I can’t believe that I chose not to rant about this week’s shitstorm of Presidential inanity…maybe just a quick recap:
Okay, so, Jeff Bezos. I want to admire your brilliant accomplishment of out-Walmarting Walmart, but, on your journey to becoming the world’s richest man, you may have simply replaced one scum-baggy business model with your own scum-baggier one. I probably don’t share many, (if any?), of the issues that have gotten Trump’s panties in a bunch. In fact, I’m sure his only problem with you is that you are legitimately way, way, way richer than him. For me, a fully addicted Amazon shopper, the ease and the savings have always been tempered by my concern for local merchants who can’t play on your impossibly unlevel playing field. So, when I have the option, I choose to patronize a local shop, realizing it’s only a matter of time, and probably not much time, before those shops will disappear altogether. I’m no economist, never even played one on TV, but I get that the evolutionary nature of the marketplace is inevitable. However, (as the late great Irwin Corey might have exclaimed), something is rotten in whatever state my last shipment was shipped from. On Friday morning, Amazon’s first-quarter sales report was published indicating a 100% profit surge from the fourth quarter of last year. Wow, I thought. And, as a relatively satisfied addict, in general, I have no issue with a smart business doing well. I would probably not have given the announcement another thought had it not been directly followed by the caveat that the yearly Amazon Prime fee would be increased by 30%, from $99 to $129. To be fair, the eight-dollar-and-change monthly fee always seemed pretty reasonable for two-day shipping and Prime Video and Music access and a raise to a ten-dollar-plus charge also seems cool. But, when you’re already the richest man and your company is raking in record profits, why does becoming richer and more profitable have to be the logical next step?
When commerce, (bartering), began, Grrg had a chicken and a half dozen suspect mushrooms. His neighbor Nfft, (vowels were not a thing yet), had a goat and a half-eaten coconut. Grrg, craving coconut, agreed to trade a couple of his mushrooms for a nice chunk of Nfft’s stash, (the chicken and goat were totally non-negotiable back then). Both parties were pleased with the exchange, and so, it began. Sometime later, they met again under similar circumstances but Nfft sensed that Grrg was really jonesing, so he upped his price to three mushrooms and ever since, the concept of a fair price rather than a market-bearing price was lost forever.
The Amazonians have brilliantly coded algorithms that track the browsing and buying habits of their users and, I’m certain, manipulate prices and profits, (not unlike gasoline), often by mere cents, to maximize their earnings. Imagine if the leader in the marketplace algorithmed a fairest price business model that insured its profits to be simply fabulous rather than always fantabulatious.
I’d go on, but it’s starting to feel spring-like and I have to clean my Birkenstocks.