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Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

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Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#61

Post by chii »

dhruvrrp wrote: post #53

I don't think Amazon even needs experiments like this to increase its dominance. Take the apartment complex i live in as an example, last year there was a marked increase in package thefts that the residents started complaining. The management came up with a few solutions that all got shot down, cameras were a straight no from most people because of privacy implications, increasing rounds by the security was also sho…

> on-site Amazon lockers.

why not general lockers that all deliveries could be put in? The pin could be given as instructions to the deliverer.

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#62

Post by chii »

siliconc0w wrote: post #38

It seems the premise of every rental or subscription service is that you will send them more money, on average, than if you purchased the items a la cart (on average). I'm basically betting against a company with way more time, data, and expertise which seems like a fools agreement. The flip side of this coin is that I get free stuff subsidized by investors in hopes that eventually they get big enough or kill enough…

> you will send them more money, on average, than if you purchased the items a la cart (on average)

a properly functioning rental mechanism should produce a maximum utiliztion of the object being rented. The savings to the consumer ought to come from the fact that an object you purchase isn't 100% utilized at all times, but the rental mechanism could make this the case, and therefore, produce a savings for the renter (you don't pay for under-utilization like you would for purchasing).

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#63

Post by chii »

kevindong wrote: post #14

With the right circumstances, I would actually accept such a deal. Those circumstances would have to include clauses such as: 1. reasonably low purchasing quotas (i.e. well under a few hundred dollars per month) 2. reasonably substantial rent discounts 3. Amazon maintains its competitive pricing 4. the "subsidized" rent has to be meaningfully cheaper than a comparable "unsubsidized" competitor while maintaining subst…

in the short term, amazon may be willing to make a loss to acquire customers.

But in the longer term, the rental discount has to at least be balanced by the extra profit from the sales quota. If amazon then turn a dial to increase sales quota (or decrease the discount), they then stand to make significant profit on the captive customer (who may no longer have an option to move away at the same low cost).

I think this type of deal is anti-competitive, and should be prohibited under monopoly laws (i.e., using dominance in one market to leverage another market).

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#64

Post by orbifold »

dhruvrrp wrote: post #53

I don't think Amazon even needs experiments like this to increase its dominance. Take the apartment complex i live in as an example, last year there was a marked increase in package thefts that the residents started complaining. The management came up with a few solutions that all got shot down, cameras were a straight no from most people because of privacy implications, increasing rounds by the security was also sho…

Here in Germany DHL has their own lockers, so any delivery by them is secured.

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#65

Post by option_greek »

zwkrt wrote: post #12
geofft wrote: post #3

Thought experiment (I don't actually want to go down this road): can you out-market Amazon in this scenario? If you have a $400 committed spend for a $500 rent discount, can you find people who would buy things from Amazon anyway and offer to make purchases on their behalf at a 1% discount (which is, on paper, obviously rational for them), such that you're now getting back $396 of the $400? Now you're spending a mere…

A more wild and outlandish thought experiment: would you become infinitely indebted for infinite reward? Imagining some cyberpunk wasteland where every commodity, pastime, medication, and media content is wildly expensive but offset by huge subsidies from complicated conglomeration of other corporations and government entities. Every action you take in your life adds wild positives and negatives to a fantastically co…

It's already there. Known as medicare currently :)

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#66

Post by thatoneuser »

zwkrt wrote: post #12
geofft wrote: post #3

Thought experiment (I don't actually want to go down this road): can you out-market Amazon in this scenario? If you have a $400 committed spend for a $500 rent discount, can you find people who would buy things from Amazon anyway and offer to make purchases on their behalf at a 1% discount (which is, on paper, obviously rational for them), such that you're now getting back $396 of the $400? Now you're spending a mere…

A more wild and outlandish thought experiment: would you become infinitely indebted for infinite reward? Imagining some cyberpunk wasteland where every commodity, pastime, medication, and media content is wildly expensive but offset by huge subsidies from complicated conglomeration of other corporations and government entities. Every action you take in your life adds wild positives and negatives to a fantastically co…

I'm way too high for this

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#69

Post by otakucode »

geofft wrote: post #21
zwkrt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more wild and outlandish thought experiment: would you become infinitely indebted for infinite reward? Imagining some cyberpunk wasteland where every commodity, pastime, medication, and media content is wildly expensive but offset by huge subsidies from complicated conglomeration of other corporations and government entities. Every action you take in your life adds wild positives and negatives to a fantastically co…

Are they fungible? Do secondary markets exist? The whole promise of money is that you can just add and subtract the value of all those things to get a number in a reasonable range. With money you can meaningfully compare "a pound of gold" and "two pounds of silver," and you can settle a debt you owe Alice via a debt Bob owes you instead of keeping both imbalances forever. Maybe this is me being broken by working in f…

In the future which is rapidly closing in, everything is a "license." You own nothing. Nothing is transferrable or resellable by you. Things will feel like you own them, but you will not. Despite all the marketing and advertising telling you that you are "buying" something, you will actually only be able to secure a license to possess and use it. These licenses will restrict how you use the thing, and circumventing them will result in federal charges of violating the DMCA. These licenses will also not obligate the seller to anything whatsoever and be voidable at any time with no notice for any or no reason. This is already the case with most peoples 'ownership' of most media, and it is already spreading into other products. Farmers have had to fight John Deere for the right to repair their own tractors (they won temporary special exemptions which can only exist for 3 years at a time and have to be re-fought-for every 3 years) but still can't prevent their own tractors from reporting soil data back to John Deere which the company then sells to Monsanto and other companies.

None of the things you 'buy' will be fungible because they will all be discrete licenses locked to you personally and have no actual 'value.'

Re: Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?

#70

Post by mtgx »

TheRealSteel wrote: post #2

No. And I would expect anti monopoly laws legislation to outlaw this in any halfway civilised country (altho I wouldn't hold out much hope for America). "The toaster oven will only accept certain co-branded bread and other marked-up food products: any attempts to cook other food will throw an error message; “Unauthorized Bread.”" Barely fiction: Keurig, Juicero.

When companies have too much money that they start going wildly outside of their core market and product this is how you know they are a monopoly.

In an ideal market their competition in the core market should keep them focused on that market and striving to offer increasingly better value and quality for their core product, not chasing wild gooses with all the billions they got from their monopoly.

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