Take a photo of a barcode or cover
143 reviews for:
Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America
Alec MacGillis, Stefan Alexander MacGillis
3.9 AVERAGE
143 reviews for:
Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America
Alec MacGillis, Stefan Alexander MacGillis
3.9 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
Fulfillment, Alec MacGillis’ magnificent new book, isn’t a biography of Amazon. It’s the story of recent American history, told through the lens of the country’s most influential and consequential corporation. When we think of inequality, we think of people — but as MacGillis writes, inequality is particularly acute between America’s cities. The growth of Amazon turned sleepy Seattle into one of the most expensive cities in the country, pricing out Black and working class residents; while Baltimore’s decline neatly tracks with the rise of America’s digital, globalized economy. Workers who once held solid, middle-class jobs in factories now toil for $15 in Amazon warehouses, where they have to piss in the corner in order to avoid a fine for overlong bathroom breaks. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, saw his net worth explode by tens of billions during the ruinous plague year.
MacGillis, one of America’s best journalists, is perfectly positioned to tell this story. His familiarity with forgotten people in forgotten places, described with enormous empathy and compassion, set him apart from correspondents who regard their compatriots with anthropological, detached curiosity. Through Amazon, America has gained the ability to order anything, anywhere, in 24 hours. But it has lost so much more.
MacGillis, one of America’s best journalists, is perfectly positioned to tell this story. His familiarity with forgotten people in forgotten places, described with enormous empathy and compassion, set him apart from correspondents who regard their compatriots with anthropological, detached curiosity. Through Amazon, America has gained the ability to order anything, anywhere, in 24 hours. But it has lost so much more.
informative
slow-paced
Wow I loved this, this is one of the books that will shape my world view going forward. I will say though 95% of people will find it very boring, but I was really interested. I do feel like the author could have gone in a little less specific detail for some of the case studies, and made the book a little shorter. Its one of the best explorations of wealth disparities in modern America that I have read, and also it clocked the 2024 election even though it was written in 2021
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
There was definitely a major eye-opener of a read. Although MacGillis only meant to use Amazon as the prime (no pun intended) example of how wealth and power is becoming increasingly concentrated in just a few major corporations in just a few corners of the United States, it was still shocking to see so many examples of how Amazon specifically is helping to accelerate the fast-growing divide, including but not at all limited to:
- The myriad of ways it minimizes its own tax bill everywhere it operates and robs communities of funds
- Its documented practices of encouraging small businesses to sell through Amazon at the cost of a cut for the company, monitoring what products from said businesses sell best and using that information to sell their own Amazon brands for lower costs
- How it even helps calcify class and regional divides with the way it intentionally locates it clusters of white collar workers, its data centers, and warehouses
I have seen criticism in other reviews of how MacGillis focuses a lot of the book on anecdotes from various individuals around the country. However, I genuinely appreciated the way that it helped put an array of faces on the trends that he described. I honestly think that I ended up identifying with more than a few as a resident of a part of the northeast that's definitely missing out on the wealth being increasingly concentrated in nearby cities like New York and Boston.
This is a strong recommend from me - though prepared to be a bit unsettled. And at the very least, prepare to spend at least a little bit of time reflecting on the most recent purchases made through your Prime account (or in my case, reevaluating the amount of time spend glued to my Kindle).
- The myriad of ways it minimizes its own tax bill everywhere it operates and robs communities of funds
- Its documented practices of encouraging small businesses to sell through Amazon at the cost of a cut for the company, monitoring what products from said businesses sell best and using that information to sell their own Amazon brands for lower costs
- How it even helps calcify class and regional divides with the way it intentionally locates it clusters of white collar workers, its data centers, and warehouses
I have seen criticism in other reviews of how MacGillis focuses a lot of the book on anecdotes from various individuals around the country. However, I genuinely appreciated the way that it helped put an array of faces on the trends that he described. I honestly think that I ended up identifying with more than a few as a resident of a part of the northeast that's definitely missing out on the wealth being increasingly concentrated in nearby cities like New York and Boston.
This is a strong recommend from me - though prepared to be a bit unsettled. And at the very least, prepare to spend at least a little bit of time reflecting on the most recent purchases made through your Prime account (or in my case, reevaluating the amount of time spend glued to my Kindle).
I admit that, through my own fault, I went into this book expecting it to be the type of salacious exposé on the working conditions in Amazon fulfillment centers, for which Nomadland has whet my appetite…& it wasn’t that. While very well-researched, I found it a bit all over the place—jumping from the VERY detailed rise & fall of an eastern steel town & the very personal story of a small-time office supply business owner to the housing booming in Seattle & the rise of the Washington lobby machine—with little connective tissue. That said, the individual vignettes were all interesting, even without a big a-ha moment.
Changed my whole outlook on the city I live in and the region I came from. Open your eyes, sheeple!! Ironic that I’m writing this review on a website Amazon controls.
The book could be hard to follow at times, but it gives a great overview of the rise of Amazon and the myriad impacts it has had on American society, told through several characters' life anecdotes. I feel as though I have a new perspective on the unstable coalition that is the Democratic party and the way that Amazon's history reflects this political realignment of the parties.
Essential reading for anyone with a concern for/love of America’s cities (or for anyone looking to justify their rage against Amazon).
This book has a lot of good moments in it, but is quite disorganized and disjointed, making it hard to follow. At times, I forgot what I was reading about, even if I overall found it quite interesting.