It’s actually really stupid.

Not having ethics/empathy is actually _really dumb_ way to run a company.

They end up making a lot of people miserable. Eventually, all of the technology, market advantage yadda yadda catches up. IBM, Yahoo, heck even Meta/Facebook. Amazon won’t last.

But in their wake, they leave behind very different testimonials.

Working people to a grind has its obvious needs in times of crisis — I mean, that is literally what nations do via conscription in times of war. Everybody knows that.

But prop that culture up in a so-called attempt to stave off laziness, rest-and-vest or whatever and you’ll end up in state of perpetual war: a bleak, stupid world not even worth living in, let alone worth dying for.

That's a bit rich. Everyone on this forum will cry themselves hoarse about how they should only have to confirm to the minimum of their agreements. How is it any surprise that these same people, placed in a position of power, continue to act congruent to the belief that legality is morality.

It's ethical too, because the terms of the deal are given to the employee up front, and if they're the kind of person who can do SWE at Amazon, it's nowhere near their only job option. Nobody forces them to take it, and they're not hurting for jobs.

People opt in to this. They choose it over all of their other options because they believe it to be better than their other choices.