
Underestimating the power of Jeff Bezos - nocoder
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-significantly-underestimated-power-jeff-bezos-franklin-foer
======
michaelt

      It was at that awkward moment that Amazon decided that it
      would punish the New Republic. Our ad sales department
      received a note, informing us that Amazon would be yanking
      its advertising for its new political comedy, Alpha House.
      The missive left nothing to the imagination. “In light of
      the cover article about Amazon, Amazon has decided to
      terminate the Alpha House campaign currently running on
      the New Republic. Please confirm receipt of this email and
      that the campaign has been terminated.” It was signed,
      “Team Amazon.”
    

This is one of the reasons I really wish there was a decent, widely supported
micropayment system for journalism.

So long as journalists' jobs depend on the ad money coming in, companies can
use that leverage to get negative stories spiked. Amazon is one example in
this article; HSBC with The Telegraph (and other newspapers) is another [1].

If we want to avoid this disease spreading, we really need some way to pay
journalists that doesn't rely on corporate largess.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/17/peter-
oborne-t...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/17/peter-oborne-
telegraph-hsbc-coverage-fraud-readers)

~~~
hectorr1
You're right - journalism has a broken and outdated business model. Amazon has
a modern and effective one. To fix the problem, you need to fix this dynamic.

I get a lot the crypto hate you see around here, there are some real problems
in the space right now. But facilitating micropayments for online content is
extremely low hanging fruit with the tech, especially if the US tax exemption
for txs under $600 goes through and browser integration happens.

Brave Browser / Basic Attention Token is one of the few groups in ICO-mania-
land that is trying to solve a real problem, and they're focused on this one.
It's led by Brendan Eich, former Mozilla CEO and original Netscape dev. Worth
checking out if you are in publishing.

~~~
bovermyer
Unfortunately, Brave is incompatible with the current business model of
journalism, and I don't know if journalism can survive a war on multiple
fronts - that is, a war on its pocketbook from the consumer side, and a war on
its integrity from the government side.

~~~
Ajedi32
It is? How so? As far as I can tell, sites don't need to change their business
model at all; they can just start collecting payments from Brave in addition
to their ad revenue from non-Brave users.

> Once a user enables Brave Payments, the Brave browser automatically and
> anonymously keeps track of the publisher sites each user visits. The more
> times that a user visits a site, the larger the proportion of the user’s
> monthly contribution is “ear-marked” for that publisher. These funds grow as
> new micropayments are added. When contributions for a publisher exceed
> $100.00 USD, an email is sent to both the webmaster of the site and the
> registered domain owner from your WHOIS information. The email explains how
> to verify the ownership of your website with Brave Software.

(See [https://brave.com/publishers/](https://brave.com/publishers/))

I really like this implementation, because it avoids the chicken-egg problem
that other solutions like Google Contributor have by not requiring the
publisher's cooperation in order to work properly. Visitors on Brave don't see
ads, period. Publishers can choose to collect money from Brave users if they
want, but that doesn't change the experience from the user's point of view.

~~~
bovermyer
Brave blocks ads. If a user isn't using Brave Payments, then there is no
replacement for that lost ad revenue.

------
kristianc
The problem here isn't Amazon, but the business model that TNR chose for
itself, and the implications of that.

This covers a period in TNR's history when Chris Hughes (formerly of Facebook)
was in charge, and essentially wanted to turn the site into a 'vertically
integrated digital media company' (native advertising / clickbait factory).

It shouldn't be a surprise that this had deleterious consequences for
journalistic integrity and allowed advertisers to apply undue pressure.

Foer (the author of this piece) didn't want to go along with that, and he and
almost the entire staff resigned in protest. Hughes ended up putting the
magazine up for sale, and Foer was brought back in under the new editor.

Oh, and Foer's new book is now available on Amazon.

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Without-Mind-Existential-
Thre...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Without-Mind-Existential-
Threat/dp/1101981113/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1505739592&sr=8-2&keywords=world+without+mind)

~~~
puh744
Why does the term "vertically integrated digital media company" make me
picture someone trying to stack bags full of trash on top of each other,
seeing how high they can go before it collapses?

