How to Resist Amazon and Why, Part 2 - Encore; Unknown

november twenty seven is small business saturday so today i'm kbr present we're revisiting my recent conversation with danny cain he's the author of how to resist amazon and why the fight for local economies data privacy fair labor independent bookstores and a people powered future he is also the owner of the raven bookstore in downtown lawrence in interest of full disclosure the raven bookstore is like a pr underwriter our conversation originally aired on k pr presents on march twenty first twenty twenty one they made you talk about one of my favorite local authors bring greenwood she wrote the reckless both we made and all the ugly and wonderful things you talk about the role of a bookstore like the ravens supporting and encouraging writers like brand yeah well we can i think every book store if they're doing it right as if a small stable of authors that they have a close relationship with these are often local authors brand is certainly one of our eyes

or serious meyer says another arthur we work with really closely i'm natalie parker it's a cigarette and sarah palin we've got offers you part with all the time off for signed copies in two events visitors can have a playbook for how to how to build the solicitor had a team up with a local authors and i think brain is a great example of that i am and so we just in that in the book i tell the story of from hearing about the project planning for the release party to the release party itself and brands book was pretty without visas for the requisite live aid on which has in a complicated way as the night as the main character i am and so we had a brand and found a couple people who do i assassin for society of creative anachronism i think it is very they are recreational swords letters that president obama and then have historically accurate sword fight and so we have a large party at the public library and then we adjourned to the call are guard where we had a sword fighting

demonstrations by day two guys in full suit of armor on which is a really fine and just to really kind of creative way to celebrate this local authors work but i will say the brain in particular and others like karen says is to consider the midwest author and they're published by a big publishing house one of the big five new york publishing houses but they don't have this glass sea production the spicy pub publicity but it's like someone like michelle obama is a realist arthur i'm so that a diet they knew they rely a lot on bookstore sales and n word of mouth and then touring a man and their own social media outreach i'm an end when it egg vendor when a company like amazon is the dominant force in the end the book marketplace they'd list other thing is out it's much harder to build a career as an atlas author time when a company like amazon is pushing all focused towards the bestselling

books that sell millions happens when there is not a robust network of indie bookstores who are reading books and hand selling books and hosting small authored two words rhyme it makes it much harder for an author labor agree with urban nablus office to have a career and i think that's a bad i think i'm narrowing of of books to only the most popular item is not great for the intellectually creative life of the country i'm getting the danny kane he's the author of how to resist amazon and why he's also the owner of the ravens bookstore in downtown lawrence could i get you to read from interludes seven from your book how to resist amazon and why sir so i'm on the lights is so little of the non economic and miserable stuff that had state of amazon's dominance means more small businesses go away the super high stakes of course but people would miss it that he was gone a lot of amazon's impact is economic but

not all of it a customer this afternoon collar family was buying a book for a second time because she had wanted to a friend emily wasn't series he was going to get the boat back to see love that so much as he had to make sure she had a tab and i was alone this one out and come see you again she said it checked out emily then told me a story about a friend recommending a book analyst friend said that the book had been passed from friends of friends of friends and now was coming family because her friend loved it so much upon opening a family realize that it was in fact her but that she allowed out the ages ago it bounced from person to person and finally was cutting back on as people buy travel guides we sometimes ask them about their upcoming trips the more far flung about are we so out of rick steves london but just today we saw the folding paper map of panama to copy of lonely planet egypt today mary told me someplace another review in any netflix says worked here for just over a year i think it's the fifth in the next list review

customers were so excited about the fancy are put this disorder that they taken out of this regret right there and open up an account and solace when i make an office putting orders together and i can hear cris in the key to crack each other up as they unpack boxes when i began selling an eye out for a customer for choices for honestly just hit so at all when a customer buys my book and doesn't realize that by the author and really of the transaction they've faced they make when i ask about the science now i open this up cat gets in a lab cinema and the weather gets called it says its records in the fiction and nonfiction rooms and stares of incoming customers often emitting tiny now she then turns around and walks toward the catch someone follows her and sits on the council isn't a jump on their lap and stay there until forced to move i walked into nonfiction countless times to see a customer have we chat some people get real it that says this is fine that kennedy didn't this thing in ten minutes and no one outside

