This worked as of 21:30 Eastern time on 6 December 2024.
Openly promoting the fact that they underpay their drivers, for a limited time.
“Yes, we could be paying our drivers an extra 5 dollars, we just choose not to, lol.”
Why would they do it if they can have you do it?
You’re not paying, you’re clicking a button to have Amazon give $5 of their money to the driver.
They could have just given a bunch of drivers $5, but then they wouldn’t make a bunch of customers think Amazon isn’t too bad.So you should push the button, but also pointedly continue to think badly of Amazon.
Asking honestly, respectfully, and in good faith - is there a downside to doing this? Edit: I mean, is there a downside to rewarding the driver via this promotion.
Yes, it undermines the idea that drivers deserve a living wage and is just Amazon dipping their toes into shifting their drivers into something closer to ‘ride share’ style independent contractors who primarily get their income from tips.
Short term benefit for long term problems.
I mean, 100% the drivers should be being paid more and the entire system is fundamentally broken.
In the here and now though, where I can’t do anything to fix anything even if I entirely stop using Amazon forever right this moment, giving someone a random $5 that they wouldn’t otherwise have is a good thing.
Technically youre right, but would you say the same if Putin started handing out band-aids to ukrainians who just lost their families?
… What? That’s such a non-sequitor that I’m honestly not sure if you replied to the wrong thing or something.
I can’t say that I would say the same thing in an entirely different situation with nothing to do with the other.
Its a similar situation. You ‘cant do anything about anything’ and handing out band-aids is ‘better than nothing’. Would ‘giving someone a band-aid is a good thing’ be your stance in that situation or would you find it rather inappropriate?
They’re not similar situations at all. For one, it’s an absurd difference in scale. Whatever your opinions of Amazon delivery driver working conditions and pay, it’s in no way comparable to “an invading army murdered their family”.
Second, whether or not I should push a button to give someone $5 with no obligation on their part is a different situation from getting a bandaid for a murdered family on the whim of the responsible party.
If you could push a button and a random person somewhere in the world gets $1 million, would you push the button?
Short term benefit for long term problems.
slippery slope fallacy
Clicking a button that gives someone money at no expense to you isn’t causing the issue you’re worried about, it’s at worst symptomatic of the broken system that might lead to your concern.
Not all slippery slopes are fallacies.
Ever notice that all the counter service places are leaning into tipping because it became popular with coffee shops?
Sure. And if Amazon ever asks us to tip delivery people with our own money we shouldn’t because that’s bullshit.
That being bullshit has no bearing on if it’s good to click the button that gives someone $5 at no expense to you out of their employers pocket.
If a counter service place has a button I could press to give them $5 of the stores money, I would press it every time. That’s not a tip because it’s not my money supplementing the employees wages.
The downside is that it costs Amazon $5.00.
Amazon has lots of money and they can easily afford this PR/marketing promotion that they choose to do. Amazon drivers work hard and deserve to be paid fairly for their work. Even though this is just marketing it still results in the drivers getting more money so if you order something from Amazon you might as well do it at every opportunity you get.
That’s only a downside if you’re an Amazon executive or shareholder. To a human being, it isn’t.
Is there an option for “Request Amazon to pay drivers decently and improve working conditions?”
Nope, just a “illegally suppress unions” button.
I thought this was a shitpost but I tried it and it worked. What a weird way to hide a tip.
Can any driver confirm they get the extra pay?
Or is this just propaganda to make the buyer feel good?
This is normalizing tipping drivers and pretty soon it will be expected. Resist this enshittification.