~~~
pdimitar
Why does that sound exactly like what most online media do nowadays?

------
lobotryas
Interesting followup from The New Yorker on the implosion of TNR:
[https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-collapse-
new...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-collapse-new-republic)

I wish I could say the turn of events shocked me, but it all just seems so
predictable.

~~~
jventura
“There’s the peacetime C.E.O. and the wartime C.E.O. Not to be overly dramatic
about it, but this is sort of a war. This is a wartime period. That just means
that we need to change a lot of things. We need to just break shit. Sorry to
say, we’ve got to break shit and embrace being uncomfortable sometimes. And
it’s scary. It’s definitely a scary thing to do. But it’s also fun: you know,
lean up against the wall and break it.”

Does these kind of words work with people older than 20? I once had a CTO that
also started with these shitty things on the first meeting and he was fired
less than 3 months later, as people sabotaged him and his work. Almost nobody
gets excited when someone tells you that your professional life is going to
change drastically, come on!!

When behaviors are entrenched, you have to be diplomatic, smart and cautious..

------
ropeladder
Amazon pulling advertising is scary but not entirely beyond the pale. I find
the idea that authors are afraid to criticize Amazon to be much more
worrisome: these days, writing a book is an important source of income for
politicians, academics and many other import leaders. If none of these people
are free to criticize one of the largest and most powerful business
organizations in the country (and that business is an arbiter of what they
choose to sell more broadly), that's a huge loss for democracy.

------
andriesm
It's rather silly to think you can publish an outright hostile and disparaging
article about a big advertiser and not lose them.

The fact that you are forced to choose between making money and speaking the
truth, shows your business model is broken (if you are the CEO or
shareholders) or that you've really made crap life and career choices if you
are an employee (or self employed).

~~~
jhbadger
Not really. I've seen plenty of cases where there's, for example, an article
about how McDonald's food is full of salt and calories and is bad for you snd
yet on the next page you'll find an ad for McDonald's. To actually be as
vindictive as Amazon apparently was is quite extreme.

~~~
smokeyj
News outlets have account managers that wouldn't let scheduling conflicts
happen. Commercial placements are carefully considered.

------
sunstone
Why is that (it seems to me) whenever the discussion of Google's possible use
of manipulating its search results for its own benefit there's a vocal
response from all corners but Amazon gets a pass when then manipulate their
results to similar ends. To my mind both are equally atrocious.

~~~
dingo_bat
I am softer towards Amazon because they are a customer-oriented company.
Google doesn't give one shit about me. Amazon gives the impression that it
does.

~~~
chii
> Google doesn't give one shit about me. Amazon gives the impression that it
> does.

And yet, both companies, under the veneer of PR, does not give any shits about
anyone except their own bottom line. Amazon just has better PR than google.

------
GabrielF00
I think this highlights a big difference between media and tech (or at least
big tech companies). In tech, leaking is a cardinal sin. Foer chose to send
information about a customer pulling an ad campaign to a friend, who then
"excitedly" forwarded it to the New York Times. Foer was using internal
company information as a weapon in a personal crusade.

~~~
lobotryas
You call it leaking, I'd say it's whistleblowing in abusive practices meant to
stifle criticism. Same as the red flags raised about Uber's cultural
environment can hardly be considered "leaks".

~~~
notyourday
Don't bite the hand that feeds you, especially if you are not someone in
charge.

~~~
lordfoom
So never reveal abusive practises ever if it's by someone who employs you?

~~~
GabrielF00
Amazon didn't employ him.

------
kybernetikos
I was shocked that they seem to have got away with bundling a video service
almost nobody wanted with a loyalty program for their near monopoly on online
goods.

~~~
eterm
The bundling continues, they have now also bundled in "twitch prime" including
a free subscription each month.

The old twitch prime ('turbo') no longer exists.

