Speaking of: The Ascent of the Customer

The last 50 years have been pretty horrific for the American worker. Real wages have been stagnant if not decreasing. Union membership has declined, which generally gives workers less bargaining power. It seems like the balance between work and life favors the former more and more every year. It's a relatively dark picture.

However, if you want to see a picture of one group that's been absolutely thriving this entire time, look at the flip side of the equation: the American customer.

I think it'd be hard to point to another period of time where customers have had more power than they have had in the last 10 years, and I think 90% of these gains can be attributed to Amazon. Amazon has the digital sway that once it sets a customer service policy, it raises the entire retail industry's mean until everyone hits that standard. Free two-day delivery? Done. "No questions asked" returns? Done. Always available customer service that is encouraged to do whatever is necessary to keep the customer happy? Piece of cake.

Retailers know they will never be able to compete with Amazon's catalog, and they can't afford to lose on Amazon's customer service too. Quite frankly, I don't think it's really even possible to compete with Amazon's customer service since Amazon has the cash in the bank to afford some of these initiatives that other retailers simply can't commit to. But every retailer's attempt to try is giving the American customer an entire bouquet of amazing shopping options. Don't underestimate how game-changing it can be to give a struggling family access to buy any good they can dream of at a decent price on Amazon and get it delivered to their doorstep within two days.

And stepping even beyond Amazon, let's not forget we're living in a world where for under $20 a month, you can have every song ever recorded and every movie you could watch in a lifetime at your fingertips. How could our grandparents have ever even dreamt of this?

Workers have been getting screwed for too long, but customers have been absolutely crushing it in that same time period. I'm not going to say it cancels out, but it's certainly at least some recompense.