gave a fuck | ton of money to the post office and tried to solve this problem | for everyone and also eroded amazon's competitive advantage. | | Amazon solved a problem and reaped a reward. | | Your response to that is to take everyone's money, and give it | to someone else in the hopes that they can solve the problem. | Sure, I suppose, no reason for it not to work. | | On the other hand "why don't we just enable remote commerce | like this for everyone as a societal good" is beyond simplistic | and naive. Amazon is very good at what they do and what they do | is not easy. | throwaway894345 wrote: | I'd much rather we disincentivized intercontinental transport | to incentivize domestic production and reduce carbon emissions | due to transit. I don't necessarily mind that Amazon is | successful so long as they aren't simply the best at deriving | profits from Chinese slave labor, IP theft, and pollution. I | don't think the solution is to make the Post Office better at | those things. | kwhitefoot wrote: | > reduce carbon emissions due to transit. | | Bulk and container ships are extremely efficient. Most of the | carbon emissions are from the last few miles. | derefr wrote: | That's like saying that spaceships are extremely efficient, | because "all they have to do is accelerate at the beginning | and decelerate at the end." It's not the trip that gets | you; it's the delta-V (or in this case, delta-p). | | Also, cargo shipping voluntarily uses fuel ("bunker fuel" | -- the dregs of the petroleum distillation process) that's | absolutely awful for the environment per watt generated | compared to any other fuel (including any other petroleum | distillate.) They do this because it's the cheapest | [liquid] fuel to buy per watt generated, and because they | "can" -- cargo-ship engines are designed to deal with the | low quality of bunker fuel, and ships at sea under most of | the common charters [e.g. Bermuda] aren't subject to any | ecological regulations restricting them from burning it. | | Bunker fuel shouldn't be marketable for sale as a fuel at | all. We (= OPEC, in this case) could still sell it to | chemical companies, but the rest, we should just be | sticking back in the ground. This would reduce global | greenhouse gas emissions by such an extent it's not even | funny. | | This would naturally make shipping more expensive, since | their next-cheapest fuel would be slightly more expensive. | (Probably not for long, though; some capital investment | into ship engine design, using modern engine technologies | like Cylinder Deactivation, could probably claw most of | this cheapness back.) | snovv_crash wrote: | Yes, bunker fuel is terrible. But this doesn't change the | fact that most of the carbon emissions would still be | there for domestic production, because ships are | extraordinarily efficient per tonne-mile of goods hauled. | derefr wrote: | The carbon emissions would still be there, but they might | not be nearly as toxic/hazardous. (See my reply to a | sibling comment.) | | On the other hand, they'd be happening over land, where | people live; instead of over water, "merely" killing | marine life, so that might be a wash in policy-makers' | minds. | | To be clear, though, I'm not arguing against using cargo | ships for domestic logistic _as a concept_ ; just the | current implementation. Cargo ships that _didn 't use | bunker fuel_ would be an _unalloyed_ ecological win | compared to _both_ domestic ground logistics, and the | current implementation of domestic marine logistics. | tomarr wrote: | >Bunker fuel shouldn't be marketable for sale as a fuel | at all. We (= OPEC, in this case) could still sell it to | chemical companies, but the rest, we should just be | sticking back in the ground. This would reduce global | greenhouse gas emissions by such an extent it's not even | funny. | | Bunker fuel is responsible for ~3% of CO2e emissions? OK | it may have a greater impact on air quality, but in terms | of carbon it is not exactly a stand-out item. | Schiendelman wrote: | As a single line item, that's vast. | derefr wrote: | Carbon is a heuristic, not a target. The air isn't bad | _because_ of carbon; carbon oxides are just the most | common of the GHGs we put in the air. | | Bunker fuel contains a lot more light-molecular-weight | things that _aren 't_ hydrocarbons (e.g. nitrogenous | molecules), and so when they burn, you end up with | _toxic_ GHGs being produced, rather than just _bad for | climate change_ GHGs. (And, as you mention, the fact that | we 're burning it mostly at the beginning and end of the | trip, means we're burning it _near ports_ , and therefore | making the air _at port cities_ -- and nearby estuaries | -- toxic.) | | But even then, the concern with bunker fuel in particular | isn't really the GHGs (i.e. the low-molecular-weight | products of combustion that stay airborne), but all the | _high_ -molecular-weight stuff that's mixed in there, | that _doesn 't_ stay airborne, but is temporarily put | _into_ the air during combustion. | | Bunker fuel is "dirty fuel", using a similar sense of | "dirty" to a "dirty bomb" -- not that it's radioactive, | but that it "salts the earth" where it goes off. Except | that a bunker-fuel "bomb" goes off over water, and all | the resulting heavy-molecular-weight vapors that come off | the combustion then fall into said water, contaminating | the oceans+estuaries with these chemicals. Bunker fuel | _salts the sea_. | throwaway894345 wrote: | I'm sure they're "extremely efficient" compared to the last | few miles, but those are still a whole lot of emissions | that don't exist at all when production is domestic. That | said, the more realistic possibility is that the threat of | bringing production domestic will drive China (and the | shipping industry, perhaps via nuclear marine propulsion) | to make concessions. | kwhitefoot wrote: | Post offices in Europe did banking for many years. Most of them | have been broken up now though. | | I think there should be an even more general effort made to | remove the competitive advantage that comes from simply being | big. Small enterprises suffer from the lack of economy of | scale. As a private individual or sole trader it is more | expensive for me to send a parcel than it is for a large | company, this gives the incumbent an advantage. | kortilla wrote: | > I think there should be an even more general effort made to | remove the competitive advantage that comes from simply being | big. | | That's ridiculous because you completely disincentivize | automation and efficiency with those types of rules. | | There is no reason to ensure that two guys spending 5 years | to hand build one car need to be subsidized to continue that | way. | Kalium wrote: | The USPS is also an example of a postal system that formerly | provided banking services. | justinator wrote: | The USPS is getting into banking: | | https://www.govexec.com/management/2021/10/postal-service-la... | whiddershins wrote: | Why do you favor paying via taxes over paying via purchases for | the same service? | systemvoltage wrote: | I completely disagree. Funding a government mandated monopoly | is a _terrible_ idea. | | I would vote so hard against Post Office handling banking. It | is incalculable that this kind of stuff gets upvoted by the | intellectual diaspora of HN. | CrazyCatDog wrote: | two words: visit Switzerland | | Also, absolutely agree with anyone suggesting that we | eliminate "bulk rate"--unsolicited mail should cost as much | as first class--both to avoid real world spam, and to save | trees. | | I pay extra for my carrier to block spam calls--I world | gladly pay the post office to do the same--like | PaperKarma.com but last mile... | systemvoltage wrote: | If you expect USPS to turn into