Am I happy that I suddenly have a free sub? It's nice to have but it worries
me that more and more services are bundled until the point where Amazon Prime
is no longer a luxury but there is so much bundling where the price isn't
worth it for any given service but there's no alternative.

If it heads down that route then it'll take something drastic to break it up.
It took the internet to break up cable tv bundling.

~~~
Infinitesimus
> m I happy that I suddenly have a free sub? It's nice to have but it worries
> me that more and more services are bundled until the point where Amazon
> Prime is no longer a luxury but there is so much bundling where the price
> isn't worth it for any given service but there's no alternative.

Rest assured, that is precisely their goal:

"Our goal with Amazon Prime, make no mistake, is to make sure that if you are
not a Prime member, you are being irresponsible," \- Jeff Bezos

src: [http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-says-
it...](http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-says-its-
irresponsible-not-to-be-part-of-prime-2016-5)

------
josefresco
"Unfortunately, I had already forwarded Amazon’s note to a friend"

Dude ... really?

------
Animats
The New Republic was a hobby business for some rich guys. It lost money for
most of its life. That made it vulnerable.

It was sadder seeing the San Jose Mercury News go down. It was an excellent
newspaper with a large, effective reporting staff, and profitable. It was sold
to the parent organization of the Contra Costa Times, which is one step above
an advertising throwaway. Today's Mercury News is one step above an
advertising throwaway.

------
mack1001
With the American election debacle and not being around during Nixon, I have
realized the outsized role press has to play. Blogs, citizen journalism do not
do it. You need dedicated sharp investigative journalism without fear Of
retribution either from the owner or from the government. It actually becomes
important if say Bezos plans to run for president and in fact becomes the
president.

------
hardlianotion
I didn't understand the segue from author's meeting with Vitra to the main
story about Amazon.

~~~
jasode
His previous boss Chris Hughes (the owner) wanted to turn a profit -- but
didn't have expertise to do it.

Therefore, CH brought in Guy Vidra with a directive to make profits.

Criticizing Amazon about the Hachette negotiations triggers Amazon to pull
advertising dollars. This conflicts with making profits. (Which points back to
why Vidra was brought in: make the magazine profitable.)

~~~
cafard
Has anyone ever made a profit with The New Republic? It seems unlikely to me.

~~~
ArchReaper
>The one year we turned a profit, we celebrated with a pizza party that pushed
us back into the red.

Literally the 3rd line of the article.

------
fictionfuture
Does no one else notice the collusion to suppress calls for anti-trust action
against Amazon, Google and Facebook?

These companies have all been actively suppressing any information that would
force a review on this issue.

They've effectively closed off the internet, none of these services let
consumers follow links off site now and it's made a major difference in the
ability to compete.

~~~
blowski
Do you have any specific examples of that happening?

~~~
aoeuasdf1
Yes, have you seen this article?
[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-significantly-
underestimate...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-significantly-
underestimated-power-jeff-bezos-franklin-foer)

------
bllguo
When Google does the same with Open Markets they are denounced as evil.
Amazon? The response is comparatively muted.

Just another example of "the power of Jeff Bezos," or hypocrisy and
inconsistent standards?

------
jtmarmon
The whole bit about New Republic's reorg seems really strangely out of place
to me

~~~
_h_o_d_
Indeed: although it's part of his upcoming book, they could have excerpted
better so as to integrate or give structure to that unfinished part of the
story.

------
mcguire
" _Neither side struck me as worthy of huge sympathy. But then the battlefront
encroached uncomfortably close to home. I watched as Amazon punished
Hachette’s writers in its effort to make the publisher feel pain. Books, the
products of years of passionate labor, were prevented from reaching the
market. Amazon used its bully’s arm to delay their shipments or direct readers
to older books on similar subjects, as well as a raft of other vengeful
tactics._ "

I see Foer decided which side needed sympathy. There was another side to that
story after all.

And I take it Foer was fired from the New Republic?

------
gjcufufucuv
For those of you that think this isn't business as usual, I highly recommend
Manufacturing Consent which shows how corporate media narrows the range of
political discussion through methods like this one.

------
gozur88
I don't care much about Amazon playing hardball with TNR - car companies have
been doing this for ages. The fact that he owns WaPo is a much bigger deal.

------
johansch
Since I enjoyed using this bookmarklet on this site, I thought I'd recommend
it to others as well:

[https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-
headers/](https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/)

------
warent
That's odd, I already submitted this one.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15265016](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15265016)

I thought HN handled duplicates by redirecting to the existing submission and
automatically upvoting it?

