Prime mover
In yet another philanthropic big gesture, MacKenzie Scott is giving away $2.7bn to charities.
Ms Scott said in a blog post that she wanted to give the money to those "that have been historically underfunded and overlooked".
She doesn't mention anything about giving any money to those who have been historically overcharged and scammed. By Amazon.
It recently came to light that I have been paying for Amazon Prime since sometime last year. A service that I didn't want, didn't know I'd signed up for, and didn't use. Apparently, this is a known thing, whereby Amazon make it easy to subscribe to Prime without realising it.
No wonder Scott's so flush with cash that she's having to give it away.
we are governed by a humbling belief that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands
If her philanthropy is in response to any unease regarding her disproportionate wealth
, then her unease is very well-placed. It's just a pity that her humbling belief doesn't extend to treating Amazon's customers and employees with more respect.
Oh yeah, and Amazon not falling back on tax-efficiency
to afford her that disproportionate wealth
: that would've been pretty cool too.
While Amazon make it ludicrously easy to subscribe to Prime without knowing, it's not as easy to navigate their site to reclaim the fees that you've paid for a service that you neither want nor use. But it can be done, and I did it! Yay me.
I wonder how many people know about this? Not only that can they cancel their subscription, but that they can reclaim past fees, as long as they haven't used the services. If they subscribed unwittingly in the first place, then it's a strong likelihood that the answer's either none
or not many
.