[HN Gopher] Amazon builds property empire, quietly buying land a...
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Amazon builds property empire, quietly buying land across the US
Author : jbredeche
Score : 223 points
Date : 2022-06-14 17:58 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| zip1234 wrote:
| Nothing wrong with buying property that they plan on using
| productively.
| fortyseven wrote:
| criddell wrote:
| What's good for Amazon isn't necessarily good for the rest of
| us. Maybe that land they are going to build a warehouse on
| should be reserved for agriculture or reforested.
| googlryas wrote:
| Zoning laws already take care of that.
| zdragnar wrote:
| So zone the land as non-commercial. Don't finger amazon as
| the problem when it was going to go to one commercial entity
| or another anyway.
| dymk wrote:
| taylorius wrote:
| Yeah, that Blue Origin, man - just a LEO taxi eh? Sure
| Jeff, sure...
| samstave wrote:
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| It's just a wise way to store capital in a volatile investment
| ecosystem. Property rarely falls in the long run. If anything it
| shows that Amazon don't have much confidence in other areas.
| abnerhorn wrote:
| Could they be thinking about building charging and landing
| stations for future flying cars / drones?
| lprd wrote:
| I'll go ahead and say it: Amazon is frighteningly large. Any time
| I visit a UPS store, the lines are out the door and most of the
| people are there to make amazon returns. I see amazon delivery
| trucks throughout my town - its incredible what Bezos has
| achieved but I fear its just gone too far.
|
| I'm only 32 and I've seen so many companies shutting down; partly
| due to consumer shifts, but also by amazon pushing them out of
| the market. The pandemic also caused a few big players to get
| thrown under, but it seems that amazon only grew bigger.
|
| The future looks strange.
| theklub wrote:
| Sadly our government doesn't protect us, I think there should
| have been an antitrust case a long time ago.
| babelfish wrote:
| Why is this scarier than Target or Walmart, each of which have
| a higher market share than Amazon?
| BbzzbB wrote:
| For what it's worth, neither Target nor Walmart have a wholly
| unrelated cash cow (AWS) to subsidize ventures into new
| markets at huge losses until market dominance is established.
| lprd wrote:
| Its scarier because there is no competition for amazon. The
| closest company that comes to mind is Alibaba/Aliexpress, but
| even they haven't had an affect on the US market to the
| extent that amazon has.
|
| The stores you mentioned are physical department stores,
| which have been competing in their own space for many, many
| years. Amazon originally disrupted the book market...now look
| at the amount of markets it dominates.
| collaborative wrote:
| We will never know the number of small businesses that had to
| shut down because unlike Amazon, they couldn't nor wouldn't
| indebt themselves to grow indefinitely (aka survive)
|
| The amount of talent and efficiency in the economy that Amazon
| has crushed..
| shadowgovt wrote:
| This implies competitors couldn't just go work for Amazon.
| I'd say "crushed" is more than a bit of an exaggeration.
| iamsomewalrus wrote:
| i think this is too pessimistic. via FBA they've also enabled
| thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of small businesses and a
| cottage industry of others that have formed around them.
| onphonenow wrote:
| The "efficiency" that amazon has "crushed". Is this serious?
|
| They offered at home COVID PCR tests. The normal timeline was
| you'd take it and drop it off at 5PM at your UPS store. By
| 10AM-11AM (Pacific) the next day they had results. Along the
| way you had full tracking. In transit, at lab etc.
| Registering the thing was a photo of the barcode.
|
| We had major medical providers getting paid major money that
| would take a WEEK (!!) to get results back. I saw on my
| insurance they were charging something like $289 per test
| because the person that picked them up was a "medical
| professional". So despite millions / billions, I was getting
| better service from my $39 amazon test.
|
| This test included 2 day delivery (free) to me, it included
| priority overnight delivery back to amazon + lab work + web
| tools etc. They must have (smartly) located the lab near UPS
| worldship.
|
| Same with shipping and logistics. The USPS, with a guaranteed
| nationwide monopoly on certain services struggles to get me
| stuff on time. Fedex is even worse for some reason. Amazon is
| an absolute machine where I am. We have same day, next day
| and two day delivery that is HIGHLY reliable and efficient.
| We can drop stuff off back at Kohls etc without even packing
| it. We can pickup from Amazon lockers, or have them deliver
| inside our house if we want.
|
| When folks talk about how inefficient amazon is I want to
| know what they are comparing them to. Fedex? Some walmart
| warehouse?
| dan_quixote wrote:
| Consider that some of Amazon's more recent ventures into
| automation (namely PrimeAir) are driven by the long-standing
| knowledge that they would exhaust the labor pool in many
| markets. They knew their growth and labor practices would
| hurtle us toward dystopia years ago.
| [deleted]
| noja wrote:
| Nobody saw it coming, the world's next theme park: Amazon World.
| oblio wrote:
| They could call it... Amazonia.
| xlix wrote:
| It'd be a real shame if they didn't call it _The_ Amazon
| Animats wrote:
| Amazon has some flexibility here. They've been pushing some of
| their vendors to handle their own shipments, resulting in a whole
| Amazon reseller industry. Amazon can pull as much of that in-
| house as they want.
| nimbius wrote:
| many may be too young to remember but Eddie Lampert did this with
| Sears in the 80s and 90s as a thinly veiled attempt to turn the
| company into some kind of obscure land broker. It did not end
| well, and serves to this day as a textbook example of ideology
| eclipsing principled, well researched business decisions.
|
| in the article Bloomberg attempts to invent reasons this practice
| is dicey for Amazon that dont involve "you arent a real estate
| company" but fall short. the regulatory landscape they paint
| simply doesnt exist in the places (texas) they want to buy land.
|
| the real reason is likely to prevent competitors from setting up
| their own warehouses, as Lampert frequently did the same thing by
| buying out anchors and real estate in an attempt to funnel
| customers back into sears during its declining era as it was
| being bled dry by VC style profit chicanery that doesnt involve
| store refreshes or new markets.
| zeruch wrote:
| "serves to this day as a textbook example of ideology eclipsing
| principled, well researched business decisions." ...sounds
| satirically like a lesson the Vatican is learning harshly right
| now.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| ...or like a business intelligence and reporting software
| vendor buying up Bitcoin
| jkaptur wrote:
| Is this a reference to something? I don't see how they're
| similar.
