<story><title>An Amazon programmer’s perspective (2015)</title><url>https://pastebin.com/BjD84BQ3</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>samirillian</author><text>This is what I don&amp;#x27;t understand. When Tbray left, he said he was doing so in solidarity with the distribution center types, but he held to the line that AWS was great. This despite nightmare stories like this one regularly bubbling up, and I&amp;#x27;ve heard similar from friends.&lt;p&gt;What is it about tech culture that people within it refuse to admit the level of abuse-by-design that happens at these companies? Is it that they want to believe that they are somehow fundamentally different from the distribution and grocery store workers, and fundamentally similar to Bezos? I can&amp;#x27;t help but feel it&amp;#x27;s just this kind of false consciousness that prevents developers from _getting organized_.&lt;p&gt;Sidenote, payroll tax on Amazon in Seattle trying to get revived. It&amp;#x27;s a long and winding story. Check out taxamazon.net</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>AnHonestComment</author><text>It’s worth pointing out why it needs to be “revived”: because the first iteration of the tax would have destroyed grocery stores and was protested by construction unions due to its disastrous policy.&lt;p&gt;This iteration is targeting the 800 largest employers in Seattle, many of whom aren’t currently profitable.&lt;p&gt;“Tax Amazon” is classic dishonesty — neither bill has been focused on Amazon, both would be a disaster for Seattle, and proponents try to focus on Amazon to keep people from noticing how damaging their out of control spending is.&lt;p&gt;In 2010, the Seattle budget was 3.8B; in 2020, it’s 6.5B. An increase of 2.7B and growth of 71% in a decade. (Per capita, the Seattle budget is 37% more now than in 2010.)&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.geekwire.com&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;seattle-socialists-construction-workers-clash-amazon-hq-tax-big-business&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.geekwire.com&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;seattle-socialists-constructio...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.seattletimes.com&amp;#x2F;seattle-news&amp;#x2F;politics&amp;#x2F;seattle-city-councilmember-sawant-says-her-tax-on-big-businesses-would-raise-300-million-a-year&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.seattletimes.com&amp;#x2F;seattle-news&amp;#x2F;politics&amp;#x2F;seattle-c...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>An Amazon programmer’s perspective (2015)</title><url>https://pastebin.com/BjD84BQ3</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>samirillian</author><text>This is what I don&amp;#x27;t understand. When Tbray left, he said he was doing so in solidarity with the distribution center types, but he held to the line that AWS was great. This despite nightmare stories like this one regularly bubbling up, and I&amp;#x27;ve heard similar from friends.&lt;p&gt;What is it about tech culture that people within it refuse to admit the level of abuse-by-design that happens at these companies? Is it that they want to believe that they are somehow fundamentally different from the distribution and grocery store workers, and fundamentally similar to Bezos? I can&amp;#x27;t help but feel it&amp;#x27;s just this kind of false consciousness that prevents developers from _getting organized_.&lt;p&gt;Sidenote, payroll tax on Amazon in Seattle trying to get revived. It&amp;#x27;s a long and winding story. Check out taxamazon.net</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gameswithgo</author><text>Every company is full of nightmares, especially anyone doing something big enough to be interesting.  For instance that guy who started blogging about how janky Tesla&amp;#x27;s software was, most of us who have been around a while read all that and shrugged. Not that bad.  It is easy to imagine perfection or competence but very hard to actually achieve it at large scales with humans.&lt;p&gt;So at the same time it can be true that company X is a great place and also true that company X is a nightmare.</text></comment>