The Everything War: Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power

by Dana Mattioli

From veteran Amazon reporter for  The Wall Street Journal,  and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting, Dana Mattioli's  The Everything War is the shocking, explosive, and untold exposé of Amazon's endless strategic greed, from destroying Main Street to remaking corporate power, in pursuit of total domination​, by any means necessary. There is simply no way to understand what befell the global economy, and America's cultural and economic landscape, without seeing what Amazon has wrought. 

 

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Economics, History, Politics, Technology, Audiobook

393 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 23, 2024

Reviews

[Dayna Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, mind blowing. This was so informational and yet so easy to digest. The authors way of writing was trying so smooth and engaging. I think a lot of companies bank on you not being able to understand or make sense of their behavioral data but Dana Mattioli says "bet" ✌️

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Corporations putting profits ahead of people is an old story at this point but aggressive, rapacious Amazon stands alone.
From the poor treatment of its warehouse workers and delivery drivers to the cutthroat culture of its corporate offices Amazon’s business practices have been consistently immoral and even illegal as it grew to become a monopoly to dwarf even the 19th century robber barons the anti-trust laws were created to defend the market against.

The worst of it to me though is how they would take meetings with startups, lead them to believe that Amazon would buy them or partner with them and when they had their proprietary technology, they would drop them and make an Amazon product identical to it. This was the case with the echo and Alexa voice recognition technology.

There are things I don’t think we can blame them entirely for, like the slow death of brick and mortar retailers. We malign Amazon for chapters having become more Knick Knack store than bookstore while voting for it by buying our books from Amazon.

Amazon has used and continues to use unfair, anticompetitive practices and are currently embroiled in an FTC lawsuit that may take years to resolve.
As it is they are so big and unbothered that they marketed and sold this book that paints them in a poor light on their sites, including audible where I got my copy making me complicit in their deviltry yet again!

[CatReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dana Mattioli is an investigative report who's been at the Wall Street Journal since 2006 and covering Amazon specifically for the last several years, which has resulted in several high-profile WSJ articles and now this book. There have certainly been many books about Amazon in the last few years (several linked below), but Mattioli's angle is on the antagonist relationship between Amazon and third party sellers, whose products Amazon has often ripped off largely penalty-free and whose seller fees keep going up, and the tenuous relationship between Amazon and certain parts of the US government (tensions between Amazon and the Trump, then Biden administrations; also, Amazon was sued for illegally maintaining monopoly power by the Federal Trade Commission under chair Lina Khan in September 2023; the trial date is currently set for October 2026).

I found this book to be well-researched and well-presented, albeit a bit lengthy, tangential, and repetitive at times -- though with a topic so broad and ongoing, it's hard not to be.

Further reading: Amazon and ecommerce
The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity by Amy Webb (2019)
Bezonomics: How Amazon Is Changing Our Lives and What the World's Best Companies Are Learning from It by Brian Dumaine (2020)
Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire by Brad Stone (2021)
Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door-Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy by Christopher Mims (2021)

My statistics:
Book 177 for 2024
Book 1780 cumulatively

[David Dayen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Someone that hasn't been following the Amazon story will get up to speed here. One thing this suffers from is hewing to the stories Mattioli broke at the Wall Street Journal, and therefore emphasizing those parts of the Amazon story. The ending—the FTC's lawsuit against Amazon—comes as more of a surprise because Mattioli downplays the strategy of tying third-party seller access to Fulfillment by Amazon, and plays up the theft of third-party seller data to build up private label sales. The former is really the core of the business.
That said, there's a lot that's interesting here, in particular the company's fumbling of their Washington strategy.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

After Reading This, I Asked Myself - How Is Amazon Still A Company?!
and what can I do to never buy from them again.

Pretty upsetting book

The sheer amount of anti-competitive behavior and monopolization is wild.

The true definition of antitrust.

Also extremely angering about knockoffs, intellectual property theft and other predatory business practices.

Extremely upsetting book.

The best analysis of Amazon's true business practices I've ever read in a book.

