Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?
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Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?
1–10 of 126 posts
Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?
#2The problem with these new giants is that people really want them around. People don't care so much that their neighbors are going out of business; they just want their crap cheap and as soon as possible. The current legislative environment is entirely ill-equipped to deal with these companies, and moreover, no one even knows how to deal with them. What is clear, though, is that the proliferation of supercompanies like Amazon is repugnant to the ideals of the free market and must be stopped.
Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?
#3The problem with these new giants is that people really want them around. People don't care so much that their neighbors are going out of business; they just want their crap cheap and as soon as possible. The current legislative environment is entirely ill-equipped to deal with these companies, and moreover, no one even knows how to deal with them. What is clear, though, is that the proliferation of supercompanies li…
I have a lot of sympathy for this argument, but I don't think it's fleshed out enough. What happens to this argument if you do s/Amazon/Walmart/? I would generally hold Amazon is better than Walmart due to the relative decentralization of Amazon's sources (third parties can easily sell on Amazon, but not at Walmart). Your argument says Walmart is also unstoppable, at least without further tweaks --- and yet, we figured out how to solve the Walmart problem. Walmart is struggling --- a nimbler, more convenient competitor came along, and society also has a greater appreciation for specialty stores now. Will that happen to amazon too?
Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?
#4The problem with these new giants is that people really want them around. People don't care so much that their neighbors are going out of business; they just want their crap cheap and as soon as possible. The current legislative environment is entirely ill-equipped to deal with these companies, and moreover, no one even knows how to deal with them. What is clear, though, is that the proliferation of supercompanies li…
What exactly is repugnant?
Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?
#5The problem with these new giants is that people really want them around. People don't care so much that their neighbors are going out of business; they just want their crap cheap and as soon as possible. The current legislative environment is entirely ill-equipped to deal with these companies, and moreover, no one even knows how to deal with them. What is clear, though, is that the proliferation of supercompanies li…
The current legislative environment is entirely ill-equipped to deal with these companies, and moreover, no one even knows how to deal with them.
The former may be true; not sure about the latter. Existing anti-trust law could be sufficient to deal with them, if the powers that be had the will to use it.
Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?
#6Apple iPhone seems to be doing quite well relative to Amazon’s Fire Phone. Also, Azure is doing surprisingly well relative to AWS despite a late start. Wouldn’t surprise me if Azure exceeded AWS in the near future.
Amazon’s weaknesses are in the first case high-end design And in the second enterprise.
Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?
#7The problem with these new giants is that people really want them around. People don't care so much that their neighbors are going out of business; they just want their crap cheap and as soon as possible. The current legislative environment is entirely ill-equipped to deal with these companies, and moreover, no one even knows how to deal with them. What is clear, though, is that the proliferation of supercompanies li…
I have a lot of sympathy for this argument, but I don't think it's fleshed out enough. What happens to this argument if you do s/Amazon/Walmart/? I would generally hold Amazon is better than Walmart due to the relative decentralization of Amazon's sources (third parties can easily sell on Amazon, but not at Walmart). Your argument says Walmart is also unstoppable, at least without further tweaks --- and yet, we figur…
I think that is part of why Amazon is so eager to automate all they can, because any newcomer will have to pay actual people, and won’t have the ability to invest in robotics.
Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?
#8Apple iPhone seems to be doing quite well relative to Amazon’s Fire Phone. Also, Azure is doing surprisingly well relative to AWS despite a late start. Wouldn’t surprise me if Azure exceeded AWS in the near future. Amazon’s weaknesses are in the first case high-end design And in the second enterprise.
> Amazon’s weaknesses are in the first case high-end design
Just design generally, including their website ... anecdotally, so many people I know don't really know that Amazon Prime Video exists, or if it does exist how to find it. Likewise for Music.
Apple has this discoverability problem too (Apple Music doesn't have a web UI, it might as well not exist if you can't install iTunes, and then Apple wonders why its social features don't take off).
For its devices, Amazon also seems to share Google's general obliviousness, e.g. they just announced an alarm clock with a camera. Who wants a camera pointed at their bed all night? Their Fire Phone pioneered this over-expensive faux-3D UI, which on paper sounds great, but anybody could have said they weren't going to get the development support they needed to really sell it, and most users aren't going to care. Design is more than just veneer, you've got to make stuff that people want... Amazon's current approach seems to be "well if we just sell it cheap enough, we'll get customers."
Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?
#9The problem with these new giants is that people really want them around. People don't care so much that their neighbors are going out of business; they just want their crap cheap and as soon as possible. The current legislative environment is entirely ill-equipped to deal with these companies, and moreover, no one even knows how to deal with them. What is clear, though, is that the proliferation of supercompanies li…
To which ideals is Amazon's success "repugnant"? It seems to me that Amazon is facilitating demand much better than its competitors, which means, according to the rules of the free market, it should win. Or am I misunderstanding?
Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?
#10I don’t think that the world can quite fathom how dangerous Amazon actually is to virtually every industry.
When it comes to purveyors of physical goods, Amazon has the power to reshape the fabric of our streets and neighborhoods in ways few people can fathom. Say goodbye to grocery stores and ground floor retail if they get their way. They are just smart enough to do it slowly enough where they don’t have any jarring sudden impact.
In tech, Amazon has tremendous power to put anyone they want out of business. AWS puts them in the enviable position of understanding all sorts of intimate details of everyone else’s business models. Again, they are too smart to do it too quickly.
It pains me that my generation, a generation of people who dream of being makers and business owners, don’t see the irony of the convenience of having toilet paper delivered and lower prices at Whole Foods for what they really are - a trick and a trap that strengthens a company that can and will have a real tangible negative impact on everyone’s employment and business prospects in the future if hasn’t already.