Is Amazon really evil?

I try not to use Amazon. I prefer to shop locally, where at all possible. If I have to shop online, I at least try to shop Canadian. Usually, I am successful (this Christmas, zero Amazon purchases), although I am not above ordering through Amazon where all else fails, which very occasionally it does.

As well as trying to shop locally from an environmental viewpoint, I disapprove of many of Amazon's business practices, and the way it has steam-rollered through whole swathes of perfectly good businesses and whole sectors, Canadian and otherwise.

But is Amazon actually "evil" as my daughter has it?

I remember when Amazon was just an innovative online bookshop. Now it is a global, hydra-headed behemoth - cheap, efficient, comprehensive and fast - with fingers in pies they really have no good reason to be anywhere near. It is America's second largest private employer (after Walmart), and sells over a third of all products sold online in the USA (and probably everywhere else). Its IT department powers vast portions of the Internet, from Netflix to the CIA. It is ridiculously successful. But evil? Should we be boycotting Amazon?

Billionaire owner Jeff Bezos has grown his company into a commercial titan with a reputation for abusing its workforce (long shifts for inadequate pay, enforced overtime, constant electronic surveillance, summary firings for lagging productivity, workers pressed to their physical limits, unreasonable demands for employee self-sacrifice, inadequate safety measures, propagation of the gig economy, stern opposition to unionization, etc). This is known. All of that might well be enough for you to vow not to touch Amazon with a bargepole.

But there's more. Amazon has been accused of using its market power to deliberately stifle competition, to harm small businesses, to violate anti-trust laws, and generally to take advantage of its quasi-monopolistic position. The environmental impact of its shipping operations is huge and wasteful. It has been criticized for cynically using tax loopholes to avoid paying its fair share of taxes. Its data collection and use policies have raised concerns about privacy and security. Its involvement in the shadier side of America's homeland security machine (including its facial recognition technology) has raised hackles among some. The list goes on.

I will continue to try to avoid Amazon as much as possible. We are, though, probably long past the point where it is possible to bring the company down, or even hold it to account. And the possibility remains that Amazon is just an uber-successful company with a rather more-rapacious-than-some go-get-'em corporate philosophy, and not actually evil, as The Economist argues (and others). Me, I'm inclined to go with the "evil" characterization, on balance.

UPDATE

Still not made up your mind about Amazon's evilness (or not)? The company has just closed all of its warehouse facilities in the province of Quebec ("fulfillment centres", sorting centres, delivery stations) rather than accept a unionized workforce at one of those facilities. It is laying off 1,700 workers as part of its corporate culture of discouraging trade unions, because they might, you know, try to improve working hours and conditions, call for better pay, that kind of thing. Instead, Amazon will pivot to a third-party delivery model (think exploited gig economy and no employment benefits).

Sound a little over the top? That's the Amazon style. The company has zero tolerance for unionization, and this move is a clear warning to other Amazon warehouses in Canada and elsewhere that unions will just not be tolerated, so don't even go there.

Still on the fence?