How have they not been broken up, charged, and dissolved for this!?

A lot of what Amazon does behind the scenes (lobbying, behind the doors and under-the-table deals, political donations) reminds me of what China does to Western countries.

Recommended Reading
Books with similar topics, that I recommend reading alongside this book:
How to Resist Amazon and Why
Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire
Wilful Blindness: How a Criminal Network of Narcos, Tycoons and CCP Agents Infiltrated the West
Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods
A Year Without "Made in China": One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy
Poorly Made in China: An Insider's Account of the Tactics Behind China's Production Game
Trade-Based Money Laundering

4.8/5

[Keely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh wow. You know amazon is bad, but it's so much worse than you originally thought. They have their hands in so many pies that it's unbelievable. And yes, I know this review is ironic considering they own this website. Wonder what their plans are with this sites data, that's why they bought it. I mean, they didn't buy it to make it better or change a single thing; it's all about the data, they seem to have a real thing for data. Like massing data is almost an obsession for them. They're almost impossible to avoid nowdays. So many companies that you wouldn't think use Amazon Web Services! I mean, I bought toothpaste from a smaller brand from their own personal website and yet, amazon was the company who delivered it to me. I buy shoes again from a small brands website and amazon delivers it. They own MGM, which mean a lot of films are now connected to them. You got a lil roomba running around your house? They own that too! And they also now own your house floorplan data! Wonder what they're going to do with that. So many things you wouldn't think has connections to them. And their behaviour towards copying smaller brands is gross. It's so blatant but because it's never in writing, they get away with it.

seriously, they've got a lot of plates spinning. it's worse than you originally thought. And now I have no idea what the answer to enact true change is as just avoiding buying from their website doesn't really hurt them. Do you refuse to buy from small brands who use them as delivery method? I'm not quite sure that is the correct course. It's complicated.

I guess we'll see how things plan out in the future. also, the amount of tax they dont pay is shocking and its not like they can't afford it.

[Phil Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I looked at a two-star review of this amazing book and laughed. Anyone who denies Amazon's monopoly-level power in 2024 is delusional. As Mattioli adeptly shows, Amazon's reach is practically unprecedented these days. Its actions are inarguably anticompetitive, and those who doubt as much should read this exceptionally well-researched account.

[Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came into this book hoping to crystalize my feelings about Amazon and left with a significantly deeper understanding of the company, the american economy, anti-trust regulations and PR influence. I know how i feel about Amazon a lot more than I did last week.

Ill start with some facts before i get into feelings:

Amazon is an everything company- even more so than most people realize. They are basically the largest retailer in the country (and the world), they are the single largest logistics company by parcel volume, they have the most powerful cloud service in the world, they own massive production studios and churn out tons of streaming content, they are branching into medical services... it is incredible difficult to go a day in america without engaging with (or giving some of your data to) Amazon.

They are one of the country’s largest employers, were incredibly valuable during the pandemic (in terms of PPE, grocery delivery and employment). Amazon pays billions in taxes each year, despite exploiting every possible loophole. (Bezos himself has weirdly advocated for tax reform). They have a MASSIVE PR wing spanning both parties that they use to influence legislation in their favor (from state and local tax breaks to anti-trust legislation).

Bezos started as a Quant at a prestigious NYC firm in the early and mid 90s where he was tasked with researching the effects of the newly formed internet on retail and commerce. He really quickly realized this could change the world and made a huge bet, moving his whole life to Seattle, Washington (for tax breaks and to poach from microsoft). They started selling book but Bezos said himself "it is not about books."

One of the key takeaways from this book for me was that amazon kinda got the best of both worlds from Wall Street. Retail companies need to show profits for their stock to grow (duh). Why would anyone invest in a retail company if they would never see returns? Tech companies (esp in the early 90s) were an entirely different ball game. Investors threw money at Amazon even though Bezos explicitly said they would not be profitable for a long time. Amazon was a retailer at first, selling books, CDs, cables etc but got the investment treatment of a tech firm.

