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Amazon Is a Monopoly

marketplacepulse.com

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101–110 of 348 posts

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#101

Post by bduerst »

jdietrich wrote: post #52
theturtletalks wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so dominating the market is an important factor for anti-trust litigation. Google is dominating the search market and used this to push Chrome (searching from the url address bar was one of the main reasons people switched). Is that not the same as what Microsoft did? Now they dominate both markets and leveraged both to grow the other.

Google were sanctioned in 2017 for exploiting their dominance in the search market to promote their other services. https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/27/15872354/google-eu-fine-a...

This is the EU, and a failure of technically understanding how internet search works. The google shopping carousel is basically search ads with pictures. Every listing is paid to be there, and is even set up in the same place that you set up Google search ads.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#102

Post by anonuser123456 »

tj-teej wrote: post #87
lisper wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a huge Uber fan, but in their case at least I don't think you're being entirely fair. My home airport is SFO. The official taxis there have an extremely annoying pricing policy: if your destination is more than 20 miles form the airport they add a $50 surcharge to the cost of your trip. (I live 25 miles away.) And you can't summon a cab with an app. If you're at the airport they are very convenient. If you ar…

Serious question: once the taxi industry has died what makes you believe that Uber won't implement similar policies?

Lyft?

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#103

Post by themagician »

indopedia wrote: post #45

She forgets that the Amazon marketplace is made up of sellers and the prices aren't controlled by Amazon for a lot of their products. These are inherited from the distributor in most cases. Sure Amazon fulfills the orders but it's not like Walmart that controls the entire process. There is more freedom in Amazon. Anyways, this is just the hip thing of today. How about making a service better than Amazon? No that's im…

> Anyways, this is just the hip thing of today. How about making a service better than Amazon? No that's impossible?? Well you can bet there are a million people trying right now so there are and will be plenty more alternatives.

Someone did try. Jet.com. Walmart bought them almost instantly.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#104

Post by jamborta »

rb808 wrote: post #81

I think I can generalize that the problem with Amazon is similar to many of the modern tech companies in that they're super well funded and aren't expected to make a profit which allows them to undercut incumbents. Amazon can price lower than Target/Wallmart/B&N/Local Stores, lose money every year while the competition slowly dies. Uber can price lower than local taxis, lose money every year while the competition slo…

> WeWork can price lower than office buildings, lose money every year while the competition slowly dies.

I was looking for office space last week in London, WeWork is the most expensive one on the market by far.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#105

Post by mikeash »

I wish this elaborated more on how Amazon is a monopoly. The interviewee defines it as having the power to set prices and exclude competition. I don’t see either of those happening. There’s a ton of competition, more than enough to severely limit their ability to set prices.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#106

Post by pessimizer »

abakker wrote: post #92
tj-teej wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: once the taxi industry has died what makes you believe that Uber won't implement similar policies?

Nothing. As the saying goes, “get while the getting is good”. If I don’t take the cheap fare today, it doesn’t buy me anything in the long run anyway. Present dollars saved are a certainty, and if history repeats, there is a reasonable likelihood of future disruption being my easy-our for an anticompetitive Uber.

I don't know if it's a good strategy to wait as long as it took Uber to supplant taxis for something to supplant Uber. If it follows that pattern, you won't live to see it, so "easy-out" is probably not the greatest descriptor.

That being said, your individual boycott will have a minuscule effect, and money in your pocket is good. I just can't imagine that capitalism is meant to work like this; paying people to use your product until all the competition is gone, then once you're a monopoly jacking prices up to infinity, ditching quality, and regulating or buying out any potential upstarts.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#107

Post by mikeash »

lisper wrote: post #83
rb808 wrote: post #81

I think I can generalize that the problem with Amazon is similar to many of the modern tech companies in that they're super well funded and aren't expected to make a profit which allows them to undercut incumbents. Amazon can price lower than Target/Wallmart/B&N/Local Stores, lose money every year while the competition slowly dies. Uber can price lower than local taxis, lose money every year while the competition slo…

I'm not a huge Uber fan, but in their case at least I don't think you're being entirely fair. My home airport is SFO. The official taxis there have an extremely annoying pricing policy: if your destination is more than 20 miles form the airport they add a $50 surcharge to the cost of your trip. (I live 25 miles away.) And you can't summon a cab with an app. If you're at the airport they are very convenient. If you ar…

Seems quite fair to me. Uber is using VC money to crush competition without worrying about making money. It is also true that traditional taxis suck. This is an orthogonal fact.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#108

Post by bmmayer1 »

rb808 wrote: post #81

I think I can generalize that the problem with Amazon is similar to many of the modern tech companies in that they're super well funded and aren't expected to make a profit which allows them to undercut incumbents. Amazon can price lower than Target/Wallmart/B&N/Local Stores, lose money every year while the competition slowly dies. Uber can price lower than local taxis, lose money every year while the competition slo…

That said, none of the companies you mention are monopolies -- they all set prices lower than competitors, not higher, and none of them have little to no competition. In fact every single company in your list included major competitors that make billions of dollars.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#109

Post by [deleted] »

indopedia wrote: post #64
gwright wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is more freedom in Amazon. I have a friend who has been an online merchant for many years selling through their own website, Ebay, and Amazon. I suspect they would burst out laughing, fall down, and start rolling around on the ground in hysterics if I repeated that to him.

Did you even read what I wrote before that? It was comparing it to Walmart

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#110

Post by danmaz74 »

philipov wrote: post #40
foota wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 singl…

The word is trust only because of historical reasons. At the time when this became an issue, companies couldn't operate across US state borders. The solution was to create trusts which owned the various branches created in each state.
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