[pvarangot]

The headline is tricky there. It's only higher than almost any of the institutions that they are asking about in that poll, which only includes three private companies (Amazon, Facebook, Twitter) and a bunch of government organizations or civil movements. I would guess a lot of private companies and most of big tech rate higher than Amazon, specially if they are thrown in with a bunch of things like ANTIFA, BLM and Israel or Palestina when they ask the question.

Here's the poll, page 15: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OgPzcB75uxXiFmTjUUb-ITIr7BF...

[vitus]

Amazon's historically had pretty good favorability ratings, especially compared to the rest of tech.

Last year, before the pandemic upended everything, it was at 91% according to the annual Verge Tech survey (no, I don't think they've posted the 2021 iteration).

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21144680/verge-tech-survey...

Axios-Harris (Dec '20 - Feb '21) polled Amazon at #10 with a composite score of 80%, six ranks above Apple (and far above others like Facebook and Twitter, which ranked in the bottom ten slots). But even Twitter's composite score was 63%, which means people can't hate it _that_ much.

https://theharrispoll.com/axios-harrispoll-100/

[pvarangot]

Oh this is interesting thanks! There's little signal within the top 5/10. I have the feeling after this year Amazon will go down but of course I'm really biased by how they treat their engineers as mostly everyone I know in tech in the Bay Area is.

[vitus]

I think there's a lot of (very much warranted!) bias against tech within the industry, whether it's Google's treatment of its AI ethics researchers (Gebru, Mitchell), Amazon's fake review problem, or Elon Musk marketing Tesla vaporware (full self-driving by 2018, anyone?).

Meanwhile, non-tech people see a workplace with legendary perks and benefits, cheap products with fast delivery, and luxury cars that double as a form of virtue signaling.

[haberman]

> It's only higher than almost any of the institutions that they are asking about in that poll [...] I would guess

This is pure speculation. 72%, at a minimum, undermines the notion that there is "fairly broad consensus now" about viewing Amazon unfavorably. The fact that they poll higher than many government organizations seems especially relevant on an article about the NRLB.

People mistake their own feelings (and the feelings of their social groups) for the consensus view. Polling can clarify when our perceptions of consensus are incorrect.

> Here's the poll, page 15

It's also screenshotted in the article.

[cratermoon]

72% is a C in most schools. I wonder how they'd do against Comcast or Bank of America.

[gruez]

>72% is a C in most schools

Applying school grading criteria to organizational approval ratings doesn't make any sense. The current sitting president has an approval rating of 51%. That translates to a "F". Does that mean he's failing at his job?

[cratermoon]

Remember when Consumerist ran their Worst Company in America series, and it was always Wal*Mart, Comcast, Verizon, Bank of America, or AT&T/Time-Warner in the final four? Makes me wonder where Amazon would end up today if they still ran the poll.