AWS came out of a big internal problem- as the company grew and as teams tried to improve the user experience, progress was relatively slow. Developers had to design the entire back-end of things every time they wanted to make a change, constantly worrying about server storage and infrastructure before they could even start building features. Amazon invested massively in this space and delivered a cloud solution as a service- other companies wouldn't have to suffer like amazon did.

AWS is one of the main reasons Amazon is such a successful retailer today- they are able to buoy themselves, charge low prices off the profits from an entirely different business. They were able to branch into new businesses and take losses while they grew because of this sepereate and massive pile of money. PLUS think of the data

Amazon's retail is split in 3 different pieces: first-party sellers sell in bulk to amazon who resells on its platform (this is like when you buy tidepods). third-party sellers are like etsy- its a marketplace where indepdenent business list their products on amazon. it is actually a great service and millions of sellers are able to list products across the country reaching buyers they never could before (more on how this is actually got toxic and bad later). then there's private lable: shit amazon manufactures and sells (like amazon basics and amazon essentials - hdmi cables, vitamins, that shit).

Pretty weird that there's this internal competition on the same platform for similar goods huh??

Ok here's where stuff gets bad: this is just some of the stuff that they do that is objectively evil-corp

Abusive treatment of warehouse workers (which the book barely covered), Private label stealing seller data, Amazon (particularly the alexa fund) stealing ideas, predatory bundling of prime + Fulfillment by Amazon + Advertising, de-listing competitors, and overall bullying.

Amazon says there are firewalls in place that separate the third party marketplace from the rest of the business. It would be bad if say... the private label team could look at which products are selling well and go to china and make the products themselves for way cheaper and undercut the third party seller. That would seem fishy and bad right???? well they did that shit and lied about it.

It seems shitty for a massive company to take months of acquisition/partnership meetings with a smaller company with a unique and innovative idea only for the big one to remove NDA terms and straight up steal the idea and make it themselves right??? (cough cough thats literally alexa)

It would be bad if say new tech wants to be alexa enabled but in order for them to do that, the company needs to send amazon the product for extensive testing before (and then allow that very same company to reverse engineer the new tech).

Amazon makes you use their logistics wing and sometimes pay for advertising to get the prime badge - if you dont theres a chance you wont have the Buy Box (which is literally the box that says add to cart, no idea how that works if you dont have that). They raise fees constantly and squeeze the seller to paper thin margins....basically amazon takes HALF of the sale and HERE is where it gets sticky for them

This was basically the foundation of an anti-trust suit brought against them by the FTC in 2023. The basic premise is that Amazon requires sellers to sell at their lowest price on amazon (for a while contractually and now by the algorithm lowering the listing). They also raise listing fees, make you pay for fulfillment and advertising- that shit is expensive. So what do you do as a seller- you pretty much have nowhere else to go, you cant make ends meet so you gotta raise your price... but your lowest price has to be on Amazon so you have to raise the price at other retailers and even your own site. The FTC is saying that amazon (who claims that they are customer obsessed and want everyone to have everything cheaply and quickly) is overall raising the price of goods in america.

So what do we think? Amazon is objectively incredible. in 30 years they changed the way people even think about buying stuff- you can have basically anything in 2 days for basically as cheap as it gets. millions of people have an outlet to sell stuff to a customer base that was literally impossible to reach before. They solved logistics and cloud storage.

Also they are bullies, they abuse workers, steal ideas, throw money at politicians for preferential treatment.

Amazon is worth 1.5 TRILLION dollars- i dont believe they cant fix so many of these awful practices. I dont believe they need to have ambulances outside of warehouses instead of installing ACs. I dont believe they need to take 45% of the sale.

It is a story of innovation and greed, good book!

[Rodrigo Herrera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dana Mattioli is a skilled writer, and The Everything War is a well researched book, but its tone often feels excessively critical of Amazon. There’s no doubt that the company has been aggressive in its expansion and competitive strategies, but this is not unique to Amazon, many large corporations have followed similar paths. While the book raises valid concerns about the risks of a company growing so rapidly and its influence on the market, it’s also important to acknowledge that there are no absolute barriers preventing new competitors from entering the space. The claim that Amazon is a monopoly remains debatable, and a more nuanced perspective would have strengthened the argument. That said, the book provides an interesting look at corporate power in the digital age.

