[l8again]

Amazon has its own Uber, own fulfillment service down to monitoring tools that are built in house. So, not sure if it's a change in their "buy vs build" strategy or there's a more business play here to gain traction in the global markets?

[karmasimida]

It is a deal to keep Stripe lock on AWS. Same with Slack, where Amazon agrees to adopt Slack internally in exchange for Slack to use AWS for video conferencing.

You got to give something in return. In this case I think both parties have something that the other side wants so why not?

[kotaKat]

Hell, Amazon bought a fairly not insignificant stake in a random no-name Korean handhelds company (Point Mobile). Their devices have been rolling out in FCs to replace Zebra handhelds left and right.

Though... that was also because their main handheld vendor (Zebra) bought their own warehouse robotics company, so a bit of a signal to Zebra that they don't play well when their partners become competitors.

https://renovotec.com/press/amazon-2nd-largest-shareholder-p... https://www.communicationstoday.co.in/koreas-point-mobile-ex...

[elforce002]

Uber? Which division is that? Are you referring to Amazon fresh?

[__derek__]

Amazon Flex. It's more like Uber Eats or DoorDash.

[devmor]

It's unrelated to either other than sharing the gig economy model. It's just another part of their Fulfillment Operations that relies on individuals with their own vehicles instead of a fleet.

[__derek__]

I think that was clear from the context of the thread, where OP alluded to an in-house Uber, and I noted that the model was more similar to the local delivery services than to Uber per se.

Anyway: Amazon Flex drivers actually did handle delivery for Amazon Restaurants, which was a direct competitor to Uber Eats, DoorDash, GrubHub, Caviar, etc.

[pwarner]

I suspect the economic environment may trigger reevaluations at Amazon and many other companies. I am not sure this is a bad thing? Fewer, but better choices may be OK?