| madars wrote:
| Reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroStrategy
| rootsudo wrote:
| Meanwhile, every grocery chain does it, Walmart does it
| (Successfully!), Mcdonalds does it, and more.
|
| The later is more interesting because it's a franchise model,
| and if a franchisee is successful, there's usually nothing in
| the franchise agreement to stop corporate from setting up shop
| nearby. Maybe not across the street or a block down the road,
| but yes.
|
| Also quite common w/ lapsing leases with walmart and such, they
| take out 15-25 year leases, and if it fits their margins, they
| will build nearby and ride the lease out.
| dudus wrote:
| As a counter argument McDonald's does the same thing and is
| quite successful at it. When you open a franchise you have to
| build on the main corp land and pay for rent on it in
| perpetuity, on top of franchise fees .
| bluGill wrote:
| McDonalds is also careful to ensure all their franchises are
| in locations that will make the owner a ton of money (if they
| run the business well) and so it is a good deal. Not all
| companies work this way though.
| FredPret wrote:
| Win-win - corporate ends up with prime RE and reliable
| rents; franchisor ends up with business pumping cash
| TrueSlacker0 wrote:
| I wouldn't say a ton of money. This article [1] says it
| averages 150k/yr profit but it costs between 1-2mil to
| start.
|
| [1] https://www.mashed.com/178309/how-much-mcdonalds-
| franchise-o...
| roflyear wrote:
| That's pretty good.
| rednerrus wrote:
| I'll take a 10 cap any day of the week right now.
| lumost wrote:
| Take 5 million in loans, start 3 and then you have 450k -
| .05*5 million = 250k free cash flow. Not a bad deal at
| all in an inflationary environment, but a rough deal in
| an environment with rising rates.
| hef19898 wrote:
| That's what, ten percent in profits? Sounds pretty good
| to me!
| nsxwolf wrote:
| That's why a lot of people own 2 or 3.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Can someone explain why McD bothers to franchise their
| restaurants?
|
| Usually franchise contracts are set up in order to transfer
| most risk onto the franchisee. But the risk is marginal
| because of due diligence McD does before launching a new
| venue.
|
| Is this some sort of accounting/tax trick that enhances McD
| financial figures on paper? Does this allow them to raise
| more capital for expansion somehow?
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Surely any successful company, and even most any failing
| company, has a system for identifying and quantifying
| optimal locations for new builds. It's not like Amazon is
| just taking whatever real estate it can get. There are at
| least _some_ parameters.
| nceasy wrote:
| in my city we had the first closed store of McDonald's in
| the world! great achievement
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes it is very rare. In most cases it is probably due to
| general economic decline of the area, but every once in a
| while they were just wrong about the potential of the
| location.
| hamburglar wrote:
| What town, and when was this? I remember noting that two
| closed in seattle in the early 2000's and thinking that
| was pretty unusual.
| EGreg wrote:
| Bill Gates bought tons of farmland in the USA and he's doing
| just fine
|
| https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/05/bill-g...
|
| Also, McDonalds became a real estate play long ago
|
| https://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burg...
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| What happened with Sears is very different. Somehow, Eddie
| Lampert got Sears to divest itself of its real assets and was
| then going to lease them. Some other company of Eddie Lampert's
| ended up owning the real estate. That company never had issues.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| > being bled dry by VC style profit chicanery
|
| Don't you mean PE, not VC?
| nimbius wrote:
| correct! PE was more of a fever dream at sears as well. capex
| and opex was the most visible and agonizing part of his
| "vision" but certainly the 5bn in stock buyback he instituted
| makes harley davidson look like a food truck in comparison.
| under Eddie, sears made money by selling the idea and concept
| of sears on paper, not tangible products at the malls it
| occupied.
|
| the whole thing devolved from a value trap to many people
| outright calling Lampert a thief who orchestrated the
| downfall of Sears intentionally. three years ago he even
| threatened to stop payment of sears and kmart pensions during
| bankruptcy proceedings.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I recall and interview where they spoke of returns as a
| profit center. I'm sure there was some sort of accounting
| bullshit that make 1+1=5, but in the end it's bullshit.
| motbob wrote:
| Amazon is buying land piecemeal, lot by lot--probably roughly
| at market value, then. I don't think it's really comparable to
| someone buying Sears because they think Sears's land holdings
| are undervalued.
|
| At worst, they're exposing themselves to the whims of the
| commercial real estate market as a whole. Not like Sears, where
| the value of their holdings depended on a pretty niche market--
| the value of malls.
| supertrope wrote:
| A lot of businesses sell and lease back their real estate.
| That way their capital isn't tied down in non core
| competencies. Also they can insulate themselves from real
| estate booms and busts.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Another advantage is real estate investment trusts have
| favorable taxation so it makes sense to disaggregate.
| Closi wrote:
| Eh, if you are cash rich you might as well.
|
| Owning land isn't something that requires a great deal of
| skill/competence compared to leasing land - in fact if you
| want to stay in a property for a long time, there is more
| complexity in managing a lease if you have capital tied to
| it once the lease period is up and you are forced to
| renegotiate the deal.
|
| IMO this idea that a giant logistics operation shouldn't
| own it's own warehouses just because owning warehouses
| isn't a "core competency" is questionable. In reality this
| decision just depends on your corporate perspective on the
| cost of capital (eg the WACC).
| jethro_tell wrote:
| lol, most of amazon's money comes from things that
| weren't the core competency that they figured out how to
| do at scale.
|
| The 'focus on your core competency' is for small
| companies on tight budgets with tight human resource
| capacity. When you have a few mil employees, email is a
| core competency, when you have a dozen, it's a pain in
| the ass. The same goes for AWS. def wasn't a core
| competency, but a huge part of the reason we can tell
| businesses to focus on core competencies is because
| amazon made SaaS, IaaS, PaaS a thing.
|
| IDK about real estate. It probably makes sense to own
| your office buildings and warehouses at scale. They
| probably have a real estate team that's bigger than most
| companies that are 'focusing on core competencies' and it
| probably doesn't look too different than any super
| focused brokerage.
