Jeff Bezos just can’t catch a break! It’s bad enough the world’s richest human being has to deal with labor activists breathing down his neck, a recent divorce that almost dented his fortune, and being 5’7”. Now, the titan of online retail industry has a new competitor causing problems: local record store Vineland has just started selling used books.
It’s not just a couple shelves, either. Vineland recently expanded into the empty retail space next door thanks to a grant from the city. So, when governments unfairly persecute someone like Jeff Bezos by preventing him from opening a giant HQ in Queens, we celebrate it, but when they just give some record store a third of a crumbling building to sell used books, we’re supposed to act like that’s fair?
To make matters worse, Vineland accepts used books from local dumbasses just giving away their valuable W.E.B. Griffin paperbacks and coleslaw recipe collections for store trade. Then, these crooked local business owners turn around and sell the books for multiple dollars. How is an honest, CIA-contracting bookseller like Jeff Bezos supposed to compete with that?
The Hard Times reached out to Bezos for comment, but we don’t actually have his information, so I broke into my neighbor’s house and went straight to the horse’s horse’s mouth herself: Alexa.
“Alexa,” I said loudly above my neighbor’s Amazon Echo, “is Jeff Bezos worried about this record store stealing business? And if I write a sympathetic article, will he take me to space with him?”
“Um,” she answered, “I am having trouble understanding.”
I tried a few more phrasings, but she stonewalled me, and I had to get out of there before my neighbor came home. Whatever Bezos has planned, he’s keeping it close to the vest. And after this Vineland fiasco, I can’t say I blame him.
Yup, it sure is lonely at the top. I hope you’re proud of yourselves, Vineland: by greedily gobbling up your share of the used book market on top of used vinyl, CDs, and tapes, you’ve become the very thing you claim to hate: just another soulless, consuming machine.
It’s bad enough Vineland lets slacker employees use the bathroom whenever they want. I just hope these rumors they’re opening a community garden aren’t true. If they are, Jeff Bezos might as well call up Blue Origin and tell them to pack it in.