Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Bye, Amazon

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Bye, Amazon

Tim Bray, Ongoing, May 05, 2020

I think that this is today's biggest news, because Tim Bray isn't just your average VP, and because of the reason he's quitting. "It's that Amazon treats the humans in the warehouses as fungible units of pick-and-pack potential." And as he says, "It's how 21st-century capitalism is done." How does this relate to us? Can you imagine senior executive at colleges and universities resigning because their IT staff or sessional (adjunct) instructors are treated as disposable? No, neither can I. Now I know, it's not an ideal time for labour activism. By the same token, as this Metafilter post makes clear, continuity is broken. Maybe it's business as usual after the pandemic clears, or maybe people look around at the wreckage and start thinking, "hey, maybe society should be serving more than just the needs of the few." NPR's On the Media covers this too, before the Bray resignation, May 1, parts 3 and 4.

Today: 4 Total: 1124 [Direct link] [Share]


Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

Copyright 2024
Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024 2:07 p.m.

Canadian Flag Creative Commons License.

Force:yes