his precious and your way to get at some of this to stand out because of a journalist her off their letter no matter how purring and docile see scenes they will get bitten when grandparents bring small kids to the store in say yes to every can i have his book when you have the saturday opening system the store is quiet and the cats are leading in some ice lance and through the windows a sunny seven a morning is the best time to work in a bookstore when i was still part of time at the raven and i had the saturday morning shift i used to daydream about owning the story when someone comes in knowing exactly what they want and they find that when someone comes in not knowing what they want and they find it with someone comes in and adds right to poetry and stays there for an hour with some eyebrows is so happily for so long you forget they were even in here to begin with unbeknownst to each other to people are reading the wheel of time series of the same time in both states order book in advance of a pick one up an order the next one right there like someone really strategizing about lobsters and the stress they were neck and that for a while but now rob is pulling ahead first time i wasn't thinking about fifteen or something people the sonogram of his

wealth to sell me a beaming with pride when chris sees the parking meter prison khamenei else for me give me just enough time to grab quarters and as of the door the moment ten minutes before him and starts when you realize you're the marchers people who sought office after itself oh a man drove all the way from oklahoma city this year to the slaughter of an anthem to be the library stewards he said that said i got slaughtered i wasn't there for her visit to the store but micky i told me about it later when i came to think of the books that i saw the slaughter superfan at the man sitting in the front row forty five minutes early i walked up to her and said are you from oklahoma city and she said how did you know when a point of sales system crashes the displays of mourning cannot redefined this there may be two weeks a year when the weather is right for keeping the door open any given day when the doors opened the cancer on interested in running outside for a total about twenty minutes those minutes standing alice chose stopping by after once they always tell us where they went to once these days sometimes stanfield late

staying in a car but he always waits once and stare and house joe cannon afterlives free state brewing company and they bought they bought a painting of the raven that a local artist had made it because of the letter signed with the red subaru part of her sitting on a bench somehow as a man wearing a very light at that painting ilya kaminski came to town recently to read his amazing poaching today after the reading it can take a year to visit my dad's class and i drove into topeka for his afternoon events it was that judge cited by me once i already gave it a clear and ten minutes later he said it so i can buy something to eat the us a contested me how he could help restore he would believe me when i told him the only head that's danny kane reading from how to resists amazon and why the fight for local economies data privacy fair labor independent bookstores and a people powered future is also the owner of the ravens bookstore in downtown lawrence think so far

we've really been focused on that books and amazon's effect on the booksellers but as you point out over and over again in your book amazon is way more than just books yeah one of the ideas i write about in the book is the idea that people are actually amazon products the customer is amazon's products and i think that's a really outgoing and and i'll explain why amazon is most interested in retaining its customers and then pulling data from that may have this concept called a flywheel where a customer will make a purchase on amazon or get roped in to amazon system and you'll start an account in your buyer prime subscription you'll start streaming stuff and then you're bad things like a ring doorbell or an attack on all of a sudden you're really really deeply ingrained in amazon's systems and the more assistance they have the more data they can collect a new more data they can collect more easily they can sell more stuff to you when you're stuck in this fly wheel and that's not something i made up that something that amazon actually

talks about it sounds like from a dystopian novel but that's actually how amazon thinks of it as the flywheel that their nose they want to talk about customer obsession meaning not that they're obsessed with customers but they want their customers to be obsessed with that and so one of the ways they're doing this again becoming more and more a part of people's lives has these views echo speakers is alexis that people pay to put in their houses an inmate and they collect all kinds of data about what you say to them and that data never really goes away and an amazon is he's notoriously sketchy about what they do with their data i mean it's all kind of included in the terms and conditions it just hadn't clicked yes a cat read this even though you'd been people don't really sit down and read it but even then i mean there have been cases of then lying about what they do with their data and they like the promise that like a promising that no human has ever listening to what they're saying in your house that's not the case and i write about a couple cases in the book where they get slippery and an actual people are listening to what's

