Alec MacGillis > Quotes

“Newspapers were in rapid decline in cities large and small across the country, their business model devastated by the triple whammy of first a company (Craigslist) that offered for free one of their main products (classified ads), and later a company that eviscerated the department stores that bought many of the print ads that sustained newspapers (Amazon), and then a couple companies that siphoned off the digital ad revenue that would replace lost print ads (Google and Facebook).”
― Alec MacGillis, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America

“Economic decline did not excuse racism and xenophobia—rather, it weaponized it.”
― Alec MacGillis, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America

“The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it,” he said.”
― Alec MacGillis, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America

“The ease of relieving supporters of their money extended beyond campaign contributions. On being elected county executive, which was paid about $80,000 in today’s dollars, McConnell set up an arrangement with an undisclosed group of local business leaders who had supported his campaign. They paid a supplement of $25,000—$91,000 in today’s dollars—in exchange for giving some speeches around town. “It had never been done before,” says”
― Alec Macgillis, The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell

“Seattle had become proof that extreme regional inequality was unhealthy not only for places that were losing out in the winner-take-all economy, but also for those who were the runaway victors. Hyper-prosperity was not only creating the side effects of unaffordability, congestion, and homelessness, but injecting a political poison into the winner cities.”
― Alec MacGillis, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America

“Amazon has successfully fostered the idea that a book is a thing of minimal value. It’s a widget.”
― Alec MacGillis, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America

“The cloud. The term was so airy and ethereal. It conjured a fly ball arcing to left-center field, a lazy summer Sunday on the prairie.”
― Alec MacGillis, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America

“In fact, the cloud was profoundly earthbound and material, the antithesis of lightness and luminescence.”
― Alec MacGillis, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America

“Jeff Bezos’s idea was fairly simple: to take advantage of rapidly accelerating activity on the World Wide Web, the new user-friendly internet interface, to sell consumer goods there.”
― Alec MacGillis, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America

“I didn’t see eye to eye with young Barry Bingham,” the publisher, Hollenbach says. “I told him respectfully that I didn’t think there was anything wrong with this city that a handful of well-placed funerals wouldn’t cure.”)”
― Alec Macgillis, The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell

“to take a closer look at the America that fell in the company’s lengthening shadow.”
― Alec MacGillis, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America

“with a great rumbling laugh that was equal parts rue and mirth.”
― Alec MacGillis, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America

“How to comprehend the seismic changes taking place in the world? Homelessness brings the question to their doorstep, prompting visceral feelings of frustration and rage. The belief that it all comes down to poor local governance, individual failures, and lax enforcement of the laws must be a comforting antidote to despair.”
― Alec MacGillis, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America