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A month after asking for support in their own walkout, Polygon are happily posting Prime Day deal articles with no mention of the strike
- Thread starter kradical
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I don't know what you're talking about. Context? Are they owned by Amazon and have beef with their parent company or something?
They went on strike for better labor conditions. Now Amazon workers are doing the same and they are undermining them.
Worker solidarity.
There's a thread on this very site about all the deals. People pretend to care about this type of stuff but as you can see......
OP
OP
The walkout isn't as publicized as some ones in the past but everyone should have known long ago that Polygon are bootlickers. They literally brought in far right dipshits to write "expert analysis" articles about why Cuba is keeping the poor gamers down.
If only it was Polygon. I've seen some Kotaku, GameSpot, NintendoLife, PC Gamer, and VG247 articles on my Feedly feed today. It's almost every publication, honestly.
Because Amazon workers are striking on Prime Day over conditions and pay. Strikes are most effective with solidarity.
That said, I'm not about to go shitting on writers for this. Even if they support the strike themselves, writers may be asked to post deals articles as part of their job, since their employer will get money from affiliate links. Maybe they don't have a choice?
And let's be honest, the employer/site/publication doesn't give one iota about the Amazon strike, or how it makes their writers look like hypocrites for striking a month earlier.
OP
OP
It's especially bad coming from Polygon given their recent history, but fuck them all.
What you need to understand is that gaming sites generally have a dedicated commerce section that is kept separate from editorial. Good press outlets keep a strong firewall between the people who write stuff and the people who make the company money, which is phenomenal, because it means people like me don't have to worry about who we're pissing off. But it also means that the same website will share items that might seem contradictory - like journalists favoring a boycott of the same company that their commerce people are promoting. Or like a giant banner ad promoting a game that the reviewers have slammed.
If you don't like it, well, convince the world to pay for news.
If you don't like it, well, convince the world to pay for news.
There's no way in hell these sites reliant on ad revenue are going to dump Prime Day coverage for the morality of it. Whether or not they ethically should is one question, but realistically speaking they won't do it.
I posted in the other thread a good deal that someone showed me because I do like helping people find cool stuff, but yes there also should not be a Prime Day thread on here either. And Era doesn't even have the same "keep the lights on" need for FOMO coverage that these other sites do, at least not nearly to the same degree. So it's even less appropriate here.
There are some bad guys that are too big to topple on a purely social activism level. I encourage anyone reading this thread to write to your federal representatives if you live in the U.S. and tell them that rampant, dehumanizing capitalism purely in the name of growing profits and fueling mass consumerism on the backs of unpaid and overworked laborers needs to end. Specifically: bring the regulatory hammer down on Amazon.
I posted in the other thread a good deal that someone showed me because I do like helping people find cool stuff, but yes there also should not be a Prime Day thread on here either. And Era doesn't even have the same "keep the lights on" need for FOMO coverage that these other sites do, at least not nearly to the same degree. So it's even less appropriate here.
There are some bad guys that are too big to topple on a purely social activism level. I encourage anyone reading this thread to write to your federal representatives if you live in the U.S. and tell them that rampant, dehumanizing capitalism purely in the name of growing profits and fueling mass consumerism on the backs of unpaid and overworked laborers needs to end. Specifically: bring the regulatory hammer down on Amazon.
But Jason, I thought everything on the Internet was for free.
User banned (1 day): Trolling, misrepresenting another user's argument.
"We will pay lip service to worker solidarity - right up until it costs us money."
"We will talk progressive but keep taking their ad money - we call it having our cake and eating it too."
OP
OP
Ah, I don't know how Polygon handles this stuff. I should clarify that I only know the inner workings of Kotaku, and we have a dedicated commerce section who will no doubt be posting Prime deals all day, no matter how Kotaku's journalists feel about it.Isn't Ben Kuchera part of the editorial team?
I read the article in question and I'm pretty sure it's a sponsored post, and probably wasn't even written by anyone on the editorial team.
I highly doubt the terms of any unionization would be a union board determining who can and cannot sponsor the site?
EDIT, I just saw the Ben Kuchera screenshot posted. The article I thought you were referring to was this one.
This feels like something that shouldn't be impossible to avoid. The commerce guys can still be out there making deals without stepping on all the toes of editorial.
Unless the logic is that editorial would then be barred from stepping on commerce's toes... which feels like it would an unnecessary equivalence.
Isn't Ben Kuchera part of the editorial team?
I mean I wouldn't hold Ben up as a shining example of journalistic integrity.
I'd say it's more morally grey than black-or-white. Affiliate links are one of the few sustainable sources of income websites have, and Prime Day is pretty much a guaranteed payday. It'd be nice if every department agreed and boycotted it, sure, but that'd also potentially jeopardize the salaries of the journalists and other workers. It's basically lose-lose, no matter how you look at it.
It's kinda all on where capitalism has ended up (or has always been, depending on your PoV) - it's hard for anyone to make money without screwing over someone else in the world.
But yeah Resetera probably shouldn't have a thread if we want to stand in solidarity, no one here needs to make their livelihood off of it.
It's kinda all on where capitalism has ended up (or has always been, depending on your PoV) - it's hard for anyone to make money without screwing over someone else in the world.