going on in your house through the alexa and then another issue with amazon a privacy a big one is that these rain doorbells and and rainy the company which is owned by a lonesome amazon subsidiary is really actively pursuing video sharing agreements with police departments were making it very easy for people to send video of and from there they're doorbells to police departments then and thats thats just to me that that really sets off alarm bells about someone from the safety of their own home sees someone on airports setting that person's image to a police department without their permission and raises all sorts of issues about privacy and even civil rights and they lived a very scary part is that another part of amazon's portfolios facial recognition and i think it's really scary when you think about combining something like a ring doorbell with facial recognition technology and in some amazon executives and even that can have made hits of their interest in doing the sunday as facial recognition has a really bad track record

about race ryan and much of the facial recognition technology including amazon's just gotten recognition with a k it is less accurate firm that makes mistakes when with darker skin i n you'd you combine that with heavy involvement of the police department with people from their own homes sending video to the police department without the consent of the people being filmed that's just a minefield of risky stuff in terms of privacy in and i don't think people really realize that all this is going on when they met sense of informally of the house it would do any keen he's the other of how to resist amazon and why in another part of the whole amazon equation and that's how they're not just affecting the bookstore industry but how they've affected the shipping industry and even the us post office yeah so the idea with amazon prime is that almost everything you buy comes free two day shipping of course it's not quite free because you're paying

a prime subscription i am and i would also argue that it's not free because having a house in a free shipping makes him buy more stuff the easier it gets the more money and spending that's exactly have the us trying to do but that those shipping logistics it's basically a promising that the american shipping logistics system well all this and move basically forces that as visitor heads that's remarkable speed and skill is think about how big the country is just how physically big this country is plus how many goods go through amazon's orders insistence per day that's just an amazingly huge sipping apparition and amazon is though that a couple ways they play real hardball but with with you the us and the usps another sibling companies so that's kind of quit playing along and said isis the work that much of them that anymore

because they were tired of being pushed around so and another way that amazon seller that is by creating this their own basically their own usps you see these prime that's trying that and all over the place and that's like everything else with amazon is dangerous and extremely loosely regulated it very difficult to work for it and a lot of these the people down in those vans amazon considers third party contractors even though they wear amazon hats and dr amazon danced they're not technically amazon employees which means a couple things why an amazon and they promised to pay everybody fifteen dollars an hour is all entirely my amazon employees and that doesn't include third party can track is that the people would rather than that also lets amazon wash their hands of any liability of anything happens to those drivers and because of those driver and so amazon i mean if someone is killed by one of amazon delivery vans which has happened before amazon is like that's on amazon employees are banned there a third party contractor on but those they're not they're not really third party contractor is because these are companies that are set

up only to deliver amazon products so it's true so this is really sketchy loophole that let them go away with the starting driver safety with stirring unions i mean the ut austin usps of both unionized but that these amazon third party countered with impossible unionized is there a hundred tiny different there's a thousand tiny different companies as a lesson can get away with stuff they wouldn't if they relied solely on bp's a usps literary else like people who can't manage to build their own shipping infrastructure from the ground up and then worst of all because the usps is legally mandated to serve all the addresses that amazon doesn't feel like delivering to a certain place because it's too far out or too expensive then they just dump that stuff into the hands of the usps out which creates a headache for the postal service of all this volume and so if it's a big mess and there are hidden costs of their sentences to interview danny kane he's the author of how to resist amazon and why do

