Interesting - I definitely consider Bill Gates a less harmful example of a billionaire. Mostly because I think of the people employed by microsoft during his tenure as well paid tech workers. That's somewhat different from the exploited amazon warehouse workers and sweatshop workers making the stuff they sell. I've not forgotten the FUD, the anti-linux and anti-apple maneuvering, etc. - but I don't have a strong example of the human cost of Bill Gates' billions - is there one I'm missing?
There are quite a few well-paid tech workers at Amazon, too. And proportionally, probably much better paid than the tech workers at Microsoft during Gates' tenure. Does the fact that Microsoft didn't employ warehouses make it better?
Amazon could exist - perhaps not quite to its current scale - without owning its warehouses. It would pay more, but the workers would not earn more. That profit would just be spread across different fulfillment companies and shipping enterprises. It's not as if with Amazon these workers are getting $10/hr but without Amazon they'd be making $25/hr. They'd still make $10/hr just with a different name on the paycheck.
I'm looking at this from a labour and compensation perspective. If everyone you hire, and all the subcontractors you employ are making livable wages, you're less exploitative than if you directly or indirectly pay people non-livable wages.
You are correct, Amazon without warehouses only pushes the problem one step out to their fulfillment / shipping companies. The only way to rehabilitate Amazon (from evil to not evil... still far from good) would be for them to pay their employees (ALL of them - not just the tech workers) a livable wage, and for them to only sell things that have been made with non-exploitative labour practices.
The way I'm seeing it - the more you control the situation, the more guilty you are of the exploitation. Amazon controls who they work with pretty fully - but when I look at gates-era microsoft, I work my way out from their direct employees to the companies they work with, and I can't find the exploitative labour until I hit the PC manufacturers that were buying windows to put on their PCs. Maybe I'm missing something, but that feels pretty far out of their control - I'd place my blame at the feet of Dell or Compaq, not MSFT at that point.
another example is Apple. Their workers are paid well, but iPhones are assembled by Foxconn and if you ever bought iPhone/Mac, there is a chance that worker who assembled your iPhone has killed himself[1] due to low wages, stress, and exploitative labor conditions. Simply because Apple needs to maintain high margins and squeezes margins out of suppliers trying to maximize profits. That's why I dont buy apple products.
Apple definitely profits, and bares responsibility, for using suppliers with abysmal labour practices - but before you rest easy, what phones and computers are you buying? Foxconn manufactures an estimated 40% of all consumer electronics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn) and the ones that aren't manufactured by foxconn are not necessarily made under better conditions.
The only workaround I've found for ethical consumption is buying second hand, which dilutes my contribution to these industries a little
Apple is the worst offender by wide margin, because their phones are the most expensive ones and have the biggest sales (=production target).
Add the fact that the deadlines on product announcement and shipping are very strict, so the pressure on workers assembling iPhones is the biggest. Stress with assembly of other manufacturers' phones is nowhere near than that of Apple's.
Samsung, I think, assembles phones in Vietnam, where labor conditions are better than in continental china.
You don’t go around kicking people in the stomach just because if you wouldn’t, somebody else probably would.
When you are a company the scale of Amazon you have no excuse to not treat the people who make your services possible well. Of course there will be different levels for different jobs, but Amazon should have treated their employees with respect and been using their weight to lift the wage floor.
This of course is true for all companies but especially for the giants.
Plenty of people are aware of Gates' overwhelming greed.
I would ignore all of it just to hear him talk for ten minutes about the overwhelming privilege he was born into and how that brought about his success.
uhh... bill gates?