Swiss-like government | agency, sure. But it is not. And it can never be. The | culture inside government agencies in USA is rotten. | hairofadog wrote: | I'm equally agog at your take, for whatever it's worth. The | Post Office is wonderful, and it boils my blood to see | legislation that aims to destroy it. I would _love_ to see | the Post Office handle banking. | | I'm also fascinated when can this sentiment expressed when | there are so many posts along the lines of | _{Apple,Amazon,Facebook} deleted my account with no warning | or explanation_ , and I can't help wondering if the folks | saying _this is why you 're an idiot if you don't run your | own email server_ are the same as the ones saying you're an | idiot if you _don 't_ trust Amazon to be your sole postal | provider. | kortilla wrote: | Amazon isn't a postal provider and they aren't a monopoly. | WTF are you talking about? | kwhitefoot wrote: | This is obviously not universally true. Do you really want to | have privately owned roads? Privately owned courts? | [deleted] | systemvoltage wrote: | Let's ban all bakeries, should bread be federalized? | kwertyoowiyop wrote: | No because then everyone would just...loaf. | keyb0ardninja wrote: | Agreed. I thought that was meant as sarcasm at first, but | apparently not. I'm shocked that is the top comment. | kortilla wrote: | Because the post office doesn't care about doing it efficiently | or with a profit. | | Government employees don't (and can't legally) get bonuses for | doing well or beating expectations. | | The entire post office org gets no bonus (or punishment for | that matter) by impacting the cost to revenue ratio. | | Both of these are the reasons it never works to throw a pile of | money at a government org and expect something sustainable | monetarily _and_ good to come out of it. | kwertyoowiyop wrote: | The post office should be run efficiently. But I don't | require it to make a profit. It is a service, for our | collective benefit. Just like the Army. I don't expect the | Army to make a profit. | bsder wrote: | These are really good ideas except ... | | Republicans specifically _blocked_ the Post Office from doing | these things with legislation. | maxerickson wrote: | The replies to this that slag the post office would make more | sense if Amazon didn't rely on the post office for last mile in | so many places. | syshum wrote: | We do, and have in the past gave a fuck ton of money to the | Post office. | | The idea that any government agency can solve this problem with | the same amount of money defy's all documented history of all | government programs | kyletns wrote: | Some governments actually govern decently well, certainly way | better than the US. I assume you haven't actually read much | of said documented history. | syshum wrote: | "Well" is subjective, "well run" Governments by their | nature have run programs to meet the needs of the "average" | person which means there will be many people for which the | programs simply do not work. | | Poorly run government are corrupted so you end up with the | programs working for a very small minority, but at best the | government program will work for probally 51% of | population. | | Government programs can simply not offer the level of | customization, flexibility, and variety that a private | market can | kyletns wrote: | Right, but I hope you also acknowledge that the US _does | not_ have very many flexible, customizable offerings | competing in healthy markets? | | There is barely a US industry left that isn't completely | captured by 2-5 corporations. We may have the illusion of | markets and choice, but we don't. We have monopolies and | oligopolies extracting monopoly rents because they buy, | destroy, or merge with the competition. | nicoburns wrote: | Private markets only cater to those who can afford to | pay, which can be a _lot_ worse than only catering to the | average. | throwaway894345 wrote: | I understand that you're intending to rebut the local claim | that "giving money to government programs always ends | poorly"; however, to the extent that your rebuttal is | correct, it seems like a reason _not to give more money to | the US government_? | kyletns wrote: | Indeed it might! I personally hate paying a chunk of my | annual income to the department of defense. But "the US | govt" sure describes a large machine, and it's worth | highlighting that some parts of that machine are better | than others, and I believe that some of them are | definitely fixable. We should fight for the good programs | and try to kill that bad ones, imo. | | But yeah, I mean on the whole, if I could abolish the US | govt (not other govt's, just this one), I probably would. | But that's not my call! So in the meantime I'm voting | progressive and contributing to pressure to repair the | good systems we have and make life more livable for the | unlucky souls born poor in this country and on this | planet. | drstewart wrote: | Ah. I assume you can point out which of these "some | governments" have logistics that rival Amazon via throwing | a "fuckton of money" to their post offices? | Spivak wrote: | Which is why public-private partnerships are a thing. This | would end up essentially contracting one or more logistics | companies to do the fulfillment for the public facing | government service. | syshum wrote: | Yea I will pass on that as well, as an example I my City | pays a private company to pick up trash, I have no | recourse, I have to pay the city, the company has no | obligiation to me at all, and there fore I get TERRIBLE | trash service | | When I lived out outside the city limits I had the choice | of 5 different trash service vendors, all offering a | different range of services at different monthly costs to | suite my needs (and the needs of my neighbors) not only was | the service CHEAPER, I got more for the money and if I | needed something special or out of the ordinary I simply | called up the company, asked for the additional service and | maybe paid a little more... I have no such options with a | city / government "public -private" partnership service | kyletns wrote: | That is super rad, and markets can be so dope, and | nothing beats good fair service like that, but doesn't it | also seem kind of crazy inefficient to have 5 different | company's trash trucks running around the city? Maybe I'm | wrong, but in terms of overall ecosystem input/output, I | would guess that 1 system consumes way fewer resources | than the sum of 5. I guess if the prices correspond to | resource-use, then maybe it is actually more efficient | overall? Crazy. | kortilla wrote: | > but doesn't it also seem kind of crazy inefficient to | have 5 different company's trash trucks running around | the city? | | Why would you even think that? It's going to be roughly | the same number of employees, equipment, etc. The total | amount of trash didn't change. | kyletns wrote: | The truck only has to drive down the street once, as | opposed to 5 trucks driving down the same street? | rootusrootus wrote: | I like the setup we have. The city regulates the trash | company. So while they are private, they provide service | according to what the city demands, and prices are | regulated right along with it. I get _great_ trash | service, even with only a single company serving the | entire area. And the prices are completely acceptable. | oliv__ wrote: | I don't know about you but from my personal experiences in | dealing with the USPS, they're not exactly what I'd describe as | the most efficient (or friendly for that matter) organization. | | Compare that to same-day or next day delivery from Amazon, it's | night and day. | | I'd rather not dump more tax money into that mess. | | EDIT: I find it interesting that 90% of the responding