Amazon’s get rich scheme

My conscience won’t let me order things off of Amazon anymore and I’ve got a few reasons why.

The company treats its employees like garbage, and I believe billionaires should be illegal while the majority of the population is struggling for money. What I don’t get is why more people aren’t as bothered by Amazon’s sketchy business practices as I am, even after all of the scandals keep coming to light.

Sure, free two-day shipping is amazing, but is it still worth it knowing that Amazon warehouse workers have to pee in bottles to make their quota for the day? I thought everyone agreed sweatshops were inhumane, and what Amazon is doing to its employees is pretty comparable.

A Reddit user who works for Amazon said that in his first week working there, two people collapsed from dehydration. All his managers did was complain that they had to fill out a report, like they’re the victims here. Surely, the victim isn’t the warehouse employee passed out in their own pee.

Personally, I am not okay with subjecting 566,000 people to such horrible working conditions to make a rich man richer. We all know that Jeff Bezos isn’t the best guy from his recent scandal when he cheated on his wife and then almost got his nudes released on the internet. Anyone with that much money can’t really be a good person, especially since we know that Bezos is only dedicating 1.3 percent of his wealth to charity.

To be fair, Amazon is very convenient for consumers and does provide a variety of services that can be useful. The two-day shipping is one of its strongest selling points and they also offer grocery delivery.

One service many students use is the textbook rental system. In my experience, it is so much cheaper to rent books off Amazon than it is to buy them at the campus bookstore. 

When I still used Amazon, that was the thing I used it most for. Everything else I ordered from Amazon tended to be in bad condition since it allows some pretty sketchy third-party vendors to sell unapproved merchandise with little review on its website.

I ordered a pink sun hat off of Amazon about a year ago and not only did it come completely squashed, but it was brown. I had to go through so many steps to contact the seller, and in the end I only got refunded about 70 cents of my purchase — not worth it.

On top of all of that, the recent mess involving the proposed New York Amazon headquarters shows more about its sketchy business practices. The company backed out of their promise to the city because it wasn’t going to get a sweet tax-break to build their headquarters in Queens.

The failed deal made many people angry, including New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The headquarters would have created so many jobs for the area and helped the economy, yet it backed out in the interest of letting a billionaire keep his billions. How is that fair?

I know rallying to cancel Amazon is an ambitious task, but people do it with fashion brands that use sweatshops, and I don’t feel like this is that far of a stretch. Ebay isn’t as quick with shipping, but you can guarantee there is integrity in the process, or you can do it the old-fashioned way and shop in the real world.

Convenient shipping shouldn’t be worth more than the well-being of others.

This article was edited on Feb. 20 to correct a photo that was not of the Amazon@ The Beach store, and to clarify information that was not factual.