you need couldn't resist but not how to play cat when he pulled back from that article that for two reasons one we are to talk about with amazon web services and on amazon's fingerprints and so many different things boycott is is truly difficult and number two i it raises the framing this work is entirely up to consumer choice i think amazon would instead encourage it to be thought of as a consumer choice because they're confident that a lot of consumers would take them and a real solution to the amazon problematic is legislative id is there some policy it's up to government set aside that their companies like this to get away with this so i don't want to make it seem like the way to do it it's really not up to individual consumers take to curb the power of amazon if you want to make an ethical choice to not support a company that stands for the stuff that's great app that i've made that choice they also that source lot will mean a

tremendous benefit to the local businesses where you are and while you not viable from amazon might ahmed to the vast amazon will make a huge difference to the book store in the town and that school was a good things but i don't think that's a solution and i think that this question of individual choice is a red herring it's like that and the fluorescent light bulbs that we're not going to solve the global warming by time by people choosing to put their thumb eyeballs in their home i'm that's they will lighten government dancing corporations abdicated responsibility for these giant problems and so in many ways this is the legislative framework for other government to resist amazon i mean i think it's really important not to say that danny you that not a lot of publicity with your but how to resist amazon and why and in fact just this past week it had a really great right up in the new yorker you surprised by the

reception that this is received a little i think i'm pleasantly surprised i do think where were turning a corner and in public opinion i think there's a lot of kind of moments and both in terms of the campaign for hearts and minds and the legislative campaign it is well so perhaps it makes sense that that it's making a splash on but it is a little surprising because again like i said this is stuff we've been talking about for years if not decades the importance of small businesses in some ways we've just been a really fine continuing to be arraigned on but i do think more people are talking about it and i think that the pandemic in many ways irene and allied musicians i think there are more and more good writing is coming out about that the danger isn't the effects of amazon and i think there is some legislative momentum i'm the house judiciary subcommittee on antitrust is doing amazing work that would lead in sicily i am the head of the blockbuster hearing with all four big tech ceo's last year they

issued a landmark report that's that's a wonderful legislative blueprint and then based on some appointments from the biden administration and some kind of policy momentum we might actually see some action on this which is great and five years ago would've seemed impossible so yeah i played sigrid i think it's a question of timing it's the book is coming out at a time when a lot of people are talking about this i'm having the day any kane he's the owner of the ravens the store and author of how to resist amazon and why did you go back to the very beginning of your book you start out in october two thousand it with a letter to jeff bezos know i'd never heard anything back now now i have in the people all the people i've been asked a couple times if i'm worried about some sort of retaliation from amazon and buy it i would assure everyone that this is a well researched book eyesight all my sources i had tried very very hard to stick to facts and hopefully yes

the sinai and i making any unfair accusations in the book that knowledge that i've never heard from amazon and isi expect to buy the offer still stands to sell them around lawrence in and so i'm a little bit about that sound that values and revolves around a small businesses danny kaye knows he's the author of how to resist amazon and why the fight for local economies data privacy fear labor independent bookstores and a people powered future danny thank you so much for the thing with us today they certainly it's a pleasure to be back following my conversation with danny came i reached out to amazon headquarters this was their response amazon does not engage in predatory pricing or subsidize the book business with revenue from any other business we operate amazon has had a long standing commitment to privacy and data security and over the past two decades we've built into your services various ways for customers to

manage and access their data our practices are aligned with the principles of the california consumer privacy act such as transparency access to customer information and not selling our customers' data safety is a top priority at amazon we require all products offered in our store to comply with applicable laws and regulations and i've developed industry leading tools to prevent unsafe or non compliant products from being listed at our stores and this from a brain spokesperson rain doesn't it is facial recognition technology in any of its devices or services and will neither snow nor offer facial recognition technology to law enforcement again there was a response from an amazon spokesperson to my inquiry about dan eakins book how to resist amazon and why i'm kenny macintyre kbr prisons is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas katie

our prisons is your place to hear conversations with kansas and regional offers and for the k pr present book club if you missed our recent discussion about the k u common both reading sweet grass by robin walk him or it's now available on demand a kansas public radio dot org our selection for january escape your present book club is the perfume feet by nebraska author timothy staffer find out more at kansas public radio dot org or on the akp our percents book club facebook pages