comments | in this thread are seemingly against the parent comment's ideas | yet all are being heavily downvoted now with practically no | answers to justify the downvotes | rootusrootus wrote: | > EDIT: I find it interesting that 90% of the responding | comments in this thread are seemingly against the parent | comment's ideas yet all are being heavily downvoted now with | practically no answers to justify the downvotes | | I think that's because many of the comments are posting | regularly debunked misinformation. | | Personally, I like the USPS more than Amazon. Because while | Amazon frequently gives me great service, they can terminate | that relationship at any time and then I'm completely stuck. | Because the USPS is quasi-governmental, they can't just | decide I'm no longer allowed to be a customer. | kortilla wrote: | > I think that's because many of the comments are posting | regularly debunked misinformation. | | Such as? | | Most of these faded out comments are talking about how the | USPS is a government org so it has no incentives to | efficiently fix things regardless of money. How do you | debunk that? It's true of the incentives of every | government agency. | nicoburns wrote: | Why does the CEO of a private company have incentive to | fix things? Presumably because they'll be fired if they | don't. How is that any different for the head of a | governmental organisation? | mdgrech23 wrote: | The government would find a way to fuck it up - most likely | through forced diversity hiring. Look at truly innovative | companies - every year they can can 10% or so of the lower | performers - if you're not doing your job your fired - doing | that in a gov ran business? good luck. everyone would claim | wrongful termination so it becomes cheaper to keep the lower | performers which leads to our current situation w/ the post | office. | rdtwo wrote: | You don't think big companies have diversity quotas in 2021? | Where have you been for a decade | tonguez wrote: | Big companies can fire people if they are not doing their | job, which obviously is not true of USPS. | jbm wrote: | Your 10% example was used by Jack Welsh GE and Enron right? | Do you consider them innovative / forward looking? | spiderice wrote: | So because Enron is bad, everything they did is bad? I'm | not arguing in favor of firing the bottom 10% each year, | but your logic here is ridiculous. | jfk13 wrote: | > Look at truly innovative companies - every year they can | can 10% or so of the lower performers | | So you're a fan of stack ranking, huh? I thought that was | pretty widely discredited, and "truly innovative companies" | know better by now. | KittenInABox wrote: | > Look at truly innovative companies - every year they can | can 10% or so of the lower performers | | Name the truly innovative companies that have this as a | policy right now. | dillondoyle wrote: | how does diversity hiring fuck up companies and government? | | it shouldn't be consider a 'quota' to give equitable access | and try to catch up the the actual balance of diversity in | this country. | | Tech I get is harder because of the century of lack of | education and lower opportunities. | | But you can't write off entire races as less performant. | mattrighetti wrote: | Because it moves the hiring focus from skills and | "meritocracy" to something that should be irrelevant: age, | tattoos, hair color etc. | | Skills give value to an organization making it more | competitive and productive, your appearance does not. If | you make decisions on who to hire based on the former | you're basically saying "Guy X is better than guy Y but I'm | gonna hire Y because some people are offended by the fact | that we're not 50/50", which is obvious in every single | part of life. | | Also, I know a lot of friends that are saddened by their | hiring process and they feel like they've been hired just | because the HR had to and not because they were the top | choices. | | But yeah, this is controversial nowadays so I don't really | try to put it out there at all and let it be. | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: | Dude the post office would squander that money. I have no idea | why people think these public entities can execute like Amazon | does. Its the same with SpaceX and NASA, very clear at this | point that NASA was a huge waste of money and completely | incompetent. | ceejayoz wrote: | Why doesn't NASA get any credit for creating and funding the | Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew programs? | | SpaceX looks like a very savvy, competent investment made by | NASA to me. | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: | Because if a private company had worked on that same thing, | the results would have been 10x. | ceejayoz wrote: | Yeah, sure. Go look up what those programs involve. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX#2005%E2%80%932009:_F | alc... | | > The first two Falcon 1 launches were purchased by the | United States Department of Defense under a program that | evaluates new US launch vehicles suitable for use by | DARPA. The first three launches of the rocket, between | 2006 and 2008, all resulted in failures. These failures | almost ended the company as Musk had planned and | financing to cover the costs of three launches; Tesla, | SolarCity, and Musk personally were all nearly bankrupt | at the same time as well; Musk was reportedly "waking | from nightmares, screaming and in physical pain" because | of the stress. | | > However, things started to turn around when the first | successful launch was achieved shortly after with the | fourth attempt on 28 September 2008. Musk split his | remaining $30 million between SpaceX and Tesla, and NASA | awarded the first Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) | contract to SpaceX in December, thus financially saving | the company. Based on these factors and the further | business operations they enabled, the Falcon 1 was soon | after retired following its second successful, and fifth | total, launch in July 2009; this allowed SpaceX to focus | company resources on the development of a larger orbital | rocket, the Falcon 9. Gwynne Shotwell was also promoted | to company president at this time, for her role in | successfully negotiating the CRS contract with NASA. | jimjimjim wrote: | spacex stands on the shoulders of giants. don't forget that! | rootusrootus wrote: | > can execute like Amazon does | | We'd have to be willing to let the USPS operate at a | significant loss for a decade, kinda like Amazon. | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: | Or differently stated, reinvest all profits back into the | business, report a loss. Amazon is brutal to its employees, | a government run entity will never match the level of | execution. Its really a fantasy to think otherwise, and has | never been shown to be true | dkjaudyeqooe wrote: | > What would be awesome is if instead of this we gave a fuck | ton of money to the post office and tried to solve this problem | for everyone and also eroded amazon's competitive advantage. | | Why hasn't this happened already? What makes you think it would | actually happen? | kyletns wrote: | Takes political courage and public pressure. There is a | little bit of that being exhibited by the current | administration, but it's also pretty clear that another | potential administration would have had a lot more potential | to fix these problems. | kortilla wrote: | What? The current admin spearheaded some 3-6T in spending | bills presumably for "infrastructure". It seems like all of | the support is there. | | The problem is that nobody gets political credit for | improving existing systems. That money will instead be | pissed away on other political gifts and novelties. | kyletns