[Ariana · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important read for everyone who uses Amazon services

[Walter Ullon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of the content in this book was familiar to me, having read The Everything Store and other bits and pieces here and there.

Where the book really shines and what was quite an eye-opener to me, are the chapters that delve deep into Amazon's industrial espionage unit "Basics" arm, which most surely used 3rd-party seller data (and secrets) to create competing products that undercut their seller's pricing and drove many of them out of business (Bezos himself was reluctant to deny this while testifying under oath during a congressional hearing). Puts a whole new spin on "Working Backwards" eh?

It is beyond obvious that Amazon needs to be broken up, more specifically, it needs to be divested from its AWS division in order to stop it from leveraging outsized profits in one area (cloud computing) to drive predatory pricing and practices in another (retail).

Unfortunately, lobbying and politics being the game that it is, I think this will be highly unlikely.

Highest Recommendation!

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazon is "one of the world's biggest logistics companies, one of the US's largest digital advertisers, a major Hollywood studio, the most dominant cloud computing company in the world, and a disruptor of food retail" (page 61). It's also the largest product search engine in the US, "with over half of all online shopping searches" starting on Amazon, not Google (page 209).

The Everything War brilliantly covers how Amazon got to where it is today—and what it destroyed along the way. It evaded taxes; drove Borders, Sears, and Toys "R" Us out of business; violated Washington state's ethics guidelines; used its own seller data to design and sell copycat products; forced suppliers to sign warrants that gave Amazon a stake in ownership; and stole intellectual property (most notably to create Alexa, which collects data on 500 million households).

"Thank G-d you are covering this," a venture capitalist told the author. "Amazon is the devil" (page 101).

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes yes the irony of writing a review of the Amazon is Greedy book on Goodreads, something Amazon bought and did absolutely nothing with. See, their tentacles are in everything!

A compelling and informative read. Mattioli is very thorough with her research and coverage, but it wasn’t a boring or dry book by any means. Amazon’s origins are actually very fascinating and their story shows how quickly goodwill can devolve into greed. I thought it was mostly going to be about Amazon’s treatment of its employees and their union-busting tactics, but Mattioli laser-focuses on how Amazon steals ideas from smaller businesses and eliminates their competitors, thereby creating a monopoly (eventually leading to a lawsuit from the FTC). I appreciated this approach because it shows her depth as a journalist. Everyone already knows Amazon employees piss in water bottles and have high rates of injury, so Mattioli asks *how* we got to this point.

[Gracie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Khan’s name has grown to be almost as popular as Bezos’ name, right?
Definitely not, but she tried and this book attempted to give her major credit towards continuing to build up her image as an activist against monopolies 🤪
Thoroughly enjoyed this book’s research, critical thinking questions and points of opinion, and challenge to Amazon’s monopoly (and for that matter, Big Tech’s war on antitrust laws).
This book provides many empirical examples of the ramifications to decision-making, business investing, and comfort-building Americans (including myself) often don’t consider when building growth or said comfort. Highly recommend any non-fiction or historic readers to invest in reading this book.

[Rich P Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eye-opening, even despite the common knowledge that Amazon is everywhere. Slightly creepy to read on a Kindle. Well-written, good pace and very interesting.

[Sabah · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up. If you needed more reasons why Amazon sucks (I say as I use an app owned by Amazon…)

[Ryan T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid primer on the top newsworthy stories from Amazon’s ascent. Generally well paced and written, though some sections lost my interest while others (like the company’s controversial search for a second HQ) were strangely absent.

