I was watching a couple of reportages on how amazon is thriving during the pandemic, one reportage handing me to the other. I think I watched a streak of 3 on amazon only. Very insightful and engaging I must admit. But more than the amusement, what kept me watching is my inability to fathom how could the consumer behavior be so shapable by corporates. And the corporate's tendency to deviate from their original purpose to capture a profitable opportunity by creating a need then solving it for you.
Amazon operates on a scale larger than what I can imagine. Let's end it there, I won't provide statistical figures here, you can google it. But anyways, of its long supply chain, the last part is the most challenging. Getting it to the step-door of the customer is a very rigid part, not something they can apply advanced approaches to make it efficient. So it is pretty expensive and operationally challenging, so they've cracked it by outsourcing it to partners who handle that. Those folks seem to have it rough. They work under stressful conditions with little support from amazon. while seeming to be affiliates, they are not! When I saw them, started thinking, why on earth! All this hassle, to deliver the items within an unnecessarily tight time-line like a day .. or even tighter .. like 2 hours!! what could one possibly need with such urgency? it's surely not medicine. I found it extremely provoking that the company has set the expectations this high, and now is struggling to keep up with it.
I don't find it weird, but disappointing of sort. Commercially, it's probably way more profitable to solve a manmade challenge as such. As apposed to addressing the challenge of supplying remote areas, where a need exists but the scale and profit margins aren't as sexy. On the same, watch this. It's hilarious!
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