[ozzythecat]

Unless the Post office has some strong incentive to compete, such as a private company, there’s no reason to believe the Post office would be even half as effective as Amazon.

Amazons incentive, whether you agree with it or not, is to grow their company and show value to stakeholders. It’s quantitative numbers. They can certainly lie, but at the end of the day the market will punish them.

The USPS is driven by what incentives? Politics? Future pension obligations?

In reality, government ends up being a bloated mess, waste of tax payer dollar. Don’t believe me?

How many campaigns have we seen just in our own lifetimes of candidates promising “change”, “making America great”, fixing healthcare, infrastructure, reforming education. One of the two parties does win every election. Fundamentally, what has changed?

Regulating private companies might be the answer. But government has proven itself to NOT be the answer.

[goostavos]

I agree. I'm kind've stumped by people's belief that you can just throw money at something and have it work. Doubly so for a government organization that's steeped in politics. Amazon is freaking lightening in a bottle. Last night, I was ordering Christmas presents at 12:30am, and they were at my door by 9:30am. That's completely insane.

Government programs are frequently and mysteriously hamstrung by not having enough money as the sole explanatory variable for why they failed at X or why business Y performs more efficiently. It's never an organizational failure, the wrong people, the wrong incentives, just more money is all that's needed. If we'd properly funded the USPS 20 years ago, surely we'd all have same day shipping for pennies, right...? Money would've enabled that?

[pbhjpbhj]

>there’s no reason to believe the Post office would be even half as effective as Amazon.//

I never understand this argument, take Amazon now. Pay everyone the same to do the same job, but don't pay dividends, reinvest profits (or pay them as if taxes). How does it suddenly become everyone is incompetent and can't do their job?

Why is it capitalists think people can only work if there's a rich person creaming off a profit?

Explain, please.

[s1artibartfast]

The problem is bureaucratic and union capture.

You would have very different results if you took the same people, removed performance bonuses, removed merit promotion, instituted seniority promotion and seniority pay scales.

You remove all incentive to take risks, perform, or innovate.

In such an environment, there is only downside to do anything more than the bare minimum. Because nobody is ever fired, the minimum is very low indeed

[kevinventullo]

Pay everyone the same to do the same job…

The federal pay ceiling in 2021 is $172,500 per year. That’s about what a SWE new grad at Amazon makes in their first year out of college.

[joebob42]

Specifically, it's less (made 220, although did have what I think was a strong offer due to internship that went well)

[whiddershins]

Because logistics is mind boggling difficult.

I would say the burden of proof is on anyone who thinks they could fund or create an org that can match Amazon’s.

[stale2002]

> but don't pay dividends, reinvest profits (or pay them as if taxes)

This is literally what Amazon is already doing, right? They don't pay dividends, and are just re-investing all the profits already, with no profits being skimmed off at all.

[kortilla]

> Pay everyone the same to do the same job

That’s the crux of the issue. Government employees across all branches are capped into pay scales that don’t compete with private. More importantly, that absolutely cannot get anything like profit sharing or stock grants so nobody is invested in the financial success of the operation.

> Why is it capitalists think people can only work if there's a rich person creaming off a profit?

Because in the real world, all of the employees are benefiting from the profit as well. Every company has bonuses/promotions for exceeding performance doing good for the company.

Why is it that socialists thing working for a company produces the same incentives as working for the government?

[ozzythecat]

> Pay everyone the same to do the same job, but don't pay dividends, reinvest profits (or pay them as if taxes). How does it suddenly become everyone is incompetent and can't do their job?

Amazon doesn’t pay dividends on their shares. They reinvest profits. Bezos was known for thinking about the long term, as opposed to politicians who think about the next 2-4 years, or whatever it is that will get them re elected. Did you not know that?

An Amazon SDE 1 earns over $165-170K fresh out of college. An SDE2 earns $200+. SDE 3 earns $300K. A regular software engineering manager earns $350k. The higher you earn, the more they (and other tech companies) pay on company shares. I’m not even talking about directors or VPs who make significantly more.

And Amazon has a reputation for being fast moving, with many people actually complaining that it’s too fast, that people burn out, etc.

That’s how Amazon operates. Whether you like their business model or not is besides the point. They enter new business verticals, move at a lightning fast pace, etc. and that’s how you order something and get it delivered within hours.

Please explain to us how Amazons equity compensation model will work under a system that isn’t capitalist and doesn’t pay these engineers equity. You want them to have a 9-5 work schedule, no on call, no extras - great.

And show me one example of a US government agency even a quarter efficient as Amazon. This isn’t a rhetorical question.

The government never really re orgs or changes it’s mission. It never evolves its practices. It never tries to compete. When the government doesn’t work or when tax payers wonder where’s their money going, the government just says, “we need to raise taxes! It’s not that we’re doing any wrong or have low performers. We just need more money!!”