“I hope there is a special extra-toasty, extra-pointy anus-bound-pitchfork place in hell for them.”
Whoa, that really took at turn there…
Okay, so today’s carefully-crafted thoughts are an extension of last week’s long overdue update of The Prissy Pet Project. If you need to get caught up on the glorious details of the whole project, you can check it out here.
If you don’t have time to go back to last week’s post, the relevant detail is that Amazon essentially blew up my internet kimchi business plans when they drastically cut the commission I–or any other so-called Amazon Associate–would earn by sending them customers. Like, a HUGE cut–5% down to 1%!
Unbeknownst to me, this happened back in April, at the beginning of COVID quarantine. Why did I have no clue Amazon was being huge Amazon-holes to us Associates? Because I was taking a break from the kimchi biz while I focused on more important things.
Now you can consider yourself contextualized for the two thoughts I’ve had in response to this particular situation…
Fortunate. I should consider myself fortunate, actually.
Why? Because I had invested a relatively minimal amount of time/energy/money in this project. Further, I’m not dependent on that income to pay any bills or other financial obligations.
So the fact that I got side-tracked by technical difficulties and quarantining turned out be a blessing in disguise, sparing me from the heartache of building up the business, only to have it demolished literally overnight.
Now, one critical thing about working on Be-My-Own-Boss projects is identifying assumptions that are likely to hold up in the longer term. And you know what has blown the ----- out of so many normally reliable assumptions? ----- COVID.
Slow-walking or abandoning other such projects that were under consideration has actually allowed me to dodge multiple COVID bullets. This list represents the a notable proportion of my pre-COVID candidates for income-producing projects:
- Purchasing a property to rent on AirBnB? I’ve heard horror stories of people with those extra mortgages, finding themselves having to come up with thousands of dollars out of their pockets when all of a sudden they can’t rent their properties for months on end.
- Brokering tickets to various events? Thank ----- the Boss Lady convinced me to drop this side hustle last year! It makes me sick to think that I could have been stuck refunding thousands of dollars in tickets when everything got cancelled. And it would have been 10x worse being a small-fry middleman…
- Amazon Associate-centric businesses? Thanks to COVID and quarantining, Amazon no longer has any real incentive to fairly compensate Associates for the value they add. That, and they don’t really need the Associates to drive in customers, since everybody in America is an Amazon customer by default now.
I know my lack of progress on building passive income may seem disappointing, but in the end my family has been way better off because of it. To the tune of TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars!
Who says there isn’t a method to my madness?
Let’s back up a second to those poor souls that had much of their assets and income tied to being Amazon Associates. For example, I watched a video on YouTube of one very pissed off Russian internet entrepreneur–oh, you know what, just let me share it here because I thought it was humorous just listening to his bombastic style of speaking:
Anyways, buried in that video, he implies that he had an income-producing blog worth ~$36,000 that he was getting ready to sell when this shit-show went down. Overnight, without warning–poof! About $29k just vanished.
Yeah, I would be pissed, too.
Amazon Associate shenanigans is not just “a dollar here and a dollar there”–it’s serious business. Or at least was.
But no, Amazon had to go and prove unequivocally true your suspicions that they be evil af.
And the worst part of this is the context: the worst economic downturn we’ve seen in a lifetime or two. Household after household are now finding themselves doing every last thing they can to try to keep their heads above water.
Of course, not so for Amazon, who is profits amidst the pandemic are mind-numbingly large–for example MacKenzie Bezos, was worth $36 BILLION when she divorced Jeffy-Boy last July. Thanks to the pandemic she’s now worth $62 BILLION.1https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielshapiro/2020/07/11/amazons-jeff-bezos-and-ex-wife-mackenzie-add-combined-22-billion-to-fortunes-in-one-week-walmart-walton/. Let me just say this: if you weren’t hurting for that $26 BILLION before, you ain’t hurting now. Like what the hell is one person going to do with all that money?!? (To her credit, I’ve heard that she is donating huge chunks of it.)
So I was shocked when I heard the news that Amazon was benevolently sharing in its new-found wealth by giving healthy bonuses to all the Associates upon which much of their business was built, to help them survive these tough times.
JUST. KIDDING. As you already know, in the midst making record profits off the misery of the average man, instead of doing good and helping out their fellow citizens, they can’t even be bothered to do nothing.
That’s right, if Amazon had done nothing, i.e. made no changes to their Associates program, then many of these households could have relied on that income and wealth that they had rightfully built. Even more, this would be safe income, not requiring them to put themselves in harms way to try to support their families.
What kind of bunch of ----- assholes are the people who made this decision?!?
I hope there is a special extra-toasty, extra-pointy anus-bound-pitchfork place in hell for them.
I really thought I was going to wrap this post up with the advice to only use Amazon for tracking down products, then trying to find the actual company that sells it via Google, and then purchasing directly from that company. It may not put Amazon out of business, but there comes a point when you know too much and consequently feel squeamish about actively contributing to such a ----- up system of greed and exploitation.
“Burn Amazon to the ground”–that’ll have to be the sub-point of the story for now.
Clearly, as I write this I can sense the Universe guiding my fingers to a bigger message…
I can’t help but wonder: Is this the exact result that would inevitably happen when the national religion of one of the biggest economic powerhouses in the world is Capitalism At All Costs?
Is this display of utterly shitty humanity on such a massive scale merely the natural extension of 200+ years of worshiping at the Altar of Free-Flowing Capital?
Folks, there is more to this life than the Almighty Dollar.
Health. Relationships. Education. A sustainable future for our children. An empathetic and caring society that will give a ----- when you–yes YOU–are down on your luck.
I could go on. But I probably should stop rubbing in your face all the wonderful things that other economically advanced countries have valued over the naked pursuit of cold-hard cash–and thrived because of it.
I may not be into true-blue Socialism, but ----- if I can’t stand anyone who craps their pants in faux horror at the mention of our nation doing anything that could be remotely described as Socialist.
How dare we give a shit about our fellow citizens. How dare we focus on the humanity of our fellow men and women, instead of inventing new and creative ways to dehumanize them. How dare we invest in the well-being of our society.
Spare me the excuses. When you’re ready to get over the romantic notion that American-style Capitalism is unquestionably the best economic system the world has ever seen (hint: it’s not), then get back to me.
We need to find some real solutions–and find them fast–if we think we’re going to be passing on anything other a steaming pile of foreign debt and massive socio-economic inequality to our kids (amongst other things).
Seriously, have we learned nothing from The Unfortunate Allegory Of The Gift Of A Lifetime?
Content created on: 28 August 2020 (Friday)
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