But yeah Resetera probably shouldn't have a thread if we want to stand in solidarity, no one here needs to make their livelihood off of it.
I don't think lashing out at websites for posting some affiliate links to help stay afloat given most of their readership blocks ads and calling them "scabs" is helpful at all; let's not indulge in this sort of rhetoric and absolutism.
Seems like pretty much the exact definition of a scab to me.
OP
OP
People need to stop looking at things in such a black and white way.
'Someone on Resetera is complaining about amazon, but Resetera promotes Prime deals!', as though the site is written by one person. You can be a customer of a business and still recognize some of their shitty aspects, though of course not giving them business is the best way to send a message. But I'd rather have consumers be aware of the bad side than get defensive every time they hear something bad about their favorite company. I know that Google does some terrible shit but if I wanted to boycott I'd have to quit my job.
'Someone on Resetera is complaining about amazon, but Resetera promotes Prime deals!', as though the site is written by one person. You can be a customer of a business and still recognize some of their shitty aspects, though of course not giving them business is the best way to send a message. But I'd rather have consumers be aware of the bad side than get defensive every time they hear something bad about their favorite company. I know that Google does some terrible shit but if I wanted to boycott I'd have to quit my job.
I don't see it as absolutism to criticize a group who asked for support in their walkout undermining another group's walkout. Understanding why they have to be hypocritical doesn't make it any less of a hypocrisy.
That's not what being a scab is. The trade union that represents Amazon workers hasn't called a boycott against Amazon.
For example, in the UK there have been many Southern Rail workers striking. The aim of this is to disrupt services, embarrass Southern Rail in the media, and draw attention to the plight of their workers.
There is no boycott of Southern Rail, and no-one is judged for using their services or engaging in contractual obligations with them.
Exactly the same happened with McDonalds last year. There was a strike, solidarity, no boycott because it's not an effective tactic in the majority of cases.
Conversely, workers at Picturehouse cinemas have been striking for the living wage for many years. Picturehouse are union busting bastards, and illegally sacked three reps. This lead to the union calling for a boycott of the Ritzy cinema, which eventually led to a boycott of all Picturehouse cinemas. This was years after strike action had first taken place. I haven't been to a Picturehouse cinema since. However, the boycott has had no meaningful effect on achieving the worker's aims.
The fact that Polygon and DF are engaging with advertising with Amazon has absolutely nothing to do with their own struggles. Again and again- there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Boycotts, most of the time, do not work. Even the largest boycott of all, the BDS movement against Israeli imperialism, has had limited effect. Amazon is so incredibly huge that they may as well be a state themselves. They certainly exist above the regulation of any one government. This is just how capitalism is.
To abandon support for struggling workers at Polygon, especially when the Amazon workers haven't said anything similar, is anti-working class, shows a profound misunderstanding of how the trade union movement actually operates, and is essentially just a dick move.
Yep, this exactly. What OP and others are suggesting is essentially a solidarity strike by workers at Polygon etc in order to prevent Amazon sponsored content being posted on the website. Solidarity strikes have been illegal in the UK for many, many years, so I imagine they certainly are in the USA.
People don't seem to get that the whole point of the trade union movement is having a legitimate and strong voice for workers, supported by law. It's not some crazy free for all where workers are striking illegally on a workplace by workplace basis without any coordination or strategy. In all countries where that has happened (e.g. the UK in the 70s), it's been a symptom of the declining health of the trade union movement. Even a general strike would have to be meticulously planned.
I'm not against workers taking illegal action obviously- that is always going to be necessary at times. But there are only a certain amount of times you can take action in that way, unless you want to government and the right wing press to come down heavy on the trade union movement and destroy it entirely. You've got to prioritise, stratergise, and this Polygon thing is so incredibly minor in the grand scheme of things that it seems unnecessary to take that sort of drastic action.
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Yup I'm not in the industry, but the guys at waypoint have talked about this a few times. And I've learned to deal with it. People will complain about these sites then use adblock when using them.
OP
OP
For sure, but there's a difference between supporting a garbage company out of necessity or ignorance, and supporting a garbage company because you just don't care.
How do you suggest running a website without ad revenue in 2019? Subscription models?
this is the same mentality as trying to excuse people who cross picket lines because they have """families to feed""" or whatever. a scab is a scab is a scab
Probably because the people following these news-channels are following them for interesting gaming news and occasional deals. The harsh truth is that most of the people won't care what the hell is happening at Amazon. Imagine seeing these deals and the next sentence is something like: "But the workers are on strike because Amazon is shit so you probably shouldn't take advantage of this 80% discount."
They're not on strike. Call them hypocrites if you want, but that's a different thing.
And it seems like you are completely conflating the people involved with Vox Union and Polygon itself. You're blaming the workers who clashed with management for what that management decided to post today. Is Kuchera even someone involved with the union? Is he not management himself?
EDIT: Looks like he has a union avatar on Twitter. So for him, I guess. But "Polygon" != the people at Polygon trying to improve their working conditions; they're not the ones making these decisions.
This attitude is gross.
They're not Amazon employees crossing a picket line so how do they meet any commonly accepted definition of a "scab"?
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