~~~
warent
Yikes, I guess I should be ashamed of myself for even asking...

~~~
mst
One on occasion I saw a second posting of the same article as me from a few
minutes apart - commenting on the other one being confused was for some reason
taken as some sort of attack on the other person to post it rather than my
wondering what the software had done and attracted anger and downvotes in
equal measure.

People confuse me sometimes.

------
nocoder
Ironically (?) the book is on Amazon & there is some dark humour in the fact
that Amazon will probably end up contributing significant in sales to this
book. I bet Bezos has a evil smile on his face.

------
feminist17
Other possible titles:

"I didn't understand that the world's second richest person and publicly the
world's most powerful person, who is extremely competitive, quick,
intelligent, with little patience, who also controls the majority of the
world's publication/data/hosting/streaming (BTW- Netflix and Hulu _run_ on
Amazon, so don't give me that Prime ain't everything argument) could affect
me."

"I significantly underestimated the heat of the sun when I touched it."

"I've basically been a hermit for the past 20 years."

~~~
nerdponx
"All those comments on HN on WaPo articles about how they're owned by Jeff
Bezos and won't say bad things about Amazon anymore might have some merit."

~~~
Chris2048
Another rich guy owning a media outlet, another media outlet owned by a rich
guy..

------
superkuh
Anyone have a mirror of this text that isn't behind a walled garden?

~~~
Sean1708
Out of interest, what do you mean by walled garden in this case?

~~~
tempay
When I open the page it requires me to have a linkedin account and login.

~~~
lloeki
It's insane, I can't make sense of how it works, here's a rundown of a quick
test we did:

I have no LinkedIn account. I cannot view the article (nor anything else) on
macOS in Safari and Firefox, neither normal nor private mode, and it has been
so for months, possibly years. I can view the article in both normal and
incognito modes on Chrome.

Coworker 1 is on Arch, has a LinkedIn account but has never logged in on his
machine on any browser. With Firefox he can only browse a couple times before
the wall kicks in, until he throws cookies away (manually or with private
mode). About 15 min later, he is locked out and cannot see the page, even in
private mode. Clearing every single bit of data from his Firefox profile does
nothing at making the page accessible again. Still, Chrome displays the
wepbage fine in both modes.

Coworker 2 is on macOS. Using Chrome he can see the page in normal mode (he
had previously logged in). He cannot view the page at all in Incognito, ever.

We all share the same IPv4 but have IPv6 enabled.

It has to be some wickedly twisted heuristic possibly involving some
evercookie.

~~~
Jonnax
Maybe a bit of browser fingerprinting going on?
[https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/)

------
megamindbrian
He doesn't have the power to make a nice UI.

------
stepik777
Can we please stop posting links to articles that require registration to
read?

~~~
feminist17
Massively annoying advertising with crappy content, or you can pay for it as a
service- your choice.

~~~
floatboth
I'm not sure if LinkedIn requires payment, the giant doorslam popup only
offered registration/login…

------
vesche
This article is poorly written and the title is pure click bait.

~~~
tankenmate
The article is an excerpt of a book, but still nonetheless I am wondering why
you would say it was poorly written?

~~~
cabaalis
I wonder if that book will be for sale on Amazon? And, sadly, if not, will
anyone know it exists?

~~~
tyingq
[https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Mind-Existential-
Threat...](https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Mind-Existential-
Threat/dp/1101981113)

Doing well, too...has a Bestseller icon.

