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And what about Alphabet?
They all suck. Stop trying to use one to justify another.
How we actually define a company to be a monopoly seems to be somewhat arbitrary? I agree that Amazon engages in anticompetitive behaviour but I'm not sure that it can control prices or exclude competition to that extent? I mean every company can affect that, at what point does it become problematic?
Wikipedia has a long but layman-accessible section on Europe's competition laws: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Law
How we actually define a company to be a monopoly seems to be somewhat arbitrary? I agree that Amazon engages in anticompetitive behaviour but I'm not sure that it can control prices or exclude competition to that extent? I mean every company can affect that, at what point does it become problematic?
I think we should call it hypercompetitive instead of anticompetitive.
For clarification: Monopolies can result from anti-competitive practices, or an overwhelming competitive advantage. Talking about the latter here The 'anti-trust' and 'monopoly' arguments strike me as hypocritical and self-contradictory in the context of capitalism. We encourage businesses to compete and succeed, yet when they do so disproportionally, everyone suddenly feels entitled to intervene in their structure,…
I remember reading about an anti-trust case against Microsoft in the 90s since they included Microsoft Explorer with the OS. They were forced to separate the two, but Chromebook does the same thing without consequences. The rules for Antitrust keep changing and companies are integrating vertically and horizontally quickly before the law catches up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we should call it hypercompetitive instead of anticompetitive.
Why is that a more appropriate term for behaviors that reduce competition?
Amazon got this big because no one wanted to be as customer obsessed as Amazon. Not because they stifled competition.
If eBay, UPS, Walmart, Rackspace, Oracle and Dropbox (post Hellosign acquisition) merged -- you would have a near approximation of the market impact of Amazon. If it's not a monopoly then it's something worse.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is that a more appropriate term for behaviors that reduce competition?
In your opinion why are behaviors that reduce competition bad? If the answer is it harms consumers... Amazon isn't hurting consumers so you should be okay with it? Amazon got this big because no one wanted to be as customer obsessed as Amazon. Not because they stifled competition.
Competition breeds innovation - lower prices, better customer service, new ways of doing things... none of those things happen without competition, because there is no incentive to improve.
Look at Comcast / AT&T regional monopolies, which started out promising lower prices until they cornered markets then started raising prices while lowering service quality... or, even before that, Bell Labs suppressed inventions like early hard drives out of fear it would hurt their telephone monopoly.
And what about Alphabet?
And what about Alphabet?
All of these companies (Amazon, Alphabet/Google, Facebook, etc) are very fortunate that the others exist because every single goddamn time anybody criticizes one, somebody will try to derail the discussion with "well what about [one of the others]?" They all suck. Stop trying to use one to justify another.
Pointing out competitors to a supposed monopoly is not derailing the conversation. It is the conversation.