Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws?

inthesetimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 159 posts

Re: Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws?

#81

Post by rorykoehler »

nanoscopic wrote: post #20

Amazon has a team called "Amazon Profitability Group". I used to work for said team, albeit only briefly. The purpose of the team is to calculate the proper price to sell items for, the "discount" to vendors, and the items to put in the "buy box" in order to make the most profit for Amazon. I think the what is described here in the article is only the tip of the iceberg. Amazon isn't doing something as simplistic as…

It's a pretty interesting example of the pitfalls of ML. It's a clever and exciting use of ML and when observed in a silo is the correct thing for any company to do. The law wasn't designed for such sophisticated modelling of the domain. Screwing over small and medium businesses was never the goal, it's just an inevitable consequence. The flip side is the algorithm cannot model what happens once they screw over businesses so badly that it causes a mass migration away from Amazon (because they've not seen that data before). Fascinating to see how this plays out.

Re: Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws?

#82

Post by rorykoehler »

tyingq wrote: post #64
nanoscopic wrote: post #20

Amazon has a team called "Amazon Profitability Group". I used to work for said team, albeit only briefly. The purpose of the team is to calculate the proper price to sell items for, the "discount" to vendors, and the items to put in the "buy box" in order to make the most profit for Amazon. I think the what is described here in the article is only the tip of the iceberg. Amazon isn't doing something as simplistic as…

I do believe these sorts of "Amazon is amazingly smart" posts. But they are hard to reconcile with why Amazon keeps showing me a rice cooker ad, after I buy a rice cooker from them.

I read somewhere (can't remember exactly where) that this happens because people are most likely to buy the same item they just bought due to not being happy with their original purchase.

Re: Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws?

#83

Post by ilaksh »

I think if it's this complicated or needs internal documents then the laws need to be revised.

To me it's very obvious that Amazon has a monopoly that is harmful to retailers. It also seems straightforward that it is an undesirable situation for consumers because it puts everyone at the mercy of this monopoly. Just because it isn't obvious that they are screwing us yet doesn't mean we should let them have total control until they do.

Anyone who wants to sell online has to worry what Amazon is going to do with them.

It's as if there was a big public square in the middle of the city and some day one of the vendors bought the entire square and then started charging all of the other vendors for the privilege of using the square.

The reason they are successful I think is because people need a platform for online shopping. Websites are not that platform. What I think we need are public decentralized protocols that vendors, logistics, and applications can plug into. Similar to what Amazon is doing now, but not controlled by one company who is also a competitor.

Re: Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws?

#84

Post by brobdingnagians »

nanoscopic wrote: post #20

Amazon has a team called "Amazon Profitability Group". I used to work for said team, albeit only briefly. The purpose of the team is to calculate the proper price to sell items for, the "discount" to vendors, and the items to put in the "buy box" in order to make the most profit for Amazon. I think the what is described here in the article is only the tip of the iceberg. Amazon isn't doing something as simplistic as…

IIRC, there was a science fiction story where a supercomputer that humanity used for efficient logistics took over the world simply by changing the orders and sending things to the appropriate places. Can't remember the book, but might have been by Heinlein or Clarke... Seems like the Amazon AWS servers could do that quite nicely if they were sentient... or just had enough data.

Re: Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws?

#85

Post by rrix2 »

hbosch wrote: post #78
nanoscopic wrote: post #20

Amazon has a team called "Amazon Profitability Group". I used to work for said team, albeit only briefly. The purpose of the team is to calculate the proper price to sell items for, the "discount" to vendors, and the items to put in the "buy box" in order to make the most profit for Amazon. I think the what is described here in the article is only the tip of the iceberg. Amazon isn't doing something as simplistic as…

What is different — generally — between the way Amazon determines prices, in your example, and the way Google determines the best search results? It seems they both use massive knowledge and technology advantages to determine something that’s in the best interest of the company... In fact almost all large businesses use these types of data to maximize profits, I would assume. Is there a functional difference between…

> What is different — generally — between the way Amazon determines prices, in your example, and the way Google determines the best search results?

The fact that the US only cares about how action like this effects the price an end-consumer pays in a good

Re: Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws?

#86

Post by shagie »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #84
nanoscopic wrote: post #20

Amazon has a team called "Amazon Profitability Group". I used to work for said team, albeit only briefly. The purpose of the team is to calculate the proper price to sell items for, the "discount" to vendors, and the items to put in the "buy box" in order to make the most profit for Amazon. I think the what is described here in the article is only the tip of the iceberg. Amazon isn't doing something as simplistic as…

IIRC, there was a science fiction story where a supercomputer that humanity used for efficient logistics took over the world simply by changing the orders and sending things to the appropriate places. Can't remember the book, but might have been by Heinlein or Clarke... Seems like the Amazon AWS servers could do that quite nicely if they were sentient... or just had enough data.

I suspect you are thinking of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Though, it has been a long time since I’ve read that book.

Re: Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws?