|
| Once you hit scale, the money is in doing it in house.
| When you're paying by seat, it becomes a core competency
| about the time the cost to run a team of pros to do the
| same job is <= to paying per seat.
|
| This may have been a misstep assuming that their pandemic
| growth would continue. I believe that's what they said in
| their last earnings call, something to the effect that
| they scaled quickly to address additional market capacity
| that was short lived.
|
| Would assume they'll be just fine. Probably read the tea
| leaves wrong but I don't think this is getting off track
| and forgetting what they do to make money.
| cryptica wrote:
| A couple of years ago, my stance was that the growth of mega-
| corporations would lead to economic inefficiencies which were 'as
| bad' as a centrally planned communist economy. But now my belief
| is that it will be worse because at least, in a centrally planned
| communist economy, there is some degree of socially beneficial
| collaboration between different industries... Here we have a
| handful of massive megacorps with distinct financial interests
| which are all trying to extract as much value from society by
| whatever means or excuses they can get away with... Won't this
| just lead us to China-style 'ghost cities'?
|
| Amazon knows how to build warehouses, so they will just build
| ghost warehouses so long as government money printers will
| subsidize it; they can keep monetizing warehouses regardless of
| whether or not the market needs them. The entire economy is
| turning into some kind of Bitcoin-like mining scheme except
| instead of wasting electricity, Amazon will waste mostly
| concrete, steel and workers' time... It's incredible that while
| most people can't afford houses to live in, Amazon seems to be
| building more and more warehouses...
|
| Megacorps are merely following the streams of currency from the
| money printers instead of following real consumer needs...
| Unfortunately, they have a lot of control over the money printers
| via their relationships with governments so they can make sure
| that they end up pointing towards wherever is convenient for
| them... They can turn a profit regardless of whether or not
| people need what they're offering.
|
| Just look at big weapon manufacturers; they wanted some big juicy
| government contracts (funded straight from the money printers)
| and look at what they got; another war! Governments are all too
| happy to hand out all that free, freshly printed money to their
| buddies. Plenty of profits generated from destroying net economic
| value.
|
| Vaccine manufacturers... Bill governments for billions of doses
| and then let governments worry about how to sell it to the
| public. Governments are systematically monetizing waste for the
| benefit of their corporate overlords with 0 concern for common
| social interests.
| johng wrote:
| McDonald's isn't much different.
| ajb wrote:
| I was much more shocked when I came across this:
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/b?node=26247109031
|
| TLDR: Amazon has a hair salon
| [deleted]
| heyflyguy wrote:
| Jeff Bezos owns a ton of land personally in and around Van Horn
| as well. Between him and Gates, it's staggering how much land
| these billionaires are buying.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| That's why these companies must be broken down and nobody
| should be a billionaire.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| How do you imagine this happening? What would happen is that
| they would still own everything they have today, but in a
| more complex legal form.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| https://archive.ph/4TpWD
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| This is interesting given that Amazon was recently reported to be
| trying to sublet 10M sqft of excess warehouse space[0].
|
| If both of these stories are true, it makes me wonder why they're
| acquiring so much real estate.
|
| 0: https://www.techradar.com/news/amazon-now-has-too-much-
| wareh...
| raverbashing wrote:
| Probably because Bezos can see through the short-sightedness of
| modern "opex-only" "best practices"
|
| Because for their purposes, it's better to have self-managed
| real-estate than depending on what might be on the market at a
| given time
|
| Does it make sense to rent a warehouse then get hit with a rent
| hike after 10yrs or something? No
| syntheweave wrote:
| They can achieve a faster last-mile experience if their
| facilities are closer, and this space is now in contention with
| Walmart already beating them to the punch on drone delivery. To
| compete with big-box retailers they increasingly have to act
| like one, which is a very deep change to their e-commerce
| business. There is a strong chance here that they get
| outcompeted.
| bombcar wrote:
| Exactly, the tables have turned and suddenly those large
| Walmart and Target stores are basically customer-manned
| warehouses that they can also ship from. Best Buy is in on
| it, too - order from them and half the time the product will
| ship from some Best Buy store somewhere instead of from a
| warehouse.
| treesknees wrote:
| I bought a device from Best Buy and it arrived on my porch
| within 3 hours of my purchase. It was quick enough that
| even if I don't always receive orders that fast, I'm more
| inclined to check their website now instead of just
| defaulting to Amazon 2-day shipping.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > If both of these stories are true, it makes me wonder why
| they're acquiring so much real estate.
|
| Same reason as the Catholic Church. They aren't making more
| land any time in the foreseeable future.
| supertrope wrote:
| Land is finite but the desirability of the land can change.
| Detroit used to be a tier 1 American city.
| beauzero wrote:
| So did Butte and Anaconda, MT.
| vidanay wrote:
| For a corporation that is flush with cash, Detroit is
| potentially a good buy with long term potential. A 50 year
| timeline is not unrealistic.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Little different- the church doesn't pay property taxes.
| Amazon does, unless they have a religious investment arm.
|
| If I had to guess, I'd say land purchases are some sort of
| vehicle to filter profits for tax purposes. There's a million
| rules that benefit property owners for that purpose.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Perhaps they are getting tax abatements by bamboozling the
| local county officials into thinking that there is going to
| be some huge local economic benefit from their land
| purchase.
| hinkley wrote:
| Part of King Henry VIII's fight with the Catholic Church was
| due to the amount of rent-seeking that was going on in
| England. They were such a ridiculously massive land owner by
| that point that they threatened the Crown.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| What I've heard internally (well, it's Blind rumors...) is that
| Dave Clark screwed up and way over estimated the need for new
| warehouses last year.
| [deleted]
| gideon_b wrote:
| This has always been Amazon's strategy. Amazon is not a server
| company, an ecommerce company, a grocer, or any of the other
| seemingly random things they do.
|
| The common thread running though all of their lines of business
| is to create businesses with complex problems, solve those
| problems incredibly well, then sell those solutions to other
| companies. Amazon uses themselves as their first-and-best
| customer [1]. AWS, Prime and all of their best solutions work
| in this way. The whole company is organized to support this
| strategy.
