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Is Amazon Violating U.S. Antitrust Laws?

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

#121

Post by lvs »

_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…

You're clearly engineering on how to evade antitrust law. But the better argument is simply that if antitrust law doesn't sufficiently cover Amazon's business, then it needs to be changed to ensure that it does.

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

#122

Post by MRD85 »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #109
cryptonector wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but if you buy a rice cooker, maybe the ads to show you are for: rice, cookbooks (featuring lots of rice?), pressure cookers, cast iron pans, sous vide recirculators, and so on. I mean, you have a rice cooker, you won't want another, but chances are you'd buy other things you don't already have.

Its funny you should use that example. I recently bought a rice cooker, and then bought another a few weeks later. I've done similar things a lot, in this case it was because the first cooker had too large a minimum cooking amount. I'm currently looking at buying my mother google WiFi - which I bought a few weeks ago. And a few months back I rebought a tool I had just purchased because I lost it. I currently work for…

You said you work for adtech, I'd just like to comment that I personally like targetted ads. Areas of my life have improved from targetted ads, I'm shown things I didn't even know I want until I've seen them, etc. I look at it as a positive.

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

#123

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#124

Post by amelius »

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 it that enables companies to seek the boundary of what is allowed by law, whereas when humans do it they are called assholes?

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

#125

Post by ionised »

amelius wrote: post #124
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 it that enables companies to seek the boundary of what is allowed by law, whereas when humans do it they are called assholes?

Greed has become something we celebrate instead of condemn.

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

#126

Post by 0815test »

int_19h wrote: post #47
0815test wrote: post #23

Economically speaking, the question should boil down to "is Amazon operating in a contestable market, and/or are they engaging in abusive behavior to raise barriers to entry in the market, lowering its contestability". The notion of predatory pricing per se , in contrast, is not really well-defined. Is there some inherent reason why the suppliers and wholesalers who are supposedly being harmed by this monopoly could…

It should , but the "consumer welfare standard" explicitly repudiates such approach. In US, a company can be a complete monopoly, wiping out all competition, and still not cross the line for anti-trust purposes. This is actually kinda ironic, given that US is generally considered to be more on the side of the spectrum that strongly believes in the "invisible hand of the market" - and so it would make more sense for a…

> ...In US, a company can be a complete monopoly, wiping out all competition, and still not cross the line for anti-trust purposes.

That's actually allowed by the contestable-market framing, at least in some cases. It all depends what you mean by "a complete monopoly" and "wiping out" competition - does it happen via some "natural" cost advantages, or has the company been building up an abusive "moat" around their position. Though even in the former case, economic theory implies that forcing a break-up of the firm that isolates the "naturally dominating" part of its business, and then subjecting that to appropriate regulation and market-openness requirements, can be a highly efficient approach and lead to improved consumer welfare.

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

#127

Post by Fnoord »

amelius wrote: post #124
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 it that enables companies to seek the boundary of what is allowed by law, whereas when humans do it they are called assholes?

Because corporations are publicly owned. They're treated like humans in many ways, yet when it comes to responsibility they're protected by a facade of faceless leaders and shareholders.

The 2003 documentary "The Corporation" covers this subject in detail: "Documentary that looks at the concept of the corporation throughout recent history up to its present-day dominance." [1]

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/

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

#128

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

amelius wrote: post #124
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 it that enables companies to seek the boundary of what is allowed by law, whereas when humans do it they are called assholes?

The two are not mutually exclusive.

The general consensus around these parts seems to be that Amazon is a dog of a company.

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

#129

Post by Normal_gaussian »

MRD85 wrote: post #122
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its funny you should use that example. I recently bought a rice cooker, and then bought another a few weeks later. I've done similar things a lot, in this case it was because the first cooker had too large a minimum cooking amount. I'm currently looking at buying my mother google WiFi - which I bought a few weeks ago. And a few months back I rebought a tool I had just purchased because I lost it. I currently work for…

You said you work for adtech, I'd just like to comment that I personally like targetted ads. Areas of my life have improved from targetted ads, I'm shown things I didn't even know I want until I've seen them, etc. I look at it as a positive.

Its an interesting one. I've made some pretty active choices about jobs for ethical reasons but ended up in a slight geographical bind in my last search. I found my current company through a friend (who works in another department) and was very skeptical. After not finding anything bad I decided to go with it for a few months, but had a resignation letter ready in my car. I'm now over a year in and despite the normal problems businesses have there is not a moral one here - and I've had pretty great insight into the decision making.

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

#130

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

goliatone wrote: post #88
lostmyoldone wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gi…

> no human involvement

How does it come about that that is that a concept?

Does the thought go something like: "We neglected to instruct the algorithm not to collude, and failed to monitor outcomes for collusion, therefore we're not responsible?"

> and each gives its software total autonomy to set prices

Ah, yep.

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