#87

Post by ikeboy »

_4vew wrote: post #18

(Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but not in the retail, legal, or finance departments, and I have no inside information about what the company is doing with respect to its pricing. Opinions are my own and not of the company.) Yet another sensationalist headline that is unsubstantiated by the article. "This law student" has a theory . He does not have evidence -- and, in fact, much ink in the article is spilled on the…

There is, in fact, evidence that

1. Amazon occasionally sells below cost (hence existence of CRaP products)

2. Amazon has pushed some vendors to 3p

3. Amazon directly or indirectly dictates allowable 3p prices

The progression from Amazon selling at a loss to them pawning the product off to 3p sellers and taking a larger cut is reasonably argued in the source article to be harmful to consumer welfare.

Re: Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws?

#88

Post by goliatone »

lostmyoldone wrote: post #45
ajhurliman wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and then doing what the systems tell them is the most profitable." ...so, not predatory pricing then?

That doesn't follow. If predatory pricing is effective, an algorithm can be taught, or learn to, exploit it if fed with the right data. This, quite obviously, shouldn't change anything regarding the potential legality, as it's entirely self evident that a sufficiently powerful machine learning algorithm will exploit any patterns not expressly forbidden. As always, the responsibility for following the laws, and making…

“A slightly more grey area arises where, with no human involvement or instruction, a price-setting AI algorithm teaches itself to coordinate with competitors – otherwise referred to as tacit algorithmic collusion. While it is unclear the extent to which current AI technology allows for this tacit coordination, a 2018 University of Bologna study found that if two competitors both employ pricing algorithms, and each gives its software total autonomy to set prices, those two algorithms would reach collusive, price-fixing arrangements more often than not.”

[1] https://www.russellmcveagh.com/insights/march-2019/ai-and-pr...

[2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3209781

Re: Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws?

#89

Post by microcolonel »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #59
microcolonel wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> definitely not to the consumers Amazon always ships packages ahead of time, at my leisure, and often cheaper than retail. They always process returns and complaints in my favour, without contest. They reach out to local logistics companies in order to improve delivery, and I can tell by the fact that those companies now have branded vehicles (and much happier and more attentive personnel than UPS!), and better veri…

I get free shipping from Walmart.com and AliExpress, the latter of which 90% of electronics on Amazon are sourced from. Walmart offers free 2 day shipping and in-store pickup. AliExpress offers the same items on Amazon without having to give middleman their expensive cut. I don't trust Amazon not to send me fake items or cheap Chinese knockoffs. There is absolutely no quality control on Amazon's end. Amazon has the r…

> Amazon has the resources to fight fake reviews, yet fake reviews are still rampant. As a result, I cannot trust Amazon's rating system at all.

While this is true, at least the part about fake reviews being pervasive, the fact is that I don't trust any reviews on a retailer's website anymore, especially those that aren't verified purchases, and the only retail site where I trust verified purchase reviews at all (and not all of those either) is Amazon.

> I get free shipping from Walmart.com

Yes! walmart.ca is great, very prompt and simple to work with them.

> AliExpress, which 90% of electronics on Amazon are sourced from.

More like 90% of obscure commodity electronic bits and bobs. But yes, some of these rinky-dink sellers and unrecognized brands do mess up the experience a bit, but imagine ordering directly from their individual weird off the shelf fulfillment sites and hoping your credit cards don't get burned. It's not any better of an experience, and at least with Amazon you generally have recourse outside the seller.

> I don't trust Amazon not to send me fake items or cheap Chinese knockoffs

I don't trust AliExpress not to send me fake items or cheap knockoffs either, but that doesn't stop me from trying sometimes. At least with Amazon you have recourse in my experience.

Re: Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws?

#90

Post by mckenna »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #61
vidro3 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The leases don’t show up as expenses in Amazon’s free cash flow calculations, even though the equipment is listed as an asset. Article aside, how does this work?

Let's say you mortgage something, take on $250k in debt. You now have $250k in assets. Net is zero. You don't take away the debt payments from your income, since you received something from taking on the debt, and it becomes a net positive over time. It works similarly with operating leases. But the actual accounting is a tad more complicated, so here's a link: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/operatinglease.asp

Am I missing something below?

Equity = Sigma(Free-cash-flow) summed over time. In the case of AMZN, equity is about 43B. 18B of this amount is goodwill(intangible vaporware). That leaves with about 25B real equity. And surprisingly, this 25B matches with FCF over the last 2 years(2017-2018). Which essentially means, cumulative FCF until 2017 was indeed 0. Numbers do seem to support the claim that AMZN was running on 0(averaged over time) FCF. Showing 1B in one quarter, -1B in another. But overall 0.

Whether 0 cumulative FCF means predatory pricing is a different question altogether. I'm not so sure about that. How would visionaries build big things, that need, and money? If AMZN loses it and acts monopolistic, I think people will respond by migrating en-masse. No one likes too much inequality. Jeff should do something about that image.

Post reply on HN