wrote: | Thanks KittenInABox. | | Politicians absolutely do get credit when they improve | actual systems and improve people's lives. People like | it, and will vote those politicians back into office. But | it has to be actual, felt, day-by-day changes in their | lives (such as fixed roads, the USPS offering free check | cashing, or even a friggin relief check in the mail with | the president's signature on it). The current | infrastructure bill(s) promise that real support, but | they didn't fund it enough imo and it's far from clear | that they'll be able to use the money they did get to | make meaningful changes in people's daily lives. | KittenInABox wrote: | What do you mean "infrastructure" in quotes? The | infrastructure bill is almost entirely infrastructure | like roads, bridges, waterways, electricity, and | broadband internet. (It's also only 1T. Not 3-6.) | kwhitefoot wrote: | To some extent it seems to have happened in China. | austincheney wrote: | This will work well for some domestic transportation and land | locked rural areas, but for everybody else... I don't think this | will do anything. It just sounds like a massive expense. | | I live right next to perhaps the largest inland port in the US | and cargo here doesn't sit for very long because the only options | are air, trucks, and trains and there is anywhere for excess | cargo to sit. This is called the inter-modal system of logistics, | the ability to rapidly move shipping contains between air and | train via short truck routes or immediately onto trucks for long | haul truck distribution. In this case the Amazon plan can skip | sea ports and directly reach inland ports that don't have | congestion. But, that will only work efficient for domestic | transport. | | The solution ignores the cause of the problem for sea ports, the | point of congestion to which they are likely a massive | contributor. | | The problem for the congestion is that ports have run out of | space, mostly from empty containers taking space needed by filled | containers on ships. This problem is not a labor shortage, | tracking inefficiency, or distribution failure. | | This problem is intentional and created by the vendors most | severely impacted from the result. Empty shipping containers take | up space and have to be stored somewhere. If not at a port then | at a vendor's warehouse clogging operations closer to the | business. Parking contains costs money. Whether you are going to | park them at a port or your own warehouse there is an expense to | that lost space. | | Parking at the port was, until about a month ago, tremendously | cheaper. It takes fuel to drive that empty box around and it | takes money to pay for a filled warehouse of your empty | containers that is needed for actual operations. So just leave it | at the port for a massive discount. | | Parking at the ports worked well... until there was a massive | pandemic and everybody starting shopping online, even from places | like WalMart. | | The Port of Los Angeles is solving this problem on their end with | rate increases that increase per day (or week, I don't remember). | I suspect their neighbor at the Port of Long Beach is following | on that plan as well. Only time will tell if this actually solves | the problem at those ports. Even the mere announcement of this | price hike resulted in one vendor removing 5000 empty containers. | That is a mind boggling amount of space, and from just one | company. | Waterluvian wrote: | I have what might be a really dumb question: | | Can you helicopter airlift 40' crates off a ship? | arbuge wrote: | The most powerful lifting helicopters available can do up to | 44,000 lbs, which is about the same as the maximum highway | transport weight for 40' containers: | | Source: 60 seconds on Google brings up: | | https://www.ukpandi.com/news-and-resources/bulletins/2021/ov... | | https://helicopterexpress.com/blog/how-much-weight-can-a- | con.... | sgtnoodle wrote: | Probably, with enough planning? The economics of it probably | wouldn't make any sense though. | Waterluvian wrote: | Yeah. But when ports are jammed I could see them doing | ridiculous things to keep the spice flowing. | vdfs wrote: | Lifting is probably just a single part of the whole | process, in your scenario, helicopters will move the pill- | up from ships to land | jallen_dot_dev wrote: | If I understand correctly, it's not a lack of cranes to get | containers off the ship but a lack of trailers to get the | containers out of the port. | tbihl wrote: | I have a lot of ex-military friends who go work for Amazon, and | it's not hard to see why after reading this article. Moonshot | ideas are exciting, but untangling the nationwide chokehold of | shipping failures would be such a tangible, rewarding project to | work on. | lyime wrote: | Check out https://www.terminal49.com/. We are working on such | problems. | gumby wrote: | Let's not forget that in the 1940s, the allied supreme | commander for Europe was...a logistics expert, Eisenhower. | thathndude wrote: | Dan Carlin's most recent podcast episodes have been on the | WWII Pacific Theatre. He spends some time talking about how | the unsexy thing like logistics and supply chains are | essential to winning. | gumby wrote: | The attack on Pearl Harbor was precipitated by a supply | chain issue: the US's oil embargo on Japan. This is not to | assign any blame to the US -- Roosevelt did the right thing | and, TBF, it did ultimately end with Japan out of China. | thathndude wrote: | Amazon is executing on an insane level. It's kind of mind | blowing how big it's getting. | | I see a lot of pundits talking about other retailers catching | up. And I know that's true to a degree. But I think they're | only catching up in some areas. Meanwhile you have Amazon | building out a whole delivery fleet for their next moat. | pphysch wrote: | I recently ordered from Walmart+ for the first time. | | Order arrived direct from Amazon as a "gift". | goldenkey wrote: | You likely didn't order from the Walmart.com retailer. | Instead, it was likely from a Pro seller or ordinary 3rd | party seller. This is the largest source of confusion for | shoppers on Amazon. So much so that Amazon now offers $1000 | if a 3rd party harms an individual. [1] | | I think the UI that combines the 3rd party sellers with the | Walmart/Amazon corporation retailer, is deliberately made | confusing. I believe over voice, like when using Alexa, it | is even more unclear what vendor is being ordered from. | | [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-compensation- | third-pa... | syshum wrote: | It is Non-Desktop Web Browser interfaces that are the | problem. | | Mobile Site, Mobile Apps, Alexa, etc make it very hard to | see who the vendor it, I do not have this problem on the | Traditional Full Size Browser Amazon.com site | rootusrootus wrote: | My wife just had exactly the opposite experience. She | ordered something from Amazon and it came in a Walmart box, | directly from Walmart with no mention of the Amazon seller | on the shipping label. | | Against Amazon's rules, for sure. | | Interestingly, the price was lower on Walmart.com but my | wife had not checked first. But it was only $2.50 less. I | have no idea how that worked out as profitable for the | 'drop shipper' (in quotes because this kind of drop | shipping is IMO not legitimate). | lupire wrote: | You got what you ordered at a price to liked. Someone got | $2.50 for helping you. What's not legitimate? | tw04 wrote: | You see them building a delivery fleet as a moat: I see it as | they've burned through literally every logistics broker in | the US and now have no other choice. Their modus operandi to | date was to put bids out to logistics brokers who would treat | Amazon like any other customer and have some routes that were | profitable, and some they'd lose money on in order to win the | overall business. Amazon would then use that broker for | nothing but the loss leader route and hammer it until the | broker fired them as a customer. You can only do that to so | many brokers before there is literally nobody left willing to | do business with you. | | Source: my buddy runs a broker business and will not do | business with Amazon under any circumstances nor will any of | his peers in this market. | pm90 wrote: | This is pretty amazing (not for the brokers, I'm sure). | Amazon just seems to be a hyper optimizing machine, | logically stepping through all possible options to every | decision. