(via https://hachyderm.io/@jbcrawford/112202942593125987, archive: https://archive.is/VnqRZ)
surprise, Amazon’s godawful surveillance grocery stores were just exploiting hidden labor and calling it innovation, and even that was too expensive
even worse, the few times I’ve seen one of these fucking things in the wild, it still had 1-2 employees hovering near the entrance to make sure nobody did the utterly obvious (fuck with the payment system and get free shit), a job that’s also known as a fucking cashier, but with much worse pay, much harder labor (physically stopping shoplifters), and no counter to lean on or opportunity to even sit down
It’d be swell if someone could go ahead and make an equal alternative to amazon. Y’know, doesn’t have to be perfect, just - y’know better people and such.
Better people wouldn’t be able to compete with the cutthroat business practices that put Amazon on top in the first place.
There are various European and Asian online stores competing with Amazon on national levels. Very few of them are relevant on a global scale though.
something something ethical consumption something something under capitalism
Well we could always try buying locally again. Not that that’s ideal or cheaper all the time. But it helps local business owners instead of stockholders.