|
| The fact that Amazon is expanding their warehouse capabilities
| beyond their needs and building deeper into the stack by
| getting into real estate development is a natural continuation
| of this strategy.
|
| [1] https://stratechery.com/2016/the-amazon-tax/
| deanCommie wrote:
| An extremely relevant recent update:
| https://stratechery.com/2022/beyond-aggregation-amazon-
| as-a-...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I'd love to see Ben partner with a smart tax/finance guy.
|
| His analysis is interesting, but very slanted with the tech
| business viewpoint. The cringy canonization of Uber back in
| the day is a great example. IMO, these machinations by
| Amazon are probably more about financial engineering than
| anything else.
|
| Amazon has a good distribution network, but Shopify,
| Walmart and Target seem to have found and are competing
| successfully at Amazon's weak points. Many people I know
| pivoted to Target for consumer staples vs Amazon. You can
| have anything they carry in about 30m. Shopify seems to be
| the place for sellers who want to protect their brand and
| avoid being ripped off within days.
|
| Not sure why Ben cares about an Amazon truck vs UPS
| delivering stuff he's probably alone in that.
| gregwebs wrote:
| Amazon thinks long-term. They have a glut of warehouse space at
| the moment, and it is costing them dearly, but they probably
| hope to grow back into it when the upcoming recession is over.
| If Amazon successfully launches their program to buy with Prime
| from other stores, they could probably fill up their extra
| warehouse space pretty quickly. Think of Amazon handling
| logistics for every small retailer and even some big ones,
| regardless of whether they sell on amazon.com.
| hrgiger wrote:
| First thing comes to my mind turning cash to asset to stay
| stronger against economy, maybe Elons twitter bet was the same
| idea
| olkingcole wrote:
| Even if online sales are slowing overall maybe it is still
| growing in some areas, requiring more capacity. As for the land
| purchasing, maybe it is partly an investment to get cash off
| the books and/or positioning for some long term strategy (this
| is just a guess, I don't know much about how large businesses
| operate).
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| curiousllama wrote:
| They could just be leasing out space in locations where they
| overbought relative to short term needs, but expect to need the
| capacity later. E.g. project out steady 10% YoY volume growth
| with a 5-year real estate cycle for warehouse space, and you'd
| def get some medium-term regional overcapacity/shortfalls.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember when Amazon had an "advantage" over
| bricks and mortar operations because it was much less capital
| intensive. However, under ZIRP, having a capital intensive
| business (warehouses, data centers, etc) is a vast moat. Will
| this change as interest rates continue to increase?
| Vladimof wrote:
| But they charge people for warehouse space before they even
| sold their product, don't they?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| What Amazon has now is much _less_ capital intensive than
| trying to do anything equivalent with retail outlets.
| mywittyname wrote:
| They retain that advantage. B&M retail needs all of the
| warehousing of Amazon, but also requires low-efficiency retail
| space that services a pretty narrow geographic area.
| iandanforth wrote:
| I'm surprised that Amazon doesn't own apartment complexes. Build
| a multi-level basement as a fulfillment warehouse, then stack
| housing on top. The housing would have 10 minute delivery and be
| a great way to further accustom people to Amazon being the place
| to get everything.
| yuliyp wrote:
| That sounds awful. An apartment where you have semis pulling up
| at all hours delivering cargo? This is why we have zoning laws
| to avoid people building warehouses in residential districts.
| agilob wrote:
| Surely Amazon can buy some local regulators, just think about
| how many low paid jobs this would bring!
| supertrope wrote:
| Smarter politicians will refuse to bend over backwards for
| new employers who offer low wage jobs, set up enterprises
| that can be easily relocated when the tax credits expire,
| and don't offer anything special.
| Dyac wrote:
| How is this really that different from city centre multi use
| buildings where there are stores on the ground floor and
| living space on the upper floors? Especially if some of those
| are served by gig-economy delivery couriers.
|
| Those stores get stocked somehow- usually not by semis.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| I think you underestimate the traffic a warehouse gets
| versus stores in the ground. Also recently in the
| Netherlands they've decided that the 10min delivery grocery
| stores are actually distribution centres and are no longer
| allowed to set up shop in the housing areas, because of the
| excessive amount of truck traffic.
| spockz wrote:
| It wasn't the truck traffic only. It was also the
| activity at all hours. Plus the deliverers on their bikes
| making lots of noise. Plus these stores being boarded off
| or closed becoming very ugly and shady.
| yread wrote:
| Plus bored drivers being a noisy nuisance and starting
| fights with residents
| Spooky23 wrote:
| A distribution center generates hundreds of truck trips a
| day. A good sized supermarket generates ~15 a week, but may
| vary based on the company and methodology.
| memish wrote:
| I tend to agree, although if it costs less to rent and have
| 10 minute Amazon delivery? I might go for it. I've lived next
| to train lines and highways that are louder.
| idlehand wrote:
| Those semis are going to be a lot quieter in coming decades
| when they go electric.
| oblio wrote:
| Do you have numbers of that? Tires and drag cause a lot of
| noise.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| Denying mixed use because it might be noisy for hypothetical
| residents is how we wound up with the current disaster that
| is American urban/suburban planning
| Dyac wrote:
| Are mixed use buildings a problem? I thought the normal
| problem in America was that zoning tends to prohibit mixing
| uselage types.
|
| Here [0] is a random street i picked in Paris with mixed
| use buildings - looks pretty nice tbh-lots of accommodation
| & amenities, easily walkable, some shops and restaurants.
|
| [0] 61 rue de Passy
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/14Kxyd9SwARyT79s8
| taylorius wrote:
| Mixed use is a winner in urban environments. London has a
| lot of it, and it makes for good, local living.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| My point was that denying mixed use is what creates the
| American suburbanization mess. Most cities have limits on
| delivery hours anyway, making the parent comments concern
| moot.
| adolph wrote:
| It'd be funny to take that picture and redo the
| neighborhood a la "Microsoft Re-Designs the iPod
| Packaging" [0]. 1. Straighten out that
| street 2. Repave those cobbles 3. Add green
| lane bike path 4. Parking meters 5. ...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k
| yuliyp wrote:
| Mixed use is not a problem as long as the uses are
| compatible, shops and housing work well together.
