| You and your sibling comment are right - it's too harsh to say that society has decided they're okay with this treatment. However, I believe people need to be more aware of the decisions they make daily. Rather than passively supporting Amazon because it's the most convenient or cheapest option, investigate why they might be able to offer their service at a rate other companies in their space can't. I don't believe it's right to assume or enforce that companies disclose all of their business practices to their customers. Those practices should be audited by a regulatory body to assess whether they're humane or ethical. > I have a lot of confidence that many of Amazon's labor practices would be banned if they were put up for a straight-up national referendum. On this, I'm sure you're right. Which leads me to an interesting question: Assuming:
1) There are companies engaging in activity the majority of their potential customers would find immoral
2) One of these companies is able to provide a superior product or service at a reduced rate to their competitors
3) Information about these immoral practices is available to those customers (though they have to seek it out) Why do people still support the company?
Shouldn't people suspect something is fishy with that company's offering? My assumption to begin with is that consumers were turning a blind eye in order to keep using the service.
That may not be the case. Maybe it's that they don't have the time or capacity to evaluate this for themselves (especially for the number of businesses we all depend on daily).
Maybe it's a tragedy of the commons. How can we fix this? |
> My assumption to begin with is that consumers were turning a blind eye in order to keep using the service. That may not be the case.
I think a lot of people do not have the kind of personalities that drive them to get to the bottom of things. They didn't turn a blind eye, they just never looked beyond the surface in the first place. If pressed to explain how Amazon does what it does, they'll probably hand-wave that they're a tech company that uses magic computer innovation to out-compete old-fashioned dinosaurs.
> How can we fix this?
I don't know, but probably the first step is a lot of awareness-raising in ways that can emotionally grab the attention of the common man. Closely related is to also raise awareness of more ethical competitors, like Costco and others.
The second step is to somehow defeat the layers of pro-business propaganda and political polarization it's associated with in order to motivate real legislative action. That's a problem I have no idea how to solve.