I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

@gleick
Sorry, as an European he never was a good guy.

Amazon was convenient and still is, for buying foreign language books, but convenience does not make it ethical.

And me personal I was always sceptical of concentration benefits. As these bluntly lead to monopoly and that leads to extortion games to the disadvantage of the consumers, that's a given natural law, like apples fall from trees downwards.

@gleick I only remember Amazon destroying physical book stores, paying employees so little they need food stamps, and working them so hard that they had to pee in a bottle rather than take a toilet break.

I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

Now he will always be remembered as the toady who paid tens of millions in tribute to the Trumps while ruthlessly destroying one of history's great newspapers.

I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

Now he will always be remembered as the toady who paid tens of millions in tribute to the Trumps while ruthlessly destroying one of history's great newspapers.

I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

Now he will always be remembered as the toady who paid tens of millions in tribute to the Trumps while ruthlessly destroying one of history's great newspapers.

I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

Now he will always be remembered as the toady who paid tens of millions in tribute to the Trumps while ruthlessly destroying one of history's great newspapers.

I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

Now he will always be remembered as the toady who paid tens of millions in tribute to the Trumps while ruthlessly destroying one of history's great newspapers.

@gleick @jf_718

I'll always remember him for what I first learned about him: (1) for campaigning against the closure of Borders and indie bookstores (destroying my favorite date night, gift-buying, and meeting places, leaving a vacuum for years that hasn't filled in) then (2) for a candid interview in which he described his dream for Amazon was to collect as much info on behavior as possible so he could provide the goods needed by the master class orbiting around a toxic Earth where only the enslaved working class remained.

It's ever since been stuck in my mind that he expects or expected to be alive to witness that dystopian future and that, if his words were quoted accurately, seemed to fill him with hope.

This is what people support with "just buy it on Amazon. It's easy." This is what Amazon's buyers money and browsing data were meant for.

I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

Now he will always be remembered as the toady who paid tens of millions in tribute to the Trumps while ruthlessly destroying one of history's great newspapers.

I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

Now he will always be remembered as the toady who paid tens of millions in tribute to the Trumps while ruthlessly destroying one of history's great newspapers.

I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

Now he will always be remembered as the toady who paid tens of millions in tribute to the Trumps while ruthlessly destroying one of history's great newspapers.

I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

Now he will always be remembered as the toady who paid tens of millions in tribute to the Trumps while ruthlessly destroying one of history's great newspapers.

@yacc143 I didn’t say he was. We all know what Amazon did and what it became. What I said was that—unlike you, apparently—I’m old enough to remember when that hadn’t happened yet. And didn’t have to happen.

@yacc143 @gleick indeed. the way germans learned about bezos was that it was his fault all small book stores had to close.

@yacc143 @gleick I even remember when they had great customer service! I naively thought that might persist.

@gleick
Sorry, as an European he never was a good guy.

Amazon was convenient and still is, for buying foreign language books, but convenience does not make it ethical.

And me personal I was always sceptical of concentration benefits. As these bluntly lead to monopoly and that leads to extortion games to the disadvantage of the consumers, that's a given natural law, like apples fall from trees downwards.

I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

Now he will always be remembered as the toady who paid tens of millions in tribute to the Trumps while ruthlessly destroying one of history's great newspapers.

@gleick

The Bill Gates reality-distortion field is a persistent one, his PR people are very good at what they do.

I keep getting warm fuzzies about him every now and again. He keeps recreating himself, like a rock-star re-styling.

Then a memory or new fact drops, and I remember he's a greedy, ruthless, devious, self-serving thug.

I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

Now he will always be remembered as the toady who paid tens of millions in tribute to the Trumps while ruthlessly destroying one of history's great newspapers.

I'm so old I remember when Jeff #Bezos seemed like sort of a good guy who chose books as the focus of his clever new internet store.

Now he will always be remembered as the toady who paid tens of millions in tribute to the Trumps while ruthlessly destroying one of history's great newspapers.