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Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS

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Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS

#151

If libertarians don't realize that the system they're advocating for is essentially corporate feudalism, they're suckers. I'd rather have a powerful government accountable to voters than a powerful corporate oligarchy that is only accountable to shareholders.

Except you're imagining power in entirely the wrong place. It is the consumers who hold all the power within a free economy. Corporations only become large and profitable in a free economy when they meet the ever increasing demands of the consumers. To quote Ludwig von Mises:

The real bosses, in the capitalist system of market economy, are the consumers. They, by their buying and by their abstention from buying, decide who should own the capital and run the plants. They determine what should be produced and in what quantity and quality. Their attitudes result either in profit or in loss for the enterpriser. They make poor men rich and rich men poor.

The consumers are merciless. They never buy in order to benefit a less efficient producer and to protect him against the consequences of his failure to manage better. They want to be served as well as possible. And the working of the capitalist system forces the entrepreneur to obey the orders issued by the consumers.

The consumers are no easy bosses. They are full of whims and fancies, changeable and unpredictable. They do not care a whit for past merit. As soon as something is offered to them that they like better or that is cheaper, they desert their old purveyors. With them nothing counts more than their own satisfaction. They bother neither about the vested interests of capitalists nor about the fate of the workers who lose their jobs if as consumers they no longer buy what they used to buy.

Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS

#152
post #137

This is... Not the best? That Wal-Mart is powerful enough to dictate the internal business practice and tech decisions of it's vendor. On the other hand, Amazon is a massive immoral monster devouring the US economy and replacing it with something vaguely worse, year by year. It's rapidly approaching a "too big to be allowed to fail" status, and that's awful for Americans. Since anti-trust laws weren't written by a ge…

I think concerns about Amazon becoming a monopoly are greatly exaggerated. They are getting attacked from all sides, by Microsoft in the cloud and Wal-Mart in ecommerce. As Microsoft grabs share from them in web services it'll reduce Amazon's ability to cross-subsidize its ecommerce business. As Wal-Mart and Costco continue to catch up in ecommerce and free two-day shipping becomes table stakes in ecommerce, Amazon's…

where is that pressure represented in this chart? AWS total revenue is less than a year's growth. Wal-Mart showing signs of desperation does not imply amazon's defeat.

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56abe654c08a80431d8...

Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS

#153
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That Wal-Mart is powerful enough to dictate the internal business practice and tech decisions of it's vendor. Wal-Mart is pretty infamous for squeezing suppliers & vendors on price and operating procedures. Hard.

"It also is not unheard of for Wal-Mart to demand to examine the private financial records of a supplier, and to insist that its margins are too high and must be cut." https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know

Good grace, these "business practices" are nasty. Thanks for the read.

Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS

#154

This is... Not the best? That Wal-Mart is powerful enough to dictate the internal business practice and tech decisions of it's vendor. On the other hand, Amazon is a massive immoral monster devouring the US economy and replacing it with something vaguely worse, year by year. It's rapidly approaching a "too big to be allowed to fail" status, and that's awful for Americans. Since anti-trust laws weren't written by a ge…

That second paragraph I have read in almost the same form about Wal-mart in the past.

Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS

#155

If libertarians don't realize that the system they're advocating for is essentially corporate feudalism, they're suckers. I'd rather have a powerful government accountable to voters than a powerful corporate oligarchy that is only accountable to shareholders.

If libertarians don't realize that the system they're advocating for is essentially corporate feudalism, they're suckers

In a purely Libertarian world, there wouldn't be any corporations, since corporations are a legal fiction that depend on the State for their existence.

Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS

#156

This is... Not the best? That Wal-Mart is powerful enough to dictate the internal business practice and tech decisions of it's vendor. On the other hand, Amazon is a massive immoral monster devouring the US economy and replacing it with something vaguely worse, year by year. It's rapidly approaching a "too big to be allowed to fail" status, and that's awful for Americans. Since anti-trust laws weren't written by a ge…

This kind of hyperbole is absolutely and demonstrably absurd. What a disgrace that this is the top comment.

Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS

#157
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of conglomerates being broken up, as long as they didn't have too much share of any single market. Amazon may end up like Uber: forcing competitors to upgrade their technology, but not succeeding in stamping the competitors out entirely.

> I've never heard of conglomerates being broken up, as long as they didn't have too much share of any single market. Maybe that should change. But... even if we take it at face value... Name a company in the world that is competing at scale and cost with AWS. In the US, Amazon is definitely nowhere near suffering a loss of customers from Google and Microsoft's offerings. and they're securing massive contracts with k…

There are more than two competitors to AWS when you look at "cloud" in the broader sense. First, of the "major", in addition to Microsoft and Google, you have IBM. There is also Red Hat.

And beyond that, in terms of "simple VPS's" there are a TON of competitors and some of them are already starting to move "up the stack" by adding new features and services like object storage.

That's not to say that AWS isn't fairly dominant at the moment, but there is enough competition to keep them honest. See, for example, how they've had to continue to lower prices on a regular basis.

Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS

#158

If libertarians don't realize that the system they're advocating for is essentially corporate feudalism, they're suckers. I'd rather have a powerful government accountable to voters than a powerful corporate oligarchy that is only accountable to shareholders.

If libertarians don't realize that the system they're advocating for is essentially corporate feudalism, they're suckers In a purely Libertarian world, there wouldn't be any corporations, since corporations are a legal fiction that depend on the State for their existence.

...

Then what, in that world, do you call the artifice by which humans cooperate to sell other humans the the services the non-existent state isn't providing?

Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS

#160
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of conglomerates being broken up, as long as they didn't have too much share of any single market. Amazon may end up like Uber: forcing competitors to upgrade their technology, but not succeeding in stamping the competitors out entirely.

> I've never heard of conglomerates being broken up, as long as they didn't have too much share of any single market. Maybe that should change. But... even if we take it at face value... Name a company in the world that is competing at scale and cost with AWS. In the US, Amazon is definitely nowhere near suffering a loss of customers from Google and Microsoft's offerings. and they're securing massive contracts with k…

Name a company in the world that is competing at scale and cost with AWS.

Azure has more locations, and is better than AWS is several areas.

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