I think the issue here is that a lot of people come at Amazon's decision from the lens of "This is actually a bad thing," when it's clearly a positive benefit.
Let's say that Amazon is using this college benefit to avoid raising wages for their front-line workers. One could argue that the college benefit is "bad" because it allows Amazon to ignore the root cause. However, this ignores the fact that Amazon could have just kept wages down without the college benefit. The front-line worker still benefits, even if not in the way they would have wanted.
There could also be the argument that Amazon is offering these college benefits to avoid unionization by their employees, legal action in the form of new laws about warehouse work, or some other action I haven't mentioned. This would mean that the college benefit is "bad" in that it has prevented a larger, more beneficial change. Depending on how likely one thought the larger change was, this could even be seen as a decrease in the expected utility for these workers.
I think this situation is what you mean by a "complex moral question" and I honestly agree with that point. However, I think that most people would rather take a smaller guaranteed benefit over a larger, uncertain benefit. This is primarily because well-being tends to rise with log(income), so a small benefit vs a medium-sized benefit has a much smaller well-being difference than it would initially seem.
I do agree that it ultimately depends though, and that suspicion is warranted. I just think that the moral question is too complex to immediately assume that Amazon is acting in bad faith like some commenters seem to indicate.
Let's say that Amazon is using this college benefit to avoid raising wages for their front-line workers. One could argue that the college benefit is "bad" because it allows Amazon to ignore the root cause. However, this ignores the fact that Amazon could have just kept wages down without the college benefit. The front-line worker still benefits, even if not in the way they would have wanted.
There could also be the argument that Amazon is offering these college benefits to avoid unionization by their employees, legal action in the form of new laws about warehouse work, or some other action I haven't mentioned. This would mean that the college benefit is "bad" in that it has prevented a larger, more beneficial change. Depending on how likely one thought the larger change was, this could even be seen as a decrease in the expected utility for these workers.
I think this situation is what you mean by a "complex moral question" and I honestly agree with that point. However, I think that most people would rather take a smaller guaranteed benefit over a larger, uncertain benefit. This is primarily because well-being tends to rise with log(income), so a small benefit vs a medium-sized benefit has a much smaller well-being difference than it would initially seem.
I do agree that it ultimately depends though, and that suspicion is warranted. I just think that the moral question is too complex to immediately assume that Amazon is acting in bad faith like some commenters seem to indicate.