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | Taking advantage of your friends doesn't make you a | "hyper-optimising machine", it makes you an ass in the | short term and a loner with no friends in the long term. | Being a sociopath is not an innovation. | ketzo wrote: | Companies are not people, and monopolies (and | monopsonies) don't need friends. | throwawayboise wrote: | It's possible because of their scale. | | You could drive all over town buying groceries piecemeal | at whatever store has the biggest loss leader deal on | those particular items, but for a loaf of bread and a | gallon of milk and a dozen eggs the savings will be | offset by the expense of going to multiple stores. Yet if | you are buying 10,000 gallons of milk and 10,000 loaves | of bread, it becomes feasible. | petschge wrote: | Not surprising given the quote "Amateurs talk about tactics, | but professionals study logistics." by General Robert H. Barrow | (then Commandant of the Marine Corps) | hhmc wrote: | How _does_ one go about studying logistics? | hef19898 wrote: | Like everything else, university and / or professional | training ajd experience. Amazon wad, hands down, the best | Supppy Chain and logistics company I ever worked for. | DenisM wrote: | Many universities (like MIT) have courses on Supply Chain | Management, and logistics is a subset of that. | | Or you can join the military, it looks like they might have | some educational program. | loonster wrote: | And a lot of OJT. | jtdev wrote: | It would seem strange for ex-military folks to do this work and | not feel as though they were simply helping China and a | billionaire space cowboy at the expense of American sovereignty | and oppression of all those under the Chinese thumb. | ok_dad wrote: | It's really hard to work with people who don't put effort into | their work after being in the military around people who put so | much effort into getting things right. I'm not saying time | equal effort, either, I'm a clock watcher at work, but at least | when I'm working I focus on the goal at hand and I actually try | to think about the problems I'll face after I finish some task, | so that I'll do it more robustly. The military doesn't have a | monopoly on this, I've met several great people who have never | served, and there are many ways in which the military sucks | (don't get me started). However, it's pretty unrivaled when it | comes to people who try hard and perfect their craft, imo. | petra wrote: | I served in the Israeli military, like every 18 year old | male. | | In ours, there are many places where people don't care. | | A lot depends on the role one plays. some are very | meaningful. In some you carry a direct and deep | responsibility(for your team mates lives, for the people you | protect). In some places, you'll get punished severely if you | make a mistake, So you really try not to. So you try to do a | good job. | | In others ? Not so much. So you do the bare minimum and skate | by. Many people are like that. It's a general | "recommendation" for the new soldier. | | Now compare that to civilian life - in most jobs you're just | a cog, you get paid the minimum your employer can manage, and | most of the benefit of doing a better job is making the boss | richer. So why give a fuck ? | wolverine876 wrote: | Interesting. Based on your experience, would you say it's a | consequence of filling the ranks with draftees? | | Despite the rose-colored (gold-colored) glasses in some | comments, I'm sure every military, and every other large | organization, has the same things. We are dealing with | millions of human beings. I've never worked with even 10 | that were all so highly motivated. | manquer wrote: | You are always a cog in the wheel, in a miltary the boss in | addition making money can also kill you for a useless goal, | the $2 trillion and thousands killed and injured over 20 | years in afganistan is a recent example . | | Being motivated about a job whether miltary /civilian | should be about what you can do not if its corrupt | /inefficient /incompetent almost any large institutuion | usually is | imajoredinecon wrote: | > useless goal | | Is bringing peace, civil rights, and good governance to a | corrupt, poor, and violent country useless? (Obviously, | we ended up failing in large part.) | maccolgan wrote: | Yeah violating self-determination of a country without | also permanently occupying it can be seen as useless. | [deleted] | aerosmile wrote: | Agree that "useless" was a bit harsh. Perhaps | "unachievable"? | | It's a bit like dieting. You take someone who has been | chubby their entire life, put them through a bootcamp, | and then look at their weight 5 years later. The stats | are not looking good in those cases, and I think they | largely reflect our efforts in up-leveling the political | landscape in historically corrupt countries. | | I am not saying that we shouldn't keep trying. But I | think we should internalize that the chances of success | are slim, and then make that a part of our upfront | decisioning process on budget, casualties, political | cost, etc. | LordDragonfang wrote: | Well, considering America's recent military endeavors | have done the opposite, you have to wonder how many times | you can hear that until you conclude it was always a | bald-faced lie to mask our economic interests. | | Dropping bombs on a country rarely makes it less prone to | conflict unless you intend to occupy it, it just gives | more recruiting material to the "violent" radicals. | erentz wrote: | > to mask our economic interests | | If "our" means the US and it's people as a collective, | then it really seems clear that it wasn't in our | collective economic interests either. If our means | military contractors, then yes they made out very well. | LordDragonfang wrote: | It was in interests of the oil companies as well, and by | extension the interests of the leaders of the country who | are effectively on their payroll. | | But yes, "our" in this case was perhaps a poor choice of | words to refer to the interests of, for lack of a better | term, the ruling class, whose interests do not align with | the vast majority of the country. | kilroywashere wrote: | the ghani administration was nothing more than an | american imperialist puppet government, forcing american | "ideals" (see: consumerism and globalism) on a people who | want nothing to do with it. | | "God has promised us victory, and Bush has promised us | defeat. We'll see which promise is more truthful," | | - Mullah Omar. | ethbr0 wrote: | Mostly: the concept of a nation. | | Afghanistan isn't a nation. And you can't externally | force people to believe they're part of a nation. | | Either they do, in which case they're willing to accept | sacrifices for the greater good of their fellow citizens, | or they aren't. | petra wrote: | // Being motivated about a job whether miltary /civilian | should be about what you can do | | Usually why people care about that is in-job competition | and status hierarchies and ego. | | But the role of those psychological/biological | mechanisms(for ex. the serotonin system), in apes, for | example, is to drive you to compete on mates and food. To | get access to real, valuable resources. | | Modern organizations are using those mechanisms to | motivate you, without giving you any access to real | resources. Another form of exploitation. | | Some chose not to play that game. | californical wrote: | I totally don't see it this way -- the machine that we're | all cogs in does in fact give you access to recourses. | Being the best burger flipper gives you job security. | | Today we have access to insane resources that our early | humans couldn't have even dreamt about, even for the | relatively poor people today. | | The machine provides a massive supply chain of a variety | of food and medicine that was unheard of for ~all of | human history. Flipping burgers for an hour makes you | ~$10, with which you can buy food for two people for a | whole day (or more). That's less work for more reward | than ever before in history. | | So the reward system does work -- you're still competing, | and the rewards are massive, relative to apes and early | humans. