EugeneG

The way this stuff works is Amazon requires them they need to get X amount of liability insurance to even be a subcontractor. Amazon requires proof.

The government has its own laws on things like minimum workers compensation insurance.

So the subcontractors are insured.

If there’s no real life harm, and Amazon chose to organize their business in this way, it means they think it’s a cheaper/better/more efficient way of doing it. So we shouldn’t make laws preventing it or undoing it unless we have a good reason.

Burden of proof is on those who want to make new rules that compel others.

I wrote like 10 comments that engaged seriously in this discussion... and haven't really gotten much back except comments that allude to conspiracy. There are people who start with "of course Amazon is evil and they just want to do evil things" and work backwards from there... I tend to start from a different direction of "I get packages quickly, and it's huge value add to my life; lots of people have good paying jobs delivering these packages - and lots of new small businesses started up to do this last mile delivery - and that's good" ...... and if you start there, then I'm just more skeptical of random new laws to fix something where nobody has made a concrete case for actual, real life harm that exists today...

my view is that the burden is on the people making up new rules to show their rules are solving concrete actual harms... not just hand wave and say "well obviously Amazon's a [evil scare tone] TRILLION DOLLAR COMPANY" and let that be the end of the argument

Don't we already have workers comp insurance laws? Other forms of liability insurance? Doesn't Amazon carry the same insurance if it's the one doing the delivery directly? Do we think levels of this insurance is insufficient in general and should be higher?

Bottom line - just because Amazon doesn't directly have this liability - it doesn't mean nobody has this liability - the sub contractors do. And if they do, they need to pay for the insurance, and if they pay for the insurance, then Amazon has to pay them more to pay for this insurance.

So the real question is... what concrete harm/problem are we solving for that isn't already solved for today.

"if people disagree with me, it's a conspiracy"

But what you described isn't a "problem" on it's own. Subcontracting is a thing. It's not a bad thing on its own.

You're describing the "what" - you're not describing the "why" is that an issue...

Is "Joe's delivery company" not already required to have liability insurance? Do we think this insurance is not big enough? Should we make it bigger for all delivery companies or do we need to single out Amazon's liability insurance? Do we think that a delivery company delivering the same package for Amazon vs. FedEx vs. Mary's Flowers Inc. vs. NYC Movers Inc. should have a different amount of liability? (e.g., if that delivery driver injures a pedestrian, should we require that NYC Movers Inc. covers fewer costs than Amazon)?

Ok but I expect more from my government than "here's youtube video; trust me bro - you're an average worker, you won't get it"

Agree. Unclear on what the actual specific harms are, whether they systemic, and how a new set of laws would help fix it.

Also what are the harms that new rules introduce? Are you going to eliminate a bunch of new small businesses that do deliveries and replace them with everything being under one, giant, multi-trillion dollar company?

Honest question: what are the actual concrete issues where Amazon is shirking responsibility they would have otherwise had? Was there a specific court case where Amazon didn't pay what it would have otherwise? A workplace injury that would have been covered but otherwise wasn't? If these exist, are they systemic - i.e., does it happen more often here than it does with UPS or FedEx delivery workers?

There are insinuations here, and a good video, but it would be good to have actual examples and then an actual demonstration of a pattern of harm, before we introduce new rules that are likely going to make deliveries more expensive.

I understand that a YouTube video isn't a policy document... and I don't expect it to have all of these things. But as a citizen, I do expect - that somewhere - there should be an actual policy document that outlines the facts.

This is where Codex 5.5 just feels practically better. It’s fast, thoughtful and just works. It feels like a pleasure compared to Opus/Fable’s endless explorations.

The stock market (and in particular the US stock market) has been an incredibly positive influence on the average American's 401k... Great driver of allowing Americans and beyond to share in the upside of successful companies... big reason why Americans can retire.

Of course, it doesn't always go up...

I think you have an oddly negative bias.

Reminds me of this... During Apple's 1980 Initial Public Offering (IPO), Massachusetts regulators banned residents from purchasing the stock. The state's securities regulators deemed the offering "too risky" and "over-valued," enforcing a state rule that prohibited IPOs with a price exceeding 25 times earnings.

“properties get leveraged, instrumentalized, and securitized, with derivative products, speculation, and all sorts of incentives”

Spoken like someone has no clue what they are talking about and just throwing out jargon