The Nightmare of Running a Delivery Company for Amazon

Amazon. The company none of us can seem to get away from. Whether you’re a Prime member or just surfing the web on sites hosted by AWS, the company is inescapable. But it’s worse when you work for them. Especially if you’re an independent contractor running delivery vans. It’s a job where crushing debt, sudden shifts in policy, and impossible demands are the norm. 

These Amazon Delivery Service Partners, or DSPs, are key to Amazon's dominant position, and the way many people are able to get what they order from the company so quickly, the next day or even within hours. But as Amazon gets unimaginably rich, some of these small companies are going bankrupt and leaving owners with crushing debt.

This week on CYBER, Motherboard Senior Staff writer Lauren Kaori Gurley walks us through her piece ‘‘I Had Nothing to My Name’: Amazon Delivery Companies Are Being Crushed by Debt.

We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live on Wednesdays at 4pm EST. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.

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