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | "That's less work for more reward than ever before in | history" | | This is absolutely, myopic, demonstrably wrong at so many | levels, from the fact that minimum wage has been stagnant | for decades to eising cost of living | | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/02/24/this- | char... | hallway_monitor wrote: | It seems to me that your comment is the myopic one. GP | was talking about long time scales. The reason the | industrial revolution was so amazing was the level of | efficiency it brought with it. There is no arguing that | we get more for less work than any time previous to that. | Whether that's worth the cost of everyone being a cog in | the industrial machine is however a valid question. | petra wrote: | I don't care about the machine. It will work just the | same without my participation(in most roles). | | // Being the best burger flipper gives you job security. | | Burger flippers earn close to the minimum wage. They | always have decent job security, it's easy to find a | similar job(not necessarily as a burger flipper). | gumby wrote: | My experience in hiring ex enlisted folks is 100% great. | | With officers...less than that. They are used to more | infrastructure than a startup can or wants to provide. | roughly wrote: | > They are used to more infrastructure than a startup can | or wants to provide. | | I've seen this with ex-Googlers on the software side, and | ex-Apple folks from the hardware side who go independent | tend to hit it too ("what do you mean our Chinese suppliers | are refusing to retool their whole process for us?") | ok_dad wrote: | I was an officer (personally, I think I was decent, but who | knows), I can agree on that to a point: former enlisted | folks who are technical experts are by far above most | former officers, and I have to say one of the reasons I | left was because the officer corp is basically rotten these | days with the same crappy, entitled managers that you see | in the civilian world. However, the good officers were and | are a cut above the rest. The problem is adverse selection | by the shitty officers who thrive in that crap environment | and wouldn't last a week as a civilian manager because they | have no carrot, just sticks. | | Anyways, this is kind of off topic, so I'll take my leave. | mcguire wrote: | I had a friend who was involved in the early US Air Force | cyberwarfare stuff. He had a story of a (much more) | senior officer visiting, seeing the people, who were also | officers and had CS MSs and PhDs, doing their work, and | throwing a fit. Air Force officers, you see, don't do | work; they manage people who do work. Doing things was a | job for the enlisted. | petschge wrote: | Especially the Air Force should know better since the | people doing the work for flying things are officers... | manquer wrote: | Flying is at pinnancle of jobs at an airforce. There are | thousands of roles that is needed for a one plane to be | ready to fly by a pilot. | | Perhaps the more accurate statement officers do the what | they see as cool jobs all boring ones are delegated. | tbihl wrote: | Although the polar opposite can very often be true. The | enlisted guy troubleshoots the obscure fault in the | oxygen generator while his officer drafts messages | detailing the problem, works to get parts ordered, and | attends meetings about the whole fiasco. | throwawayboise wrote: | Aren't the people doing the flying mostly low level | officers such as lieutenants and maybe captains? | sokoloff wrote: | That's somewhat amusing coming from an Air Force officer, | as all the pilots are officers. | warner25 wrote: | This is definitely the institutional culture within the | US Army. Technical work is seen as being beneath an | officer. I'm an officer in a specialized IT career field | (BA and MS in CS, starting a PhD program next year) and | we constantly struggle against this culture. The Army | wants us to have graduate degrees in engineering or | scientific disciplines so that we can almost exclusively | fill management positions overseeing enlisted troops, | warrant officers, contractors, and low-level federal | civilians with high school diplomas doing the technical | work. | | Those of us who get hands-on to be in touch with reality, | add value, and sharpen our skillset do so at risk to our | careers. We are only rewarded for what we do as leaders, | especially expanding our scope of responsibility | (mission, people, budget, etc.). | | When I was an officer in the aviation branch, it was the | same problem. The rewards for briefing PowerPoint slides | were greater than the rewards for competently flying | helicopters. | ethbr0 wrote: | > _The Army wants us to have graduate degrees in | engineering or scientific disciplines so that we can | almost exclusively fill management positions_ | | The former AF/SF CSO observed that the lack of technical | expertise in commanding officers is a problem. [0] | | > _Please stop putting a Major or Lt Col. (despite their | devotion, exceptional attitude, and culture) in charge of | ICAM, Zero Trust or Cloud for 1 to 4 million users when | they have no previous experience in that field - we are | setting up critical infrastructure to fail. [...] They do | not know what to execute on or what to prioritize which | leads to endless risk reduction efforts and diluted | focus. IT is a highly skilled and trained job; Staff it | as such._ | | But 100% agreed with you that top-loading degrees isn't a | solution either. | | It feels like the military's historical solution to a lot | of problems (forced, regular duty station rotation, with | assumed interchangeability based on rank) isn't suited to | the types of technical project it's now being asked to | execute quickly and successfully. | | There's a _huge_ amount of good that comes from rotating | people, but it feels like there 's a new local optima | that needs to be found. | | A starter might be to make technical position rotations | more pull / resume / experienced -based, and less solely | on billet rank. I.e. Does a given position want _you_? Or | who of a stack of applicants do they want _most_ , for | the job they're currently executing? | | [0] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/time-say-goodbye- | nicolas-m-ch... | gumby wrote: | > Anyways, this is kind of off topic, so I'll take my | leave. | | Thanks for replying. I don't think it's off topic. | Startups _should_ know that former enlisted personnel | make great hires. | renewiltord wrote: | Does anyone have a neutral example? All the examples I have | of