[Tralala Tralala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arguably, a must read in the context of the complete divergence between a handful of big tech names, and the rest of the economy.
While I don't agree with the tone of the book sometimes, where Amazon is blamed for annihilating small businesses, there is no denying that it's 1. Competed extremely unfairly, including avoiding paying taxes (both sales and corporate), and 2. Stole a staggering amount of IP and proprietary data from competitors selling on its websites to launch Amazon white label products, with the mantra that "your margin is my opportunity".
Most worryingly, the book documents a clear pattern of creeping fees and price increases, that hurt both sellers and customers, only to benefit Amazon, precisely because it's now a monopoly.
The number of specific examples when Amazon deliberately cheated, and still cheats, is impressive.

[Parvathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure. I read this on a Kindle. 

In this fascinating account about how Amazon grew to be this multi-trillion dollar behemoth it now is, Mattioli describes the ruthlessness and the 'everything goes' nature of its rise. Much of it we know - it's multiple revenue streams enabling it to arm twist competition (eg., Netflix runs on AWS while competing with Prime); using competitive data from its platform to create and fine tune their own brands; the cut-throat fees it charges sellers on their platform forcing some sellers to raise prices; the advertising play it uses to control competition; forcing sellers to use Fulfilment by Amazon... But Mattioli goes even deeper and reveals things I did not know. The 'warrants' it enforced in seller contracts that enabled it to gain shares in the seller companies, 'Project Nessie' that forced companies to offer their lowest prices to Amazon (and then testing higher prices on the platform forcing competitive sites to raise prices as well), not erecting enough barriers to lower quality and spurious goods on its platform...and so on and so forth.

The book is a strong indictment of the power Amazon wields and the extent of its influence in the everyday lives of billions of people around the world. Mattioli compares today's big tech companies with the Gilded Age companies like Standard Oil that the anti trust legislation broke up. She is clearly on the side of Lina Khan and the FTC investigation that aims to curb Amazon's anti competitive behaviour. She tells a compelling story, fast-paced, informative, and clearly agenda-driven against big tech.

There were niggles though in my read. When did big malls and WalMart become things to fight for? Should we really be shedding tears for large companies like Toys R Us going bust because they did not capiltalize on the internet wave the way Amazon did? The condition of workers is referenced heavily but at a time when blue collar jobs are disappearing in the US, are Amazon jobs really that bad?

This is a great read. It just would have been that bit better if it read less like a hatchet job and more like a balanced take on the rise of the tech behemoths - both the positives and the negatives.

A recommend, none the less.

[Katie Katieneedsabiggerbookshelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

No synopsis needed. A book about Amazon...EVERYTHING about Amazon.

Friends. I know we know this. I know I knew this. Yet shopping on amazon is just so tempting. I need vitamins? Shampoo? I can have them tomorrow in my mailbox, or drive to cvs, search the aisles, and deal with people. I know. I know how easy it can feel to just hit that “order” button. Especially when everything is cheaper. However, I think everyone should read this book! Just don’t buy it on amazon or get it through audible!!! I listened to this one with my Spotify account and omg this sh*t is scary peeps. It is amazing how much work amazon how done to truly take over everything, and to steal the ideas from some of our favorite products. Books is a huge part of the problem, (proud owner of a kindle that NEVER purchases books on amazon…library or netgalley over here!) but they are literally in every single industry now. They sell so much of their stuff at a loss, and don’t even get me started on the tax benefits they get. People voted for Trump because the price of eggs? Tax amazon and everyone in this country could have as many eggs as their heart desires for dirt cheap. Ok…I made that part up, but seriously. They paid 22 million over 20 years to not pay taxes on their two massive warehouses in NJ. That is a little over 1 million a year. You really think the taxes that would have been brought in from two huge warehouses in NJ would have been less than a million a year? Overall the company avoids 5 BILLION dollars in corporate taxes annually. 5 billion is a lot of g*d d*mn eggs. They are a truly monopoly, yet nobody can fight it because they have worked every single loophole they possibly can. Oh amazon sold me a carbon monoxide detector that it turns out doesn’t actually detect carbon monoxide? Oh it’s ok, WE didn’t sell it. A third party on our website from god knows where sold it. Have fun trying to track them down! It is seriously insane. If you aren’t feeling up for a full audiobook on this yet, I highly recommend listening to the episode of Under The Influence with Dana Mattioli. It is @Jopiazzaauthor podcast and had me downloading this book so fast! If you just need a taste of the mess though, start there!