| Industrial and residential not so much.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| BMW's Mini pressing plant (formerly Pressed Steel) is in
| my home town, Swindon, it's surrounded on three sides by
| housing and the fourth by a road that has houses on the
| opposite side.
|
| I don't think it inconveniences anyone.
| ianai wrote:
| With how short Amazon tenures are, shouldn't they be hotels
| at the top?
| colinsane wrote:
| i think the ordering matters a lot: warehouse added to
| residential space: NO. apartment added to an industrial
| space: okay. people will put up with a lot of noise (e.g.
| those who live under a flight path near the airport), just so
| long as they knew what they were signing up for.
| supertrope wrote:
| People will buy houses next to an arena, airport, or pig
| farm and then complain about the noise, traffic, or smell.
| globalise83 wrote:
| If they build the towers tall enough, or put in only minimal
| windows, then only the lower floors will be inconvenienced.
| These floors can be reserved for the Amazon workers. /s
| agilob wrote:
| Will Amazon Prime include affordable housing?
| bcx wrote:
| Or even better they could continue to vertically integrate
| their stack and provide affordable housing to warehouse
| employees.
| [deleted]
| kevmo wrote:
| Back to the old ways, eh?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
| DesiLurker wrote:
| also maybe install nets around the joint building, you know
| for safety.
| trevcanhuman wrote:
| ah yes, just like in Asia
| schnevets wrote:
| In addition to the drawbacks outlined in other responses, human
| living situations are too unpredictable to make that kind of
| arrangement desirable. Inevitably, there will be a plumbing
| issue because someone left a bath running, or a medical
| emergency causes unforeseen traffic challenges, or a fire
| breaks out.
|
| The more delivery productivity you stack on top of this
| infrastructure, the bigger the impact from an unforeseen
| issue... and humans can introduce a lot of unforeseen issues.
| wronglyprepaid wrote:
| I don't live in US, and there is no amazon specifically
| catering to the country I live in, but my experience with
| Amazon as a shop has been that it is a really bad user
| interface, with crappy search, filled with a bunch of
| questionable "spam" products.
|
| I wonder if this is the case in US also, or maybe just my
| individual experience. It is very hard for me to get how a
| company so successful has such a crappy flagship product.
| usrn wrote:
| I hate Amazon as much as the next guy but IME international
| Amazon and US Amazon are completely different things and
| aren't really comparable, they just have a similar GUI. US
| Amazon has nearly any consumer product you'll buy (from most
| food up to really expensive stuff like small boats and sheds)
| and almost all of it shows up in 1-2 days with minimal
| shipping cost.
|
| I know people in Canada and it's nothing like that. What you
| can find is crazy expensive and it it takes weeks to ship.
| Mezzie wrote:
| I'm an American, but I did my graduate degree in Canada,
| and the difference was so extreme I (and others) would just
| get stuff shipped to the border and go pick it up.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| The flagship product is the logistical operation and it is
| pretty damn far from crappy. I can't speak for everywhere,
| but at least in most parts of the US, they can get you damn
| near anything on the same day. For products where you already
| know what you want in terms of brand, seller, and quantity,
| or regular recurring purchases of staple goods (cat litter,
| paper towels, dish soap, anything undifferentiated that you
| need to repeatedly purchase), even groceries now thanks to
| buying Whole Foods (provided you have the upscale price point
| that makes you willing to shop there to begin with), it's
| about as perfect an interface as you could hope for. Find and
| click in under a minute and you can probably have most goods
| in a few hours, at most next day.
|
| If you're trying to discover new products of unknown quality
| and reputation, then it's not so good. For whatever reason,
| that seems to be the use case people focus on when
| criticizing Amazon on Hacker News, but I don't see how that
| can possibly be the dominant use case. Most of what people
| ever buy is not something brand new to them that they know
| nothing about.
|
| I'm looking through my last several months of purchases here,
| and I'm seeing a bunch of automotive cleaning fluids, mostly
| from Adam's, polishing compounds and a respirator from 3M, a
| bunch of power tools from DeWalt, a Bose speaker. Known
| brands from reputable sellers, every item what I wanted and
| it got here quickly. In some cases, I either tried to or had
| to purchase elsewhere. For instance, Amazon had most of the
| DeWalt power tools I wanted, but was out of stock on rotary
| polishers, so I had to get it from some place called Acme
| Tools, and it took a week and a half. Amazon got me
| everything the next day. (I had a bunch of stuff stolen from
| my garage is why I needed all this at around the same time.)
| I tried to purchase the Bose speaker from Best Buy since I
| have one a five minute drive from me, and their website
| claimed it was in stock and I could pick it up the same day,
| but then right before the pick up window, they texted me to
| inform me they didn't actually have it and wouldn't for
| another week. So I canceled the order, went on Amazon, and
| they had free same day delivery.
|
| It should be obvious that anything that goes from not
| existing 25 years ago to top five market cap company in the
| world is probably offering value somehow.
| notriddle wrote:
| > If you're trying to discover new products of unknown
| quality and reputation, then it's not so good. For whatever
| reason, that seems to be the use case people focus on when
| criticizing Amazon on Hacker News, but I don't see how that
| can possibly be the dominant use case. Most of what people
| ever buy is not something brand new to them that they know
| nothing about.
|
| First of all, HN is full of entrepreneurs and wannabe
| entrepreneurs. A storefront that can't sell anything that
| doesn't have a good reputation outside the storefront is
| bad for small businesses, because _nobody is willing to try
| anything new_. A major part of the value proposition of a
| storefront is that the owners will vet the products they
| sell for a minimum standard of quality: it 's not
| necessarily great, because greatness is subjective, but the
| food shouldn't poison you[1] and the AC/DC power converters
| shouldn't catch fire.
|
| The second problem is that sellers will pass off
| counterfeit goods as being from major manufacturers when
| they aren't. I know I'm falling for selection bias, since
| I've probably bought counterfeit goods without knowing it,
| but that's not even really the point. The point is that
| I've bought stuff on Amazon that just didn't work, sold in
| packaging that's identical to stuff I've bought before that
| did work. I knew they were counterfeit and not just duds
| because the actual product didn't have the branding on it
| that genuine ones always have.