military people who are in or adjacent to this part of | Amazon have been disastrous. Full of themselves and not | particularly high performance. | | In my experience, ex military people are just like any other | ex government office people. Mostly afraid to be known as | having made mistakes, a bit too cocksure, and leaning on | their "when I was at X". | | Maybe it's different in different sub sections of the armed | services. However, the local characteristics make sense | considering the environment they were in (I only know two | combat veterans). After all, similar mistakes lead to the | Navy routinely bashing ships into each other. | | I think it's likely that the rubber meets the road very | little in the US armed forces. Perhaps the people experienced | in that have different characteristics. | jcims wrote: | I didn't serve myself but I ran a small consultancy for a few | years and one of the primary predictive factors whether or | not a new hire would do well was former military experience. | I don't attribute it to core personality issues or | intelligence or anything like that, I think it's just | training and experience that was consistent with the | expectations for the type of work we did (small infosec | firm). | aerosmile wrote: | You have to give it to the military - they really succeed in | indoctrinating their community in their success metrics. | Everyone who leaves the military has a very high opinion of | their peers' professionalism, dedication, and so forth. From | an outside observer's perspective, the results are not as | strong - the budgetary, humanitarian, environmental, | collateral, and political costs of most of the military | engagements of the past 50 years have been quite bad. You | never hear the veterans talk about that - it's always about | the success metrics that they define for themselves (eg: | casualty ratio - "we lost only 2 lives on our end, and they | lost XXXXX"). | | Compare that to the Googlers who constantly complain about | their employer, and contrast that to Google's net impact on | our society. First of all, it's not a cost center but a | massive revenue center, and it paid for endless road | constructions and similar projects across California, New | York, and all other states that Google operates in. And while | we can argue about the political bias in their search | results, I believe Google has made information more | accessible, and that's fundamentally a good thing. | | I imagine it has to do with how these two organizations | approach their communities from the very beginning: | | - Google: don't be evil | | - Military: we have our own law where your jury can consist | of as few as just 3 officers, and only 2 of them need to | agree to send you to jail. Oh, and you don't get a lawyer | until the investigation is finished, including your own | deposition. So... still want to download all those | incriminating documents and expose someone in the military? | | Not saying that we should operate like the military, but it's | important to realize that anyone who joins the military is ok | with this set of rules. So they are fundamentally not opposed | to how the military works to begin with, and it's therefore | not surprising that they are largely happy with their | internal success metrics. | ahdh8f4hf4h8 wrote: | > Compare that to the Googlers who constantly complain | about their employer | | The current set of Googlers that are complaining aren't the | ones that built the company though. Google's success was | built in the late 90's and early 2000s when they really | revolutionized internet search and then email. I would | argue that since 2010 they have lost this edge - even Bing | and DuckDuckGo give better results now for many searches. | Many of their interesting projects today are acquisitions. | | I'm curious if SV's culture has changed in the last 15 | years, and what future impact this may have - at least from | the outside it seems like some of the brutal meritocracy | attitude that made SV great has died off. | GhettoComputers wrote: | >Everyone who leaves the military has a very high opinion | of their peers' professionalism, dedication, and so forth. | | This sounds very biased. The VA is constantly complained | about as is their benefits payments. The MRAs suck, they | can't speak about some secret stuff, none of this | information is unusual or buried, it sounds like you have a | very biased viewpoint, maybe from not getting to know any | military. | | >From an outside observer's perspective, the results are | not as strong - the budgetary, humanitarian, environmental, | collateral, and political costs of most of the military | engagements of the past 50 years have been quite bad. | | Vietnam, the fuck up in Iraq, and suicides are well known | to be bad to everyone including the military, the default | response to anyone who served is "thank you for your | service". Many see it as a job. I know a very friendly | female marine (they complained about her kindness and said | it wasn't militant -and reflected badly on their | perceptions), she was well decorated, and complained about | sexism even though she was a superior to these men. Get to | know some military people, your biased opinion will change. | hogFeast wrote: | > You have to give it to the military - they really succeed | in indoctrinating their community in their success metrics. | Everyone who leaves the military has a very high opinion of | their peers' professionalism, dedication, and so forth. | | Same in every bureaucracy. | wolverine876 wrote: | > Everyone who leaves the military has a very high opinion | of their peers' professionalism, dedication, and so forth. | | Are you talking about the US military and do you have some | data on that? I see people with no experience of the | military imagine a storybook entity (which is a very | popular public concept these days), but the US military has | significant retention problems, very high rates of suicide | and sexual assault (signals of and, for the latter, a cause | of a toxic environment), and a lot of morale, discipline, | and corruption problems. As a couple of examples of the | latter, around a year ago, the head of special operations | said that it was their top priority. In ~ the last year, | the Navy was having trouble filling higher ranks because so | many officers had been kicked out due to corruption | scandals (e.g., the 'Fat Leonard' scandal). | | The glorification of the military might seem patriotic, but | I think it's the opposite: It's a way of not seeing and | addressing problems, which weakens defense and leaves the | people serving to deal with the problems and suffer the | consequences (including the environment, more and longer | tours, and possibly their lives). It's like a case of | extreme over-confidence in a CEO - a very dangerous flaw. | | > Compare that to the Googlers who constantly complain | about their employer | | People in the military don't gripe? | Retric wrote: | Yes, you can find some seriously messed up stuff in the | military. I was looking at some criminal data and seeing | a huge number of attempted murder charges related to one | case I thought the data might have been in error. But no, | throwing a live grenade into a tent is quite serious. | | That said, it's easy to underestimate just how large the | US military is and how many people cycle in and out every | year. Just unemployment benefits alone get quite | expensive during any economic downturn. Recruit millions | over time and even if you reject the most obvious problem | cases you will eventually get some seriously unstable | people. | lupire wrote: | People complaing about the military too. