I think it's you that is lacking nuance, no offence. For instance: the climate crisis is one of the most serious issues we will have to face in the following decades. Yet, millions of delivery vans every day will depart half-empty rather than wait to be full in order to deliver funko pops in 2 days instead of 3 (yes, I realise the hyperbole). Emissions may be 40% greater because of this, according to one analysis. And because externalities like these aren't properly accounted for, some people can get fabulously rich off the price that will be paid for us all, in illnesses, deaths, and price (with heavy "interest") that we'll all have to pay later to clean up their mess. Also, I'm pessimist that they will never be properly accounted for, since the people acquiring huge sums of money with this state of affairs also acquire with it huge power to kill any meaningful reform or progress that would endanger their cash cow.
Is it clear that Amazon delivery is worse for emissions? Isn't it better to have one truck deliver everyone's goods, versus each person individually driving to the store (which also has a much larger geographical footprint than a warehouse, per item)?
I'm willing to concede that Amazon may well have driven overall consumption up. Also, anything being shipped by air is causing way more emissions by weight than any amount of people driving to the stars. But I still wonder how this balances out against the efficiency of a delivery van; I don't think the answer is that obvious.
The point is there are no incenctives for them to optimise for this. They optimise for profit, so if doubling their emissions nets them +0.05% profit on each delivery, they'll jump right on it. That's a failure of the system, more than of any individual company itself.
> I think it's you that is lacking nuance, no offence.
I think you might be misreading my comment to suggest that Amazon is unambiguously good. Read it again, I'm trying to argue that it's not unambiguously bad, and that we need more nuance when discussing these issues. I'm not sure if it's possible for an argument to be any more nuanced than that.
Regarding the climate issue, we agree! It's a big problem. But again, we need to put our nuance hats on:
1. While Amazon is a substantial contributor to CO2 emissions, it's nothing compared to that of the coal industry, airlines, and everyday drivers of automobiles. That being said, it's worth noting that US renewable energy consumption surpassed that of coal for the first time last year -> https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=43895
2. Amazon is simply meeting the needs of its consumers. Ultimately there's a cost to convenience (there's no denying that), and it comes at the cost of the climate. We agree that we'd be better off if externalities were priced in. The fact that externalities are not priced in isn't really Amazon's fault, because they're in no position to enact such policies as a whole. They only have control over their own policies, which brings me to...
Now, all this said, is it still not worth it? Maybe, I don't doubt that there exists some people that believe that the warts are big enough that none of this is worth it. But it isn't obvious or straightforward, and there are just as many people (if not more) that do think this is all worth it, warts and all.
But neither am I arguing that it is "unambiguously bad", so perhaps we are misunderstanding each other :)
What I'm saying is that I find it difficult to praise a company for its success when that success is at least in part predicated upon costs that they do not bear. In other words "profits for them, costs for us all". All that could be solved, or at least improved, by adequately pricing in those externalities, or even restricting them all together (e.g. for emissions: carbon tax + hard cap).
And I don't buy the "they're not in control of whether or not externalities are priced in", they have immense lobbying power to de facto subvert democracy and overpower the will of the people. They can kill or stall legislation that harms their bottom line, and of course they will! It makes them more money so why ever wouldn't they?
> And I don't buy the "they're not in control of whether or not externalities are priced in", they have immense lobbying power to de facto subvert democracy and overpower the will of the people. They can kill or stall legislation that harms their bottom line, and of course they will! It makes them more money so why ever wouldn't they?
What evidence do you have that Amazon, specifically, has done this? And why would Amazon work towards becoming 100% renewable by 2025 (surely at a high cost to them) or investing $2B in climate action (that's roughly how much they'd have to pay in carbon pricing anyway), if they actually wish to lobby against carbon pricing legislation? That is internally inconsistent.