|
| [1]: Well, okay, it might poison you if you have a special
| allergy. But anything with the common allergens like gluten
| or lactose will have labels.
| wronglyprepaid wrote:
| > It should be obvious that anything that goes from not
| existing 25 years ago to top five market cap company in the
| world is probably offering value somehow.
|
| That is very true, I think probably from the outside
| looking in it was hard to see what value they were
| offering. But from the responses here I think I got a
| better picture of what people get out of it that makes it
| the best choice for them most of the time.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Amazon is one of the most trusted brands in America. It is
| almost as trusted as USPS (the top trusted brand) and is, in
| general, considered by most Americans to be a reliable, safe,
| and high-performance source of goods.
| xlix wrote:
| I have had friends receive items like candles already used or
| paint brushes already used.
|
| I've been duped into buying travel size bottles of mouthwash,
| toothpaste, soap, etc because the seller prices them at or
| around the same as full sized items.
|
| I guess that's on me for not paying attention to the weight
| though...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| blobbers wrote:
| It has a medium level of spam, but if you stick to name
| brands sold by amazon, you generally get what you pay for.
|
| It's replaced the department store, and usually has better
| service / return policy than a department store (Target
| etc.).
|
| Costco might be the exception but generally I don't go to
| costco to search for a specific product. They either have
| some general version of a product, and if I'm willing to buy
| that I will; swim goggles for example. Perhaps I want TYR
| swim goggles. Costco will have better pricing on Speedo
| goggles but won't sell the TYR mirrored version I'm looking
| for. Click, bought on amazon, arrives next day.
| bergenty wrote:
| Amazon has stunning logistics. I've almost never received
| anything late over the last 10 years and if there's anything
| wrong with the product they just refund my money. There is
| some spam that's unavoidable with opening up the platform to
| third party sellers but I think it works very well overall.
| wincy wrote:
| It's really nice for my 3D printing hobby since most of the
| brands I'm buying are based in China or Europe (mostly
| China). They send over a shipping container of printers and
| Amazon handles fulfillment so I get the stuff in a few days
| instead of waiting 45 days and pay $100 shipping to get a 20
| pound device delivered. They also have all the replacement
| parts and stuff in their warehouses.
|
| Also, their returns process is painless. I thought I'd
| support local workers and had been shopping at Hobby Lobby
| instead of using Amazon. For my trouble, when I tried to
| return an airbrush that didn't suit my needs (I used it once)
| they treated me like a criminal, it was a whole production.
|
| With Amazon I just head to the Whole Foods down the street
| (or Kohls sometimes?), return it, and get credited almost
| instantly.
|
| I do think Walmart is putting a lot of effort into their
| online offerings and if you can return online purchases in
| store that'd be a huge win. We bought my wife's MacBook Air
| off Walmart's online store and it was super convenient.
| xxpor wrote:
| Hobby Lobby is owned by some of the biggest pieces of shit
| in the entire country, so I'm not shocked.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwell_v._Hobby_Lobby_Stores
| ,....
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_Lobby_smuggling_scandal
| smachiz wrote:
| Hobby Lobby is also an awful company... and is by no means
| "buying local".
| bko wrote:
| > Also, their returns process is painless. I thought I'd
| support local workers and had been shopping at Hobby Lobby
| instead of using Amazon. For my trouble, when I tried to
| return an airbrush that didn't suit my needs (I used it
| once) they treated me like a criminal, it was a whole
| production.
|
| I had the same experience. I ordered a $70 worth of
| cleaning supplies directly from the manufacturer, thinking
| I'd support the brand and cut out the middle man. My
| package was stolen (box opened and left right there) so we
| contacted the seller and told them the situation and they
| said they can't do anything about it, even with a police
| report. Amazon would have refunded it immediately. Half the
| time when I return something they even let me keep the item
| and donate it rather than dealing with the return.
|
| I want to support smaller online retailers but not so bad
| that I'm okay with getting ripped off with no recourse
| every once in a while.
| c22 wrote:
| The fact that they can afford to take a loss on many
| returns while their smaller competitors cannot kind of
| implies you're getting ripped off in some other way,
| doesn't it?
|
| Where does the money to pay for your stolen cleaning
| supplies come from? Why would you even think to contact
| the manufacturer about this? Why not the shipping
| company? Or your building's management? I've fumbled a
| soda and broken it on the ground right after checking out
| and the grocer replaced it for free, but I recognized
| this as a generous act of kindness and not an expected
| baseline of customer service. I've also lost a soda in
| the parking lot and I can't even imagine feeling entitled
| enough to go back into the store to complain about it.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Never once in my history of ordering on Amazon have I
| received a fake, spam, or bait-and-switch product.
|
| I have deliberately purchased non-name brand products, and
| sometimes I have received defective products, as one would
| shopping anywhere, but even then Amazon's customer services
| and return process is second to none. It shocks me that
| everyone on HN and other popular forums has very little
| success buying on Amazon.
| cryptoz wrote:
| Are you sure you haven't received a fake product? How do
| you know? The fakes are so good much of the time that you
| may never know if you have received a fake.
|
| I have received 5+ fake products and stopped ordering on
| Amazon a few years ago. Not worth it, too much risk. Would
| never, ever, order food from there, or anything you put on
| your body, or anything electronic, etc. Way too risky.
| ipaddr wrote:
| If it is a fake and you cannot tell the difference maybe
| it doesn't matter.
| matsemann wrote:
| It matters when it catches fire because they saved a few
| cents skipping some failsafe in the power supply.
| abawany wrote:
| You are right:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSE_Nm7pAw4 - this video
| from bigclivedotcom shows the unique failure of a usb-c
| power supply that also took out a MS Surface and
| associated monitor with it.
| joe5150 wrote:
| The (legitimate) manufacturer will be able to tell the
| difference and won't service or provide support for
| counterfeits. And warranty claims are obviously out of
| the question.
| joe5150 wrote:
| I get plenty from Amazon but there are whole categories of
| products I won't buy there because of poor confidence that
| I'll receive a genuine product.
| filoleg wrote:
| Same. The only category of products where I've personally
| encountered a fake was SD cards, and that's a large problem
| everywhere online. That's the only thing i buy now directly
| from manufacturer-authorized retailers. Idk if that's even
| common, because I've only gotten a fake once out of many
| times i ordered sd cards.
