Amazon pays $20/hour because most people don't have the mental constitution to put up with it. It's pretty dull.

When I was hired as a part-timer (no interview!) at a warehouse there were about a dozen of us. In a month maybe four were left. It wasn't terribly physically difficult, though I was fairly sore. But there was nothing good about the work.

It was just repetitive, isolated tasks where you have to consciously decide not to meet the unrealistic standard, or just blindly follow the orders on the device, or guess how fast to work to avoid a strain injury while not being obviously slow.

To give some examples, we'd take bags (totes) from specific locations as indicated on our device, pack them on a large push-cart, and shuttle them halfway across the warehouse. Or we'd pick packages for a specific location off a conveyer belt (which usually moved too fast). Or we'd spend 5+ hours, alone, unfolding bags and putting them back onto the shelves.

There's probably some analogy to be made with software development here, based on what I've heard, but I'm only a CS student.

> I think Amazon is the best online shopping experience on the planet.

Be careful there. I use Allegro in Poland, where next-day is the rule, their website doesn't scream it was made in the late '00s (in the worst meaning of this comparison), and, as a bonus, they don't compete with their own merchants and even happen to pay their taxes here fairly. I'm sure there's plenty more of such websites across the 'planet'.

You’ll have a distinctly different experience buying clothes on there. 95% of the items don’t fit as described, the fabrics are not as pictured. My wife has a whole box of clothing returns she has to do for some shopping she did before a trip. Almost none of it was as-advertised. And Amazon will “lose” at least two or three items and claw back the refund a few times like they have every year, necessitating she call once a month for 3 or 4 months until she gets someone empowered to fix the problem permanently.

Sadly it’s still a better experience for her than shopping in-person because at least 5% of the items do fit versus nothing in-store. You used to be able to alter that stuff but the cheapness of the fabric and the intricacy of the “on-trend” design makes that impossible these days.

> I think Amazon is the best online shopping experience on the planet.

Does the best online shopping experience on the planet normally include routinely shortchanging customers on their refunds for close to $1bn?

https://finance.yahoo.com/personal-finance/banking/article/d...

Really Lowes and Home Depot have been doing better imo for anything they have. Their website actually has filters and decent search and most stuff is free next day delivery. On top of that, the Chinese knockoffs are fairly minimal or at least more established knock-off brands.

On top of that, that's without a $150/yr subscription.

Costco and Chewy are also pretty good.

> the minimum pay at Amazon is $20

The same way Uber Eats pay is 22$ an hour, and yet most people working either of these gigs need food stamps to live?

> Kitchen scale, $20 bucks

The problem is thats it is a 2 dollar product that could be sold and fulfilled by some other seller for 10 but you cant do that because Amazon's pricing scheme.

Shop around and you are likely see the same product with a different "name" on it for 1/2 the price.