How Amazon Reshapes Small Business to Serve Itself w/ Moira Weigel

Paris Marx is joined by Moira Weigel to discuss the third-party sellers who supply many of the goods sold through Amazon, how the company’s policy decisions reshape small businesses to act like mini-Amazons, and what that means for regulatory responses.

Moira Weigel is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University, a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law School, and a founding editor of Logic Magazine. Her most recent book is Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk about What They Do--And How They Do It, co-edited with Ben Tarnoff. Follow Moira on Twitter at @moiragweigel.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Moira recently wrote a report for Data & Society • looking into Amazon’s “trickle-down monopoly,” and previously worked with Ava Kofman and Francis Tseng on research into white nationalist publishing on Amazon • . • Aiha Nguyen and Eve Zelickson wrote a report • on how Ring doorbells are used to surveil delivery workers. • Logic Magazine published an interview with an anonymous AWS engineer • . • In March 2020, an Amazon seller bought 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer • and tried to price gouge. • Marketplace Pulse found that Amazon fees for sellers now account for 51.8% of an average sale • , rising from 35.2% in 2016. • Amazon is now the third-largest digital advertising company • after Google and Facebook. • In January, John Herman wrote • about the state of Amazon that touched on some of the Chinese brands. • Amazon has been scaling back its private label business • , in part due to regulatory fears. • Books mentioned: Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy: Amazon and the Power of Organization • by Sarrah Kassem, Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China's Countryside • by Xiaowei Wang, and The Labor of Reinvention: Entrepreneurship in the New Chinese Digital Economy • by Lin Zhang.

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