|
| Everything else? I've been buying all sorts of stuff from
| amazon, from electronics/hardware to clothing to furniture
| to almost anything you can think of, and not once was it
| fake. Before anyone asks how I know they weren't fake, most
| of them came with a "register on the manufacturer's website
| to get extended warranty/extra stuff" unique serial number,
| and i was able to do so just fine. Ofc that doesn't apply
| to everything I bought, because not every product allows
| registering itself on manufacturer's website. But for those
| that don't, I haven't noticed a single sign of
| fake/counterfeit items.
|
| Ofc this is all just anecdata and isn't an evidence of
| anything. But i gotta say, as others have mentioned, their
| extremely easy and efficient return process definitely
| makes my decision-making efforts much easier.
| Retric wrote:
| 5 of my last 7 items ordered from Amazon where either fake
| or defective.
|
| I don't care how easy Amazon's returns are, it's not worth
| the hassle of not having the item let alone doing anything
| above and beyond that.
| JoshCole wrote:
| Weird.
|
| I've had a defect rate of less than 1% percent with a
| sample size of enough items to reduce the margin of error
| on that statistic to something rather negligible.
|
| To get your configuration you need to have two items that
| aren't defective and five items that are.
|
| P(!defect)^2P(defect)^5 = 0.99^20.01^5 = 9.801e-11
|
| There are seven choose five ways you could have a
| particular configuration where you have five defects out
| of seven purchases.
|
| 7 Choose 5 = 21
|
| So therefore the probability of what happened to you
| happening to me would seem to be:
|
| 9.801e-11 * 21 = 2.05821e-9
|
| This written out in numbers is: 0.00000000205821 That
| number as a percentage is: 00.000000205821% For
| comparison the probability of being struck by lighting
| over the course of a person's life is 1-in-15,300 which
| is 0.00006535947. Many people struggle with reading
| really small numbers like that and so we often decide to
| round. If we do that the probability of what happened to
| you happening to me is roughly 0% if we choose to round
| at six decimal places. Seconding the OP claim that the
| general experience is shocking, because it is _extremely_
| divergent. It would be _more shocking_ to be hearing
| everyone on Hacker News was regularly being hit by
| lightning bolts than that people are getting your defect
| rate.
| Retric wrote:
| When you see a result like that it's a good idea to check
| your assumptions.
|
| That calculation assumes these probabilities are
| independent when they aren't. What was ordered, when it
| was ordered, and where it's being shipped to are all
| likely to impact the odds. On top of that are ability to
| detect fakes and defective items are likely to be
| different.
|
| Having said that, I have been hit by lighting. Or at
| least it stuck the car I was in and I felt some effects.
| I didn't report it anywhere that records such strikes,
| which suggests non serious lightning strikes may be
| underestimated in those statistics.
| gjs278 wrote:
| [deleted]
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Up until the mid-2000's Amazon was mainly a bookstore with a
| very good catalog and recommendation system. Then it became
| the pile of spam that it is today, a marketplace of sellers
| worse then Mos Eisley.
|
| But they did get their foothold selling books.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Basements are by far the most expensive parts of apartment
| building. It's one of the reasons that reducing parking
| requirements for apartment buildings is a good way to make
| housing more cost-effective to build and therefore to increase
| housing supply (last I heard).
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah but parking above ground is probably cheaper than
| building out apartments. I've lived in buildings where the
| first 6 or 8 floors were parking. And a parking space rented
| for several hundred a month, on top of your apartment rent.
| smachiz wrote:
| expensive to build, but less desirable for anyone (but
| parking) so there's no incentive to build much. It will
| definitely be more expensive than a warehouse 45 minutes away
| - even in the most expensive cities (where they do build
| basements to the extent that they can before they hit subways
| and whatever).
| paxys wrote:
| Zoning laws exist
| outside1234 wrote:
| They could have everyone work in the basement for at 4%
| discount on rent too. Great stuff - totally not dystopian at
| all.
| politician wrote:
| So dystopian. You can imagine the vending machine kiosk on the
| first floor-- no, the Alexa built into every unit- that's ready
| to deliver anything you wish, and accept your rent payment.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Hmm. I guess one man's dystopia is another man's utopia.
| jawmes8 wrote:
| > Hmm. I guess one man's dystopia is another man's utopia.
|
| That does seem true for most sci-fi stories!
|
| I would think the dystopian aspect is lack of entry for
| smaller businesses to reach those potential customers
| politician wrote:
| Alexa: Wake up. It's time to head to your shift.
|
| missedthecue: Snooze
|
| Alexa: Snooze boost activated for 10 minutes. $5 has been
| deducted from your account.
| lancesells wrote:
| Might as well just house employees there as well and take the
| rent directly out of their paychecks.
|
| Frighteningly they have almost 1 million employees in the US,
| which is more than the population of a handful of states.
| plasticchris wrote:
| I wonder what the tax treatment would be - I think company
| housing might not be taxed as income in this case (on prem,
| required to work there, etc), allowing them to pay much
| lower effective rates for labor by baking the cost of
| housing into a paycheck and pocketing the tax savings.
| longtimelistnr wrote:
| There's not a fucking chance that's legal
| zdragnar wrote:
| Employee benefits are routinely taxed differently. Health
| insurance, 401ks, some meals, etc.
|
| Most likely, it'd be considered a "fringe benefit" and
| the employee would still have W2 / income taxes and
| withholdings on it. How municipalities would tax the
| property value depends entirely on how they choose to tax
| on-site housing (as it is technically both commercial and
| residential space).
|
| Maintenance on the buildings would likely be partially
| deductible as operating expenses, no different than any
| other building operated by a landlord or business.
| tyingq wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
| G3nnaro wrote:
| Amazons already building apartments at HQ2 and I believe
| Seattle as well -
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22593871/amazon-key-for-b...
|
| Amazon can't build apartment complexes on top of their
| warehouses because many of their warehouses are already 3 or 4
| floors, and the obvious zoning issues of building complexes in
| the middle of nowhere with a bunch of other warehouses.
| User23 wrote:
| I used to joke that Amazon should buy up the housing in SLU and
| then between Amazon sales and rent they'd get 90% of their
| costs of employment back as revenue.
