Amazon’s surprise announcement on Thursday that it was canceling its planned expansion to a new corporate campus in New York was greeted with celebration by local activists and politicians who had opposed the deal, and frustration by local officials — and more than a few real estate agents in Queens — who had eagerly anticipated an influx of well-compensated tech workers.



For some, Amazon’s decision will represent a political failure, in which officials and local labor leaders blew a once-in-a-decade chance to bring thousands of high-paying jobs to New York.

For others, it reflects the hubris of one of the world’s most valuable companies, which sought billions of dollars in tax incentives it didn’t need, and then got cold feet when local organizers and officials objected to that largess.

But more than anything, the battle poses a challenge to one of Amazon’s bedrock beliefs: that being loved by customers is all that matters.