https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/glossary/market-manipulation

For everyone thinking that accepting more money than base pay is market manipulation, or that people jointly not accepting low wages when Amazon does not cover overhead costs is market manipulation, please educate yourself using the link above. You are a 1099, not a W2. Meaning you are an independent contractor. Meaning you are a one man business. You can even create yourself a LLC if you like. A group of businesses can decide to not accept lower profits if they chose to, and it is not market manipulation. It is business, capitalism, supply and demand, etc. Let me give you an example of what would be market manipulation and what is not market manipulation:

Market Manipulation example: I want the share price of Amazon to go down because I bought put options. I jump on Reddit and other platforms like Stocktwits, and I tell everyone that while working for Amazon as a Flex Driver that none of the warehouses are offering work anymore, they all shutdown and Amazon is trying to keep it out of the news because its bad for shareholders. I convince millions of shareholders and traders to sell the stock and to “hurry before it hits the news”. This is market manipulation and is very illegal.

Not Market Manipulation example: Seeing a trend of new drivers and a list of people being put on a waiting list. People being desperate in their financial circumstances and accepting anything they can get. Educating people that by accepting base pay, they are not considering cost of gas, vehicle insurance, phone services charges, vehicle maintenance etc as “overhead” costs that every successful business takes into consideration before setting out to aim for profit in their business endeavor. Most businesses aim for minimal of 10x profit after all overhead and inventory is paid. No Amazon flex driver is anywhere close to making 10x profit from all the expenditures they pay in order to conduct their business. Seeing many people accepting base pay, get wiped out after a month or two because of an vehicle accident or some other job related costs which now impacts their ability to continue working, and Amazon replaces them with someone new from the wait list to rinse and repeat the cheap labor from an ignorant pool of people. Going on Reddit and saying “we should not accept base pay, it is bad for our businesses and this is why” is not market manipulation.

Please feel free to ask me anything. Thank you for reading.