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault_in_the_Unite | d... | | Everyone who works anywhere is not "fundamentally opposed | to how it works". | Jansen312 wrote: | As long as their internal success metrics align with | civilian interest, I am ok with that. But some can't | integrate back especially when jobs require creativity, | extensive domain knowledge and experience, and multi- | tasking with multi-roles. It is that later that most | veterans can't function well. In their previous life, | things are predefined and roles are limited to just 1 or 2. | Civilians have to juggle a lot and has no clear cut | directions how things work out. Employers also won't | tolerate your disabilities if that can be taken over by any | other normal persons. | wolverine876 wrote: | > But some can't integrate back ... | | It's more than a few; it's a widespread problem. It's | always a challenge for people from the military to not | only adjust to civilian life, but to build up the | networks of contacts, etc. that deliver us jobs and many | other resources. | toast0 wrote: | > From an outside observer's perspective, the results are | not as strong - the budgetary, humanitarian, environmental, | collateral, and political costs of most of the military | engagements of the past 50 years have been quite bad. | | For the most part, all of those issues fall squarely upon | the leadership. Military personell have a duty to fufil | lawful orders, and you can't simply resign and take a | different job if given a lawful order you don't think is a | good thing for all of those reasons. | | In contrast, when working for an employer, you have at | least some ability to refuse to do things you don't think | are a good idea. Worst case, you're fired or resign and | need to find other work. But you're very unlikely to be | court martialed and imprisoned. Or even sued. | rootusrootus wrote: | > after being in the military around people who put so much | effort into getting things right | | I met some really bright, hard working people when I was in | the military. But I met a huge number of slackers doing the | absolute minimum required to skate by. I don't think the | military has any particular monopoly on driven individuals. | curiousllama wrote: | The military might also be one of the only other places where | you deal with the physical scale and speed of Walmart. They | train to go set up a medium-sized city on 24hours notice. I can | see why a logistics company like Amazon would see that as | valuable! | ineedasername wrote: | Yep, and logistics may not be glamorous but it does have | interesting problems to solve w/ a lot of real-world impact. | | Better world-wide logistics doesn't just mean getting your | latest shiny gadget on time either: it also means better and | more robust response times in humanitarian disasters or other | serious situations. | toomuchtodo wrote: | I argue logistics and ops are _more glamorous_ for the | reasons you enumerate. | setr wrote: | Logistics and operations is the kind of job where no one | cares whether you exist when you're doing well, but | everyone's beating down your door when something breaks. | loonster wrote: | It's worse. Everyone thinks your lazy when everything is | running smoothly. | renewiltord wrote: | No. They don't. Amazon Prime's pioneering free two-day | shipping was noticed. The same day shipping was noticed. | I often hear about Amazon's speed as a factor for why | people use them. In fact, among my friends people remark | that Amazon can often deliver to our homes faster than | Best Buy can deliver to their stores for us to pick up. | | It's just that smoothly is table stakes. Amazon raised | the bar so now you have to do it smoothly blazing fast. | thaumasiotes wrote: | > It's just that smoothly is table stakes. Amazon raised | the bar so now you have to do it smoothly blazing fast. | | Amazon raised the bar. And then they completely failed to | meet their own new higher bar. | | Amazon will no longer _allow_ you to select the speed of | your shipping. Amazon will offer you shipping at whatever | speed they feel is appropriate, and if you want faster | shipping than that, you can suck it. This is a huge | downgrade from the system Prime started out with. | | And when Amazon fails to meet the shipping deadline they | quoted you, again, you can suck it. This is not | infrequent. This despite the fact that the deadline is | something _they_ made up. | | Between this and Amazon's giving up on offering lower | prices than other stores, I tend to prefer ordering from | other stores. | lazide wrote: | What I think the parent meant is that oddly, if you mention | to random folks at a bar or in line at the grocery store | that you work in logistics they run _away_ instead of them | and everyone else in earshot mobbing you for an autograph. | As compared to being a rock star, movie producer | /actor/actress, etc. | joe_the_user wrote: | This is actually _part_ of the shipping failure. Does Amazon | have different ports and different workers unloading things? | Read the article and you will see the answer is no. | | What Amazon has bought is priority within the massive shipping | complex (with ships and port both controlled by the 3-4 | cartels). There's nothing they've accomplished here except get | an immunity to the problems that actually means the delays get | shunted onto other organizations trying to get their stuff. | Basically, the very largest monopolies are protecting each | other and screwing the medium-sized and little guy operator. | | Is Amazon using the Port of Oakland when LA is ultra-busy? No, | Amazon stuff is going quick through LA and this automatically | means other stuff is going slower. | imajoredinecon wrote: | Did you see the other parts in the article about building | their own containers and delivering to ports in Houston and | Washington state? | papito wrote: | Exactly. You don't need to be particularly inventive if you | are sitting on a massive pile of money. Buy priority to stay | in business? Sure. Lease a whole fleet of cargo planes? Put | it on the tab. | op00to wrote: | You really should have read the article, Joe. | black_13 wrote: | Maybe they could get a fleet of ICBMs? | privatdozent wrote: | Nice to have money | EMM_386 wrote: | Pilots who used to fly Amazon Prime branded planes were actually | flying for large cargo outfits like Atlas Air. | | But Amazon has now gotten into the airline business, with a | purchase of 11 Boeing 767s. | | https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-makes-its-first-aircr... | markdown wrote: | News to me. I bought a pair of headphones in early September and | they still haven't shipped. Since then I've had chats with Amazon | support thrice, and the first two times I was lied to with "it's | just being packed for shipping now". | | The third time I was given $20 in Amazon credit and told that a | ticket had been lodged about my purchase. That was a week ago, | and it still hasn't shipped. | | I could easily have cancelled and bought another product, but I'm | pissed off that they sold me a product they didn't have, and now | I'm invested in seeing how this plays out. | wayanon wrote: | Companies can move faster because they don't spend public money | so have fewer rules to follow. | | If we let USPS function in the same way Amazon does (eg scrapping | unprofitable activity) you'd see changes but USPS is providing a | service for the public good. | | Plus arguably politicians don't benefit from creating an amazing | USPS though who knows why. | GhettoComputers wrote: | That's a good idea, we should stop publicly funding them and | they'll be able to possibly be good as amazon. | nikkinana wrote: | Amazon is obviously behind the new Covid virus and the smash and | grabs. Gotta shop online. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-12-05 23:00 UTC)