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Conglomerates Didn’t Die, They Look Like Amazon

nytimes.com

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Re: Conglomerates Didn’t Die, They Look Like Amazon

#11

Post by dragonwriter »

noobermin wrote: post #6

While prices are low, another aim of governments should be to keep wages high enough to maintain a standard of living. I think the fear around Amazon isn't that it is going to all of a sudden raise the price of goods from Whole Foods, but that they will reverse the employee friendly aspects of the company. When prices are low but wages aren't high enough to guarantee that people can take advantage of those lower pric…

> While prices are low, another aim of governments should be to keep wages high enough to maintain a standard of living.

Incomes, maybe; wages are a lever on incomes, but not the only one (and a potentially problematic one because pushing too hard on them depresses employment while driving up wages for the still-continuing, worsening inequality), and should not be focused on as a primary goal.

Re: Conglomerates Didn’t Die, They Look Like Amazon

#12

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

arvidkahl wrote: post #3

Amazon has found their way to cornering the one property that is not influenced by fashions and whims: scarcity. Both in a logistical and economical sense, they have been pushing the envelop on all corporate levels, from AWS to fresh produce. To me, most of the "new and more agile" companies are cargo-culting the optimization paradigm, focussing on time-saving and convenience as if the more basic needs were already m…

> that people are perfectly fine with Amazon being a conglomerate

What is this supposed to mean? Is there supposed to be something inherently not-fine with a conglomerate? If conglomerates survive because they're better able to deliver goods and services more efficiently then great.

As another comment pointed out[1], we are surrounded by conglomerates.[2] Other conglomerates that have delivered things people love include, but limited to, Toyota; Yamaha; Mitsubishi; Wesfarmers; 3M; Alhpabet; Honeywell; Berkshire Hathaway. The list is expansive.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14592612 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conglomerates

Re: Conglomerates Didn’t Die, They Look Like Amazon

#13

Post by Mathnerd314 »

(from the Yale note)

> switching costs are high

> Amazon’s platform lock-in

> users said they would be taking their business from Amazon and returning to Diapers.com—which, other users pointed out, was no longer possible

I have a hard time taking this seriously. "Lock-in" is just a sunk cost, it's more about the psychology of switching than an actual problem. If they went through all the pain of figuring out AWS's XML formats then they shouldn't have any trouble with another cloud service...

Re: Conglomerates Didn’t Die, They Look Like Amazon

#14

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

tpeo wrote: post #7

>The conglomerate was supposed to be dead, a relic of a bygone of era of corporate America. That's not even close to being true. How does someone get a job on a supposedly reputable newspaper writing such daft shit? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conglomerates

The first paragraph of the article states:

Investors, we have been repeatedly told, want smaller, nimbler, more focused companies."

Who's we? If, by investors, they mean a fairly specific subset of investors, namely Venture Capitalists* and Angel Investors, then yes.

But otherwise, no. People aren't bailing out of established conglomerates. Not that I'm aware of.

Re: Conglomerates Didn’t Die, They Look Like Amazon

#15

Post by didibus »

tpeo wrote: post #7

>The conglomerate was supposed to be dead, a relic of a bygone of era of corporate America. That's not even close to being true. How does someone get a job on a supposedly reputable newspaper writing such daft shit? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conglomerates

Agreed, I'm surprised to see something of the sort on NY times. It's pure sensationalism.

Re: Conglomerates Didn’t Die, They Look Like Amazon

#17

Post by fennecfoxen »

bottled_poe wrote: post #8
noobermin wrote: post #6

While prices are low, another aim of governments should be to keep wages high enough to maintain a standard of living. I think the fear around Amazon isn't that it is going to all of a sudden raise the price of goods from Whole Foods, but that they will reverse the employee friendly aspects of the company. When prices are low but wages aren't high enough to guarantee that people can take advantage of those lower pric…

> another aim of governments should be to keep wages high enough to maintain a standard of living Disagree. The aim of government should be to enable the elimination of every single job while also enforcing a fair distribution of wealth. Wage regulation is a traditional capitalist approach to solving this problem. There are other approaches which might need to be tried in the coming decades..

Wage regulation is capitalist? Sounds pretty central-planning to me.

Re: Conglomerates Didn’t Die, They Look Like Amazon

#18

Post by arvidkahl »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #12
arvidkahl wrote: post #3

Amazon has found their way to cornering the one property that is not influenced by fashions and whims: scarcity. Both in a logistical and economical sense, they have been pushing the envelop on all corporate levels, from AWS to fresh produce. To me, most of the "new and more agile" companies are cargo-culting the optimization paradigm, focussing on time-saving and convenience as if the more basic needs were already m…

> that people are perfectly fine with Amazon being a conglomerate What is this supposed to mean? Is there supposed to be something inherently not-fine with a conglomerate? If conglomerates survive because they're better able to deliver goods and services more efficiently then great. As another comment pointed out[1], we are surrounded by conglomerates.[2] Other conglomerates that have delivered things people love inc…

In my view, people have a strong tendency to question conglomerates, as they do with most large aggregations of wealth and power. On your list, I find many names that have been criticised for their acquisition strategies (and general corporate behavior).

I meant to stress the familiarity that regular people have with small businesses in comparison to large megacorps.

Re: Conglomerates Didn’t Die, They Look Like Amazon

#19

Post by Mathnerd314 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #14
tpeo wrote: post #7

>The conglomerate was supposed to be dead, a relic of a bygone of era of corporate America. That's not even close to being true. How does someone get a job on a supposedly reputable newspaper writing such daft shit? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conglomerates

The first paragraph of the article states: Investors, we have been repeatedly told, want smaller, nimbler, more focused companies." Who's we ? If, by investors , they mean a fairly specific subset of investors, namely Venture Capitalists* and Angel Investors , then yes. But otherwise, no. People aren't bailing out of established conglomerates. Not that I'm aware of.

This guy and his friends, obviously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QiQKALBymE

Seems like a mix of investors, reporters, and CEOs.

Re: Conglomerates Didn’t Die, They Look Like Amazon

#20

Post by nitemice »

stirlo wrote: post #5

Ben Thompson has a great take on this... https://stratechery.com/2017/amazons-new-customer/ Essentially amazon develops services and buys the best customer for said services to ensure they get used.

This is a really amazing and clever idea on Amazon's part: Taking a system or technology that you've already built and are maintaining, and make it accessible to others as a platform. Then continue using that platform as if you were a/the best customer.

They did it with AWS, they've done it with their retail business, and now they're probably going to do it with AmazonFresh/WholeFoods. It makes a lot of sense, and it offers them a lot more flexibility to use the platforms they build in other ways too.

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