[Gareld Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book, very well researched with lots of insider info, by a former Wall Street Journal reporter, on the history and business behavior of Amazon. Although this was a long book, I wouldn't have cut out anything, as it all points and the unethical, anti-competitive business behavior of Amazon as it grew from an online bookseller, to stealing the intellectual property of Borders (and many others) in order to take their customers and put them out of business. The author goes into the incentive programs to get product managers to do unethical things to keep their jobs and try to earn promotions. Also discussed are the ways Amazon has used its online sales platform to line their own pockets, force suppliers to raise their prices, and create third-parties that make illegal copies of Amazon's own customer's products because Amazon makes money off of them whether the products are legitimate or junk. They describe how Amazon refuses to answer to congressional inquiries, destroys evidence, and pays off or threatens congressmen to maintain control of business in America.

[Frederick Bingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating dive into Amazon’s origins, growth and business practices. They are utterly ruthless when it comes to making profits. They screw over third party sellers. They hoover up data from their customers. They strong-arm government and regulators. They exploit their employees - it sounds like a horrific place to work.

The story of “Adore Me” was most illustrative. It’s a clothing company that became successful, and despite a lot of pressure, declined to sell their products through Amazon. Pretty soon, cheap knock-offs started appearing in Amazon’s product line, which damaged their business. Adore Me asked Amazon to stop selling the imitations, but they declined to do so. Eventually, Adore Me finally had to start selling through Amazon despite their misgivings. The book is full of stories like that.

It’s not possible in this day and age to not do business with them, but I’ll try in the future to minimize it.

[Brannen Dickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hats off to Dana Mattioli. What a debut novel. This was an exposé in the form of a novel that really investigates Amazon's methods in the e-commerce industry as it rose to become the unrivaled titan it is today.

Mattioli pored through hours of interviews and a plethora of sources to bring this book to life. It's very detailed and technical, but very readable and easy to understand. It was fascinating to learn more about the ways in which Amazon has affected the lives of everyone, especially its third-party vendors, and how difficult it is to regulate the company (special shoutout to Chuck Schumer).

Mattioli has been an investigative reporter at the WSJ for the past 2 decades, and perhaps this book will inspire her to write another one soon!

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remember how the Facebook origin story became a movie? This excellent book could be the screenplay for a blockbuster about Amazon. The writing is outstanding and the research/reporting is laudable. Yes, Amazon is a monopoly, but I just can’t hate it! Can I live without Amazon? Yes…but who wants to?!

[James McAward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Journalistic tour de force: Amazon is an enigma to many, and the author demystifies how they started, how they grew at literally any cost. She details the externalized costs in human terms: the brick-and-mortar Main Street businesses lost, the desperate vendors who need to stay with Amazon despite having their intellectual property expropriated while their seller fees skyrocket and margins narrow even more. Wonderful book on a very troubling subject… highly recommended.

[Ally · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are few books (besides The Bible) that drastically change my perception of modern life, but this is one of them.

This scathing and revealing exposé on the rise, reach, tactics, schemes, and corruption of Amazon left me floored. What began as a humble startup has grown into a shocking conglomeration of greed and power. I will never look at Amazon.com the same way again and you will definitely not catch me buying any of their products.

Major props to Dana Mattioli for her thorough and extensive journalism work, what a legend.

[Connor Turley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very rarely does a book actually change my mind about a topic, however this one definitely did. Dana Mattioli’s meticulous research details the dark side of Amazon; Corporate espionage, predatory pricing, and turning a blind eye to counterfeit and unsafe products, all in the name of expansion. If there’s any company worthy of government intervention, it’s Amazon.

[Kavity · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic investigative journalism. A compelling read.

[Abby]

Really interesting, but not as in-depth as I expected (maybe I just knew more about all this than I thought?)

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew Amazon is a mostly evil company, I just didn't realize it is quite this horrible.

Well written.
Depressing and enraging.