Some European countries, including UK, have enough of a strong network of local supermarkets and department stores that Amazon is simply not necessary. I have not used Amazon in the last five years. Most of my family and friends rarely use it either.
There is little reason to when you can walk into a supermarket or department store, often with three or five of them within 1000 feet, and buy what you need at the normal marked price. If you cannot go there yourself, most of them offer home delivery anyway. You also know who you are buying from, you do not have to worry about questionable third-party sellers, and if there is a problem you can telephone a human being or simply walk back into the shop. What is not to like?
But yeah, not every city or country is lucky enough to have such a strong retail network. Amazon makes sense in many parts of the world. But I also think its success in those places is a sad indicator of weak local infra and underinvestment in local retail.
The world would probably be an economically healthier place if every town and region could support a strong network of supermarkets, department stores, and indie shops. It keeps more money circulating locally, supports more local jobs and improves local economy instead of funnelling all the money through one gigantic company.
> The world would probably be a healthier place economically if every town and region could support a strong network of supermarkets, department stores and independent shops.
I don't know what you mean by that. I used to live in a tier 2 European city pre Internet and there were lots of things that were a pain to buy. We'd often have to check multiple stores. Specialty hobbies were served by one or two shops that you had to drive to. I remember having to take the train to a different city to buy a memory card for my computer. There was real consumer cost and societal cost.
The warehouse and online order model is economically a lot more efficient. The real question is what to do with the surplus it generates, make Bezos richer or something else?
Only a magically perfect network would do that. There's no force to "correct" food deserts.
OTOH, Amazon grocery delivery in cities does do a LOT toward reducing their impact on poor people (who are not-poor enough to pay for Amazon delivery) (which might be cheaper than bus tickets). Hate on Amazon and Bezos all you want; some good comes out of it.
In the UK, most people simply get Bupa dental insurance. A basic plan costs like 25 pounds per month. Affordable I'd say. Many people spend more than that on beer and public transport.
I know that does not help someone who has become homeless or lost their job and cannot afford the 25 pounds a month (300 pounds a year). That is why I say it is important for people who are employed to get a Bupa insurance plan. Most people do that anyway. This reduces the burden on the NHS Dental and help provide free dental treatment for people who genuinely need it.
For non-dental medical issues, I think the NHS is pretty good. When I lived in UK, I always got same-day appointments for routine check-ups and same-week appointments for more complex investigations.
Whilst I understand that reasoning, I disagree with it. Private insurance should not be necessary to begin with, and if it must exist for whatever rational reason, the insurance should be public as well. Anything that has to do with healthcare (not talking about optional cosmetic surgery, of course) should be handled by / via public healthcare services.
Furthermore, I would say that it's wrong to look at the situation in terms of "reducing the burden on the NHS Dental", since that is literally what's there for. If people don't opt for cosmetic surgery, then it's a healthcare issue and we created this institution/branch for this very purpose. Otherwise we can easily end up speaking in terms of how much of a burden being alive is, and how eating (regular) food and drinking water are poor economic decisions, a topsy-turvy way of looking at the very reason to have an 'economy'.
"In the UK, most people simply get Bupa dental insurance."
Respectfully that is completely wrong, do you even live here? Nobody wants to pay for private healthcare here (takeup is ~10%) and people don't care about teeth as much as they probably should.
> I am able to see my PCP and dentist within a week if I want. I read a statistic that in Europe and Canada you have to make those kinds of routine appointments months in advance.
Can you share a reference for that statistics?
FWIW, I live in Europe and I always got dentist appointments within a week. For a severe issue (pain involved), I got appointment on the same day.
> It’s like calling surgeons extortionists for having the gall to charge for treating you. Yes, ideally that should be free and available to all
What do you mean by "should be"? Surgery is free and available to everyone. So why would one accuse surgeons of being extortionists? So I am not sure how the surgeon comparison works. That example supports the parent commenter's point that these extensions should be free.
Of course, there is still the practical question of who will do the work and how they will make a living. We can do what we do for surgeons. Maybe have a nonprofit consortium that people fund, so that it can support the extension developers. Yes, people would be spending money either way, but at least that money would be going toward a larger cause. Just like we pay taxes so the government can fund surgeons, who can then treat people.
I meant “would be”. Not that I think it makes that much difference here.
> Surgery is free and available to everyone.
