[Fwirt]

My honest question is: If you pull shenanigans like this, isn't it actually making Amazon burn through said imaginary money, thus hastening its demise? The cost of delivering a potato has to be on the order of at least a couple dollars.

[roncesvalles]

I don't think Amazon is losing money. It's really just that efficient.

E.g. an Amazon van rolls through my street multiple times a day. What is the marginal cost of them stopping at my house and dropping off a potato?

[PaulDavisThe1st]

At your house it might be fractions of a cent.

At my house, it's a 140 mile round trip between the fulfillment center ("are you feeling fulfilled yet?") and the drop off location.

OTOH, there's likely more of "you" than there are of "me" ...

[ajdlinux]

Assuming it's the US we're talking about, the federal minimum wage is $7.25, which means that if every worker involved is paid at the minimum wage, you incur a cent of labour costs every 4.97 person-seconds. AFAICT, most Amazon workers are paid substantially higher than the federal minimum wage. And that's just labour costs.

While Amazon is efficient, "fractions of a cent" is probably the wrong order of magnitude for even the most efficient order.

[hekkle]

That's not even mentioning their additional overheads, like the cost of fuel for their idling van as they drop off your potato.

[saaaaaam]

You might be 140 miles round trip to the nearest fulfilment centre, but you're almost certainly closer to your nearest neighbours who regularly buy stuff from Amazon, so the van is probably coming pretty close to you any way.

[relaxing]

Amazon will close your account before you can impact their bottom line.

[crumpled]

I think they let you (not YOU necessarily, but the proverbial you.) get away with stuff because they know your habits and you probably make more money for them than you realize.

I can almost guarantee that everyone mentioned in that blog post is a habitual Amazon user. They're all renewing Prime each year at full price and making a ton of regular purchases. The family has even turned on the FOMO by making Prime a family social network with social pressure to stay. I see it as a self-own, personally.

Edit: I'm taking part of this to the root of the thread