[celtain]

I still don't understand the connection. I assume the term "company store" is being used to invoke the exploitative nature of living in a company town and being paid in scrip.

How does "a major local employer wants the local economy to thrive" lead to more exploitation than usual? If anything, I'd expect a thriving local economy to mean that there's more competition for workers, increasing their bargaining power and reducing the probability/severity of worker exploitation.

[everforward]

The company store was a way to earn on both ends of employees; the company made money by paying the workers to do stuff for the company, and then earned a part of that money back by selling goods to the workers at exorbitant rates.

The parallel here is that Amazon makes money off of the workers doing work, and then can also extract value by using the workers to prop up their real estate holdings.

E.g. workers may benefit from lower property values (renters), but Amazon is forcing workers to prop up those property values. Amazon makes money off paying them, and makes (or saves) money when they force them to come spend money around their offices.

It's not exactly the same, but I think there's certainly similarities.