That’s definitely not true worldwide. I think if you stop for a minute you can come up with at least one country. And even in those where it is free in public hospitals, it’s not uncommon for some to have a waitlist of years to the point you can die before it even happens. Also, did you know there are places where they don’t even have hospitals, let alone surgeons? The world is a big place, lots of disparity.
> So why would one accuse surgeons of being extortionists?
Even given all that, I think if you engage with the argument in good faith and steel man it instead of nitpicking, you’ll understand the point and can come up with your own example to satisfy you. Just pick a job you can’t do and have to pay for someone to fix something which wasn’t your fault or the fault of the other person. I believe you’re a smart person and could surely come up with something with little effort.
> there is still the practical question of who will do the work and how they will make a living.
That’s… The point. Especially for programmers, how many of us would do this shit for free, full time and beyond, for the sole purpose of benefiting others, if we had the opportunity to because we didn’t have to worry about basic needs? A large number. Way less than the number of programmers in the world right now, and that’s a good thing.
> Maybe have a nonprofit consortium that people fund
Fantastic idea. Are you doing it? Can you? Do you know where to start? And if you can’t, is that your fault? Should you be blamed for it? Are you an extortionist? Do you have gall for not doing it?
All fair points. Sorry, I spend a lot of time on regional forums, and I had a brain malfunction and forgot that when I write on HN, I am writing on a worldwide forum. Sorry for the unnecessary nitpicking.
Re non profit, I do donate to a few nonprofits I like, like those working on fediverse and my favorite langs. But I don't know of anything that does this for extensions. I'd have definitely voted with money if something was there. So, yeah, no, I am not doing anything to start a nonprofit for extensions. You have a good point.
> I do donate to a few nonprofits I like, like those working on fediverse and my favorite langs.
You already do more than most, and I commend you for it.
> So, yeah, no, I am not doing anything to start a nonprofit for extensions. You have a good point.
To clarify, the idea here was in no way to put you on the spot. Rather, what I’m saying is that none of us are doing so and that it’s not really fair to blame anyone for it. Most people don’t know how or don’t have the skills or inclination, and that’s understandable.
I don't know if there is another industry that behaves this childishly. There might be. But good grief, how much more juvenile can ours possibly get? AI-generated images with obviously nonsensical text is something I never thought I'd see in professional meetings. But it is becoming more and more common.
I am sure I am not alone in observing that starting around 2020... may be even a few years earlier... Google seemed to hire a lot of middle managers. I personally knew several managers who did not seem to contribute much beyond "organizing" meetings, and I saw them all join Google one by one.
It made me think... what happened to Google's famous hiring standards? What happened to Google's engineering-heavy structure? Google is now filled with middle managers whose only previous experience has been "being scrum masters". Right then I knew that these ineffective managers I saw joining Google were not only the symptoms of Google's decline but would also become one of the causes of speeding up the decline.
How could they let this happen? What happened to all their gatekeeping... "we are okay with false negatives in hiring but we'll NOT have false positives"? Current Google hiring is all about hiring loads of true negatives.
I think I saw a similar fall in hiring standards for engineering roles too but I will leave it to someone with more data to confirm me or refute me.
I mean no disrespect. This is more of a rant at how things are today. It is telling that over-complicated solutions have become so common that, for the current generation of devs, Kubernetes is the obvious way of doing stuff and a simple systemd service is the obscure one. I am sure there are good reasons for this, but it still feels like a loss when simplicity is no longer obvious.
Congratulations on derailing what was otherwise such a nice thread. Well done.
Not everyone in this world is always on edge like you. It is OK to be cheesy sometimes. Humor exists for a reason. Not every unconventional interaction is creepy. Get over yourself, please.
Using a throwaway with 37 karma to come in and act like the HN police and pretending you know me? My friend, it appears it is you who needs to get over yourself.
There is little reason to when you can walk into a supermarket or department store, often with three or five of them within 1000 feet, and buy what you need at the normal marked price. If you cannot go there yourself, most of them offer home delivery anyway. You also know who you are buying from, you do not have to worry about questionable third-party sellers, and if there is a problem you can telephone a human being or simply walk back into the shop. What is not to like?
But yeah, not every city or country is lucky enough to have such a strong retail network. Amazon makes sense in many parts of the world. But I also think its success in those places is a sad indicator of weak local infra and underinvestment in local retail.
The world would probably be an economically healthier place if every town and region could support a strong network of supermarkets, department stores, and indie shops. It keeps more money circulating locally, supports more local jobs and improves local economy instead of funnelling all the money through one gigantic company.