Earlier quoted context omitted.
>somebody will try to derail the discussion Pointing out competitors to a supposed monopoly is not derailing the conversation. It is the conversation.
Amazon is probably not a monopoly in the advertising market, but Alphabet doesn't run an online store.
Amazon Is a Monopoly
31–40 of 348 posts
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#32For 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.
>Chromebook does the same thing without consequences
It's not the same at all. Microsoft were forced to unbundle IE from Windows because they were using their market dominance in one area (operating systems) to give themselves an artificial advantage in another area (web browsers). This bundling shielded IE from competition and squeezed other players out of the web browser market. Apple are within their rights to bundle Safari with MacOS, because MacOS only has a minority market share; same goes for ChromeOS. You can't be sanctioned for exploiting a dominant market position if you don't have a dominant market position.
https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/273591/eu_microsoft...
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#33How 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 agree that Amazon engages in anticompetitive behaviour but I'm not sure that it can control prices or exclude competition to that extent? Has Amazon come up with a way to dominate markets without controlling prices or excluding competition? Right at this moment, my answer is, "maybe?"
The classical theory has been that it doesn't matter if you dominate the market if you don't cause some harm (i.e., actively exclude competition or raise prices) as a result.
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#34For 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.
It is not as simple as you make it out to be.
United States v. Microsoft Corporation, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001),[1] was a noted American antitrust law case in which the U.S. government accused Microsoft of illegally maintaining its monopoly position in the PC market primarily through the legal and technical restrictions it put on the abilities of PC manufacturers (OEMs) and users to uninstall Internet Explorer and use other programs such as Netscape and Java [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that Amazon engages in anticompetitive behaviour but I'm not sure that it can control prices or exclude competition to that extent? Has Amazon come up with a way to dominate markets without controlling prices or excluding competition? Right at this moment, my answer is, "maybe?"
The classical theory has been that it doesn't matter if you dominate the market if you don't cause some harm (i.e., actively exclude competition or raise prices) as a result.
That’s actually a newer theory dating back to Robert Bork’s 1978 book The Antitrust Paradox. It is not at all clear that consumer welfare was a goal of the Sherman Act.
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Chromebook doesn't have the market share that Windows had in the 90s. In the context of antitrust cases, market share matters. Also note that Google's market share in search isn't relevant. Chromebook's market share in OSes is what matters for this particular case.
But Google has a way bigger search market share than Microsoft had browser market share at the time. And Google leverages Chrome to build and maintain search market dominance by making Google the default search engine on Chrome. Microsoft wasn’t doing that with IE. It’s not like Microsoft was stopping Netscape on Windows. All things considered, Google is showing more signs of being a monopoly than Microsoft was at the time.
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#37As governments seem slow to action, would coordinating consumers shopping help combat the monopoly power of some industry? For example, having an app that notifies you to try and buy from a competitor like walmart for a few days to pressure amazon into bargaining?
Wouldn’t that kind of behavior make a company seem less like a monopoly, and extend the time to government intervention?
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If they are reducing competition, they are hurting consumers. 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 qual…
"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."
Those are the three things Amazon has done amazing at (lower prices, better customer service, new ways of doing things). Isn't that a paradox? You take the stance that only competition can breed this but in this case Amazon has done those things while still reducing competition. In fact, it is helping consumers that has led to people buying things on Amazon and it getting this big. Not the other way around.
Is it that people are afraid that at some point Amazon might stop doing these things? I agree that if what amazon is doing has lead to higher prices, worse customer service, and stagnant methods of doing things that would be bad. But thats not whats happening here.
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It is not as simple as you make it out to be. United States v. Microsoft Corporation, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001),[1] was a noted American antitrust law case in which the U.S. government accused Microsoft of illegally maintaining its monopoly position in the PC market primarily through the legal and technical restrictions it put on the abilities of PC manufacturers (OEMs) and users to uninstall Internet Explorer and…
“The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Windows operating system. Bundling them is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft's victory in the browser wars as every Windows user had a copy of IE. It was further alleged that this restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera), since it typically took a while to download or purchase such software at a store.”
How is different than what Chromebook does? Or what Google does bundling Google search with Chrome as the default search engine?
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that Amazon engages in anticompetitive behaviour but I'm not sure that it can control prices or exclude competition to that extent? Has Amazon come up with a way to dominate markets without controlling prices or excluding competition? Right at this moment, my answer is, "maybe?"
The classical theory has been that it doesn't matter if you dominate the market if you don't cause some harm (i.e., actively exclude competition or raise prices) as a result.
Likewise, if you cause harm, it doesn't matter if you technically dominate the market. The key word is trust, not monopoly.
Cartels are also bad for markets, but aren't monopolies either. Monopolies have become a deprecated technology, but vertical integration lives on in new ways that resemble a feudal system more than a single empire. The economy as a whole has gotten so big that there is room for more than a single player at the top, and so we get cartel-like behavior between the largest players instead of full-blown monopolies. Each of them is large enough that they can ignore unrest from their customer base, and as a result they have more incentive to cooperate than to compete. The difference between Microsoft and Apple isn't the quality of their product anymore, it's a brand of tribal identity.
As abusive, anti-competitive practices continue to be improved on, we should not be constrained by outdated theories that only focus on 19th and 20th century phenomena.