Amazon’s growth will benefit us all

I would like to present an alternative to Gerald Cowen’s dystopian vision of the world being run by Amazon in 2030 (Letters, Issue 505). I would urge readers to re-read that letter before reading mine. Fast-forward 17 years and every morning we’ll be woken by hi-tech alarm clocks that are cheaper than ever because competition from Amazon has driven down prices. We’ll then skip downstairs and open the front door to pick up our daily Amazon drone deliveries: newspapers (which are popular again thanks to Amazon’s reliable service), milk, box of cereal and bread.

On the back of the cereal box are personalised adverts from local businesses that have flourished ever since they started micro-targeting potential customers, allowing them to stop wasting money on junk mail.

By 2030, 99.9 per cent of the population will be working for a company that buys items quickly and cheaply from Amazon. After work we’ll return home to find that drones have delivered that evening’s dinner to the doorstep.

In his letter, Mr Cowen imagined the worst-case scenario. Mine also exaggerates, but is a more optimistic outlook. My prediction is that, as Amazon gets bigger, everyone will prosper. Let’s revisit this debate in 2030 and see who was right. Kenneth Smith