Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing • Hacker News Board

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#81

Post by Retric » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #69

olliej wrote: post #43

It’s always weird to me when this kind of things is treated as bad news: they haven’t said they’re shrinking, literally that they aren’t growing as fast . I mean I don’t particularly like amazon but this kind of reporting irks me.

Capitalism demands neverending growth, despite loads of limitations that make that physically impossible. Marx already recognized this, but 150 years later we're still pretending this is not the case.

Capitalism does not require growth. Many markets are stagnant or even shrink as technology evolves. Capitalism incurages growth, but does not require it.

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#82

Post by elcomet » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:26 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #81

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism demands neverending growth, despite loads of limitations that make that physically impossible. Marx already recognized this, but 150 years later we're still pretending this is not the case.

Capitalism does not require growth. Many markets are stagnant or even shrink as technology evolves. Capitalism incurages growth, but does not require it.

Do you have some reference on this ? I'd love to read more about it.

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#83

Post by superhuzza » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

benjaminwootton wrote: post #44

randomacct3847 wrote: post #36

Shopping on Amazon has become like shopping on Canal Street in NYC (e.g. street lined with shops selling counterfeit goods). You never know what you’re going to get.

I honestly think this is overblown on HN. We must have placed more than 100 orders a year as a family for approaching a decade, and I don’t think we’ve ever had a counterfeit. Not sure if it’s different in the UK.

Definitely not overblown. I personally know people who have ordered sports equipment from Amazon and found it be fake. Extremely dangerous because some of it was climbing equipment. Luckily they were wary of the Amazon goods, got refunded and went to the MEC instead.

"Firstly, Amazon commingles fake and genuine goods in their warehouses. Here’s what happens: You buy a real Arc’teryx jacket, paying the full price, from an approved Arc’teryx retailer selling on Amazon, but you get shipped a substandard copy. This occurs because, in the warehouse, the “same” items have identical internal reference codes independent of the retailer."

https://www.climbing.com/gear/counterfeited-how-illegal-knoc...

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#84

Post by cs702 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

Amazon is doing great... but its stock price now seems much riskier.

This is because many self-professed "growth investors" head for the exits, swiftly and silently, the moment they get a whiff that growth is slowing down.

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#85

Post by iambateman » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

I wonder if Amazon’s days as the de facto online retailing site are numbered.

For nearly everything I buy on Amazon now, I wonder: “is this real? Are these reviews real? Will it break in 10 minutes?”

Obviously, Amazon is doing just fine, and we are a long way from my parents asking those same questions, and they have tons of businesses beside retail. So yes, they’ll be ok.

But I think they’ve left the door open for competition with their approach to third party sellers.

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#86

Post by 52-6F-62 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:44 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #64

randomacct3847 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is definitely not overblown. Easy to do simple searches on Amazon and compare to a site that doesn’t rely on 3rd party sellers like Best Buy. If you searched “wireless headphones” the top results are all knock off airpods and other suspect cheap Chinese made electronics with thousands of likely fake reviews. It’s a joke

> If you searched “wireless headphones” the top results are all knock off airpods and other suspect cheap Chinese made electronics with thousands of likely fake reviews. But isn't it a feature of all on-line shopping? If you type a generic query like this, you'll always get generic garbage as results. If you want to buy quality items, you search directly for those items - by their exact name or SKU. E-commerce storef…

> E-commerce storefronts are not useful for product discovery.

Probably a notable paradigm. E-commerce storefronts aren't so much for shopping as they are purchasing. There's definitely a bit of a difference.

(That said I've actually had some luck on Amazon being able to get some lotion I liked from Hawaii here in Toronto and finding a deodorant I actually like. The former is an example of "purchasing", the latter "shopping".)

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#87

Post by Innominate » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:46 PM UTC

iambateman wrote: post #85

I wonder if Amazon’s days as the de facto online retailing site are numbered. For nearly everything I buy on Amazon now, I wonder: “is this real? Are these reviews real? Will it break in 10 minutes?” Obviously, Amazon is doing just fine, and we are a long way from my parents asking those same questions, and they have tons of businesses beside retail. So yes, they’ll be ok. But I think they’ve left the door open for c…

This is my concern as well. They're becoming victims of their own success with knockoffs and scammers increasingly gaming the system. Everything from knockoffs piggybacking on real listings, to entire lines of products being dominated by no-name Chinese companies throwing armies of shills at the reviews.

Amazon figuring out how to deal with the problem is critical for their future.

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#88

Post by krapp » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:48 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #81

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism demands neverending growth, despite loads of limitations that make that physically impossible. Marx already recognized this, but 150 years later we're still pretending this is not the case.

Capitalism does not require growth. Many markets are stagnant or even shrink as technology evolves. Capitalism incurages growth, but does not require it.

It doesn't require growth, but anything other than growth is seen as a weakness.

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#89

Post by my_username_is_ » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:52 PM UTC

Innominate wrote: post #87

iambateman wrote: post #85

I wonder if Amazon’s days as the de facto online retailing site are numbered. For nearly everything I buy on Amazon now, I wonder: “is this real? Are these reviews real? Will it break in 10 minutes?” Obviously, Amazon is doing just fine, and we are a long way from my parents asking those same questions, and they have tons of businesses beside retail. So yes, they’ll be ok. But I think they’ve left the door open for c…

This is my concern as well. They're becoming victims of their own success with knockoffs and scammers increasingly gaming the system. Everything from knockoffs piggybacking on real listings, to entire lines of products being dominated by no-name Chinese companies throwing armies of shills at the reviews. Amazon figuring out how to deal with the problem is critical for their future.

They've had a long time to figure that out. It's been an issue for a while. They've just neglected to do anything about it.

It doesn't take a genius to look at all the reviews that some products have and realize that they're fake

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#90

Post by Nasrudith » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:52 PM UTC

olliej wrote: post #43

It’s always weird to me when this kind of things is treated as bad news: they haven’t said they’re shrinking, literally that they aren’t growing as fast . I mean I don’t particularly like amazon but this kind of reporting irks me.

It reflects general unreasonableness of expectations and trying to have it both ways.

Giants like Amazon have a lot more inertia than a small business. That means they won't experience even 25% quarterly growth but wouldn't see a complete loss of assets and would probably take decades to die even with a complete idiot or active saboteur in charge.

As opposed to say a one man lawn service that can lose everything if the loaded truck was hit by a tractor trailer.