The Paw Print

By Ivy Lefebvre

It’s watching you, tracking what you look at online, what you buy, where you go, and even what you do and say within the walls of your own home. It knows all, from how your little sister’s laugh sounds to when you last bought milk. It pastes its symbol everywhere, from ominous vans that pepper the streets of cities all around the world to the mysterious packages that keep appearing on your doorstep when you’re not looking. All of it displays the same sickening grin, beaming down on you wherever you turn, as if to say “Don’t be scared, look at our nice, non-threatening smile, we have nothing to hide”. 

Despite appearances, this is not the beginning of some dystopian novel or an episode of The Twilight Zone, this is a real thing that’s happening in America right now.

You’ve probably figured this out by now but the sinister, omnipresent force previously mentioned is a company you all know very well. I’m talking about the corporation Amazon, famous for its speed shipping, low prices, and a vast array of items for sale. What is not well known about Amazon however is how their surprising tactics and policies are slowly poisoning the world economy.

It’s true, Amazon is fast, easy, and cheap which makes it very attractive to consumers, and therefore makes it hard for us to want to see the company’s faults. It’s so simple to just click the button and two days later those emergency wedding shoes or plumbing parts or books are sitting there, ready for use. But we need to push past this bread-and-circus mindset and reach the real questions: How is Amazon able to sell things this cheaply? How can they get things to our doorstep so fast? How does Amazon predict what I’m going to buy? How can Amazon be allowed to operate on such a scale?

Our first question -How is Amazon able to sell things this cheaply- is easily explained by the cocktail of tax evasion and predatory pricing that Amazon has created. The thing is, Amazon takes up most of the market for any product you’d care to imagine, and therefore they take up a large portion of manufacturer sales. This means they have most of the bargaining power, making manufacturers very inclined to agree to whatever price they set. 

This price lowering makes it very hard for independent merchants who sell through Amazon. Because of their small scale, their products tend to be more expensive, which puts them at a disadvantage. And if that didn’t make it hard enough, the system is actively working against them, prioritizing Amazon’s goods over those of smaller sellers so that the first click of a search will always belong to the larger company. It’s as if you were in a soccer match with two players on your team, playing against a team of 52, who are also the referees, and any time you do score a point, the other team can change the rules to make it harder for you the next time. 

Then comes the taxes. According to recent statistics, amazon makes about 514 billion U.S. dollars annually. By all rights, they should be paying a huge amount of federal income taxes for that. But thanks to some legal loopholes and huge tax breaks awarded by city governments in return for building factories near them, they pay much, much less than they owe. 

And if you think the tax breaks are questionable, our school -a government facility- feeds money into Amazon. The company is one of the few authorized vendors that our school departments are allowed to buy supplies from, meaning that our school system has become wired to feed money into the company, as the process of becoming a supply provider is not an easy one. 

Not only does Amazon’s tax payment raise some questions, but so does what they’re paying their workers, which ties into our second question: How can they get things to our doorstep so fast?

Amazon is no stranger to employee complaints, and stories of investigations and worker strikes are never far from the papers, but despite the outcry for safer working conditions, amazon persists. Their warehouses are filled with stories of backbreaking work paces, nervous breakdowns, and inadequate medical help. Still, it doesn’t stop the company from treating people like machines, despite the obvious safety problems. Workers have even reported Amazon’s medical staff pressuring employees to ignore serious injuries and get back to work. The company has also been convicted of trying to stop unionization by threatening to withhold extra pay or benefits to those who join unions, an action illegal under U.S. law. 

This whole thing already feels like something out of _______, but even more so with the answer to our last question: how does Amazon know what I’m going to buy?

If you read my first paragraph, you probably already know where I’m going with this. We are much more connected to Amazon than we now, from our Prime accounts, to our Alexa’s, to our morning walk to school, captured on the hundreds of Ring cameras dotted around our neighborhood

It’s been revealed time and time again that smart speakers collect and store your data, every order you’ve given that black cylinder has been cataloged and used to make predictions. These predictions are then sent to the rest of Amazon, and used throughout your account to feed more of your money into the machine, fueling targeted ads and recommendations of items and services that you’ll be most likely to buy. 

And as more and more cameras dot our streets, so do the questions about who should get to use the footage, you’ve probably heard about the possibility of the police being able to track suspects through ring footage, but if they are allowed to do this, what does it mean for the rest of the data that amazon has collected, will they be allowed to hand out access to the recordings from inside our homes as well?

This can all seem scary, especially when we look at Amazon’s power worldwide, but even a company as big as this isn’t immune to the law. In the past year or so, more and more lawsuits have been brought to the company, citing anti-trust laws and the U.S.’s monopoly policies, some of which have a history that dates back to the Gilded Age.

In this capitalist-driven world, it can be hard not to look at Amazon as a god, with its massive reach and resources. But even people as disgustingly rich as the heads of this company are, they are not immune to the law, or the power of the public. And much like most organized religions, Amazon only has as much power as we give them