Snarky comments are often amusing and are always self-satisfying, but they degrade the conversation. (When I make comments like this on HN, they always get downvoted. I'm trying to do better.)
I agree with your statement, but I don't see how it applies here.
I did not consider the comment amusing. I do think putting the Bezos' ideas about high standards in the sobering context that Amazons provides for most of its workforce is right on point.
How is it even snarky? There are workers peeing in bottles, probably right now, as a direct result of Bezos' obsession with optimizing productivity metrics at all costs.
I agree that this comment is frivolous based on the assumption that reading HN comments is about gleaning knowledge from the community. I love a great contextual joke, but not in the wrong place.
If you hate Amazon's practices there is more reason to study them because of their success. Every successful company that's done a pereceived evil has also tapped into a market advantage that led them to their success.
If you hate Amazon learn why they succeed and build better. Dismissing everything they do well because of what they've done wrong leaves the advantage to everyone who sees nothing wrong in draconian business practices.
> I love a great contextual joke, but not in the wrong place.
The joke brings to light the quite real and currently newsworthy situation resulting from the attitude expressed above.
These are things that need to be talked about, here is the right place to talk about them, and humor is often an effective way to highlight hypocrisy and abuse.
I want to clarify why I characterized this comment as snarky. The comment implies that high standards at Amazon has created a corporate culture of employee abuse. This makes no sense -- high standards and employee abuse are orthogonal.
Employee abuse is morally wrong and almost certainly illegal. It needs to be exposed and challenged whenever it occurs. But be careful about taking stories published in Business Insider (or any similar online publication) at face value. Consider if this is a reputable source before repeating their claims.