| nominusllc wrote:
| _You load 16 totes,_
|
| _waddya get_
|
| _another day older and deeper in debt_
|
| _jeff bezos dont you tell me that I cant go_
|
| _I owe my soul to the amazon stoooooore_
| [deleted]
| Guthur wrote:
| Obvious propoganda, it's a public company, it does not purchase
| anything quietly it's public knowledge. Just because they're not
| running wall to wall adverts about the fact does not mean it's
| hiding anything.
|
| All these media outlets are doing everything, everything on the
| beck and call of those in charge and with an agenda. No article
| aimed at this level of society is done independent of those who
| wish to be in charge.
| Teandw wrote:
| I think you have a severe problem of digging into things too
| deeply.
|
| This is purely semantics and your proclaiming some odd
| propaganda angle. Which is a bit odd really. The article/title
| is 100% accurate. They are quietly buying thousands of acres of
| land because they're not going around and talking of their
| masterplan. They're just doing it without saying anything.
|
| Just because certain information is public for those who seek
| it out, it doesn't mean it can't be done 'quietly' by the
| company. Like I say, it's semantics.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Who is in charge and what is the agenda in reporting this?
| moltar wrote:
| Do they need to be buying it loudly?
| markdown wrote:
| Real estate speculation is the bane of modern society. A land
| value tax is sorely needed.
| treis wrote:
| I don't get how this is a story. Who wouldn't think Amazon is
| buying land for warehouses?
|
| And what exactly does it mean for them to be doing it "quietly"?
| Are they supposed to bring a marching band along everytime they
| look at property?
| bregma wrote:
| If they buy up enough land quietly they can then spin it out as
| a REIT and lease it back from themselves, thus writing off
| capital gains and moving them under operating expenses as a
| major tax dodge.
|
| If they did it loudly people would start speculating which will
| present reduced wealth extraction by siphoning off rent. The
| goal is to avoid letting other people get rich and cornering
| all the capital for yourself. Stealth is a pirate's best
| friend.
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| Just like what happened with housing around planned HQ2
| sites.
| kolbe wrote:
| It's total clickbait. Also, the article mentions they bought
| 4000 acres in 2 years. The vast majority of this is rural,
| where farmland runs 5-20k per acre. Let's be generous and say
| they spent 50k per acre. That's $200mm dollars. Absolutely
| nothing to amazon.
| sib wrote:
| And a single full-size Amazon fulfillment center plus its
| associated truck yards and employee parking lots can easily
| take up 0.5 - 1.0 square miles (320 - 640 acres / 130 - 260
| hectares), so this doesn't seem like a lot of land, given
| that they already have more than 100 fulfillment centers in
| the US.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| > Who wouldn't think Amazon is buying land for warehouses?
|
| The people that read the article, which stated that for many
| years, Amazon was not buying land for warehouses.
| treis wrote:
| I did read it:
|
| >the company said there is no change in its long-term real
| estate strategy
|
| This is a made up non-story with a click bait headline.
| mikestew wrote:
| I read the article, and look what I found, not two paragraphs
| in:
|
| "Amazon plans to use much of the real estate for a new
| generation of towering fulfillment centers that can store a
| wide variety of products close to customers in populous
| areas, according to people familiar with the strategy."
|
| So it sounds like Amazon is buying land for warehouses, might
| be reading different articles, dunno.
| pessimizer wrote:
| "Buying land is a major shift for Amazon, which
| historically relied on a handful of developers to find
| property, build fairly simple warehouses and rent them back
| to the company."
|
| The comment was "Who wouldn't think Amazon is buying up
| land for warehouses?". The answer is _anyone who was
| familiar with what Amazon was doing until 3 years ago._
|
| If you thought three years ago that Amazon was buying up
| land for warehouses, because it's so obviously obvious, you
| would have been wrong.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| curiouscats wrote:
| From the article: "Buying land is a major shift for Amazon,
| which historically relied on a handful of developers to find
| property, build fairly simple warehouses and rent them back to
| the company."
|
| That is the news in my opinion. They were renting before, in
| the last 2 years they started buying a lot of land (they still
| rent a lot too).
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| That and, "The new facilities can be 100 feet tall or more,
| are packed with state-of-the-art automation and require lots
| of electricity... The new facilities can cost twice as much
| to build as typical warehouses, which currently run about
| $200 per square foot. So Amazon is courting a new class of
| investor to help finance the expansion"
|
| Their development model has shifted and the warehouses are
| becoming more advanced and specialized.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I'd guess that Amazon doesn't want to be at the mercy of
| landlords that jack up the prices. Rent increases can eat
| into your margin.
| mywittyname wrote:
| They probably weren't very experienced in the area of
| property development/management and decided to get some
| partners early on to help out.
|
| I'm sure now their holdings are large enough to justify an
| entire property management division.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Amazon company town. Born into Amazon baby diapers, raised in
| Amazon communal housing, worked at the Amazon warehouse, buried
| in an Amazon coffin. Rents extracted at every stage of the
| process.
|
| Look up 'feudal serfdom in medieval Europe' or 'company towns in
| the American Gilded Age' for similar projects.
| hilyen wrote:
| People need to stand up to the corruption and wealth
| inequality, or this isn't just some far off concern, it will
| happen. These big companies are quite happily enjoying the same
| scenario internationally where workers live at their factories.
| Don't for a second think they won't do it here.
| gtirloni wrote:
| I think you're exaggerating a lot here. Is this some dystopian
| short story?
| hilyen wrote:
| read this
|
| https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-
| name/themes/compa...
|
| https://www.history.com/news/americas-largest-labor-
| uprising...
| gtirloni wrote:
| I'm fully aware of such history. I'm asking if you think
| Amazon is doing this right now? Any sources?
| bregma wrote:
| Or a Springsteen song?
| katz_ wrote:
| If you don't want people to pay rent then you reject the
| concept of a societal meta-organism. The only problem with that
| is that another country will lean into the meta organism
| concept and become much stronger than everyone who doesn't.
| Which will result in the economic or military destruction of
| those people.
| [deleted]
| mmarq wrote:
| Nothing can be worse than the London private rental market
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