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The Anti-Amazon Alliance

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Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#11

Post by zbobet2012 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #4

As a consultant, I see companies struggling to compete with Amazon (or Amazon-like companies). Most companies struggle for a couple of reasons - They are ego driven, with legacy execs & others relentlessly protecting their status - whereas Amazon is relentlessly data-driven - They have poor incentive structures and are feature factories. They value velocity over outcomes. Amazon, by being more data driven, is focused…

I agree with your points, but I've also found another one that is far more common:

They sell products at a loss to gain income in other places. For example, if you are a content producer you are competing with a company that sells "ad-free" video (Prime Video) attached to a low-cost service (Prime) so that they can sell more goods online.

Amazon is killing content producers by running a negative margin content business to do sell-through on e-commerce.

Amazon is killing video encoding business by selling a negative margin video encoder to sell through AWS compute.

This is extremely common in every "field" Amazon is in. They run at negative margins in one huge sector of business because it drives massive income in another.

That is a strategy only available to... monopolies. You can't afford to compete with them, because they are not _even trying_ to make a profit in your sector.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#12

Post by juliushuijnk »

btmiller wrote: post #10
wpietri wrote: post #5

I know Google's doing this for their own reasons, but I'll take the help. I've been an Amazon customer since 1997, but their recent anti-worker actions [1] were the straw [2] that broke the camel's back. I canceled my Prime account, and have decided to start my product search elsewhere. Google's product search has been long neglected, so it's great they're giving it some love. [1] E.g. from many: https://www.nbcnews.…

You might not want to hear it, but those that were fired recently were using their company email address to organize union discussions. You just can’t do that, no matter how justified one is to pursue unionizing.

Why can't you?

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#13

Post by nxc18 »

wpietri wrote: post #7
tinyhouse wrote: post #3

Good article. There are a few unknowns still. 1. Is Google really all in on product search? Their product search is pretty bad at the moment and it's a very challenging search space, esp when you work with tens of thousands of retailers. Going directly to retailer/niche-platform sites usually works better for me. For example, for music related I go to reverb.com, for outdoor to rei.com, etc. I then to Google and Amaz…

I generally agree, but 3 is in abeyance right now; I'm getting faster delivery times from other places. And regarding 2, Amazon has been training me for a while (via slow-ship discounts and the Amazon Day thing) that I don't need everything right away. I don't know about everybody else, but that has definitely made it easier for me to try out other vendors.

I’m not sure what’s going on with Amazon recently, but they’ve on multiple occasions told me that an item won’t ship or arrive until well into May, only for it to turn up next day. (edit: this is over the last 3 weeks for context)

I wonder how much of their slow delivery is them under promising and how much is them actually not being able to get things out in a day or two. None of the other vendors I’ve worked with, except Nespresso oddly enough, have been able to match Amazon’s actual performance.

I wonder if it’s just because I happen to be close to a lot of warehouses? Still very weird for Amazon to be sandbagging themselves regardless.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#14

Post by koboll »

>as John Gruber put it on Daring Fireball, “Amazon isn’t hurting for revenue (especially now), but they are hurting for trust.”

This is empirically false. Amazon is the second most-trusted brand in America.

https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-brands/

It's wild how easily SV types will tweet things like "No one trusts Amazon!" when the reality outside the Bay Area is so radically and demonstrably opposite.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#15

Post by Bahamut »

btmiller wrote: post #10
wpietri wrote: post #5

I know Google's doing this for their own reasons, but I'll take the help. I've been an Amazon customer since 1997, but their recent anti-worker actions [1] were the straw [2] that broke the camel's back. I canceled my Prime account, and have decided to start my product search elsewhere. Google's product search has been long neglected, so it's great they're giving it some love. [1] E.g. from many: https://www.nbcnews.…

You might not want to hear it, but those that were fired recently were using their company email address to organize union discussions. You just can’t do that, no matter how justified one is to pursue unionizing.

That doesn't appear to be true: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em...

> Also, restrictions on your efforts to communicate with co-workers cannot be discriminatory. For example, your employer cannot prohibit you from talking about the union during working time if it permits you to talk about other non-work-related matters during working time.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#16

Post by zozbot234 »

btmiller wrote: post #10
wpietri wrote: post #5

I know Google's doing this for their own reasons, but I'll take the help. I've been an Amazon customer since 1997, but their recent anti-worker actions [1] were the straw [2] that broke the camel's back. I canceled my Prime account, and have decided to start my product search elsewhere. Google's product search has been long neglected, so it's great they're giving it some love. [1] E.g. from many: https://www.nbcnews.…

You might not want to hear it, but those that were fired recently were using their company email address to organize union discussions. You just can’t do that, no matter how justified one is to pursue unionizing.

Isn't that a protected workplace activity?

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#17

Post by Symbiote »

btmiller wrote: post #10
wpietri wrote: post #5

I know Google's doing this for their own reasons, but I'll take the help. I've been an Amazon customer since 1997, but their recent anti-worker actions [1] were the straw [2] that broke the camel's back. I canceled my Prime account, and have decided to start my product search elsewhere. Google's product search has been long neglected, so it's great they're giving it some love. [1] E.g. from many: https://www.nbcnews.…

You might not want to hear it, but those that were fired recently were using their company email address to organize union discussions. You just can’t do that, no matter how justified one is to pursue unionizing.

The union was already set up at my previous employer, but they used work email including an Exchange distribution list and Outlook calendar events to organize it.

(This was in the UK.)

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#19

Post by jadbox »

softwaredoug wrote: post #4

As a consultant, I see companies struggling to compete with Amazon (or Amazon-like companies). Most companies struggle for a couple of reasons - They are ego driven, with legacy execs & others relentlessly protecting their status - whereas Amazon is relentlessly data-driven - They have poor incentive structures and are feature factories. They value velocity over outcomes. Amazon, by being more data driven, is focused…

Let's also replace them with institutions with either strong unions, worker co-ops, or at least fair trade agreements in place. What good is it to replace one heartless empire with just a different (perhaps slightly less) heartless empire?

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#20

Post by nitrogen »

zbobet2012 wrote: post #11
softwaredoug wrote: post #4

As a consultant, I see companies struggling to compete with Amazon (or Amazon-like companies). Most companies struggle for a couple of reasons - They are ego driven, with legacy execs & others relentlessly protecting their status - whereas Amazon is relentlessly data-driven - They have poor incentive structures and are feature factories. They value velocity over outcomes. Amazon, by being more data driven, is focused…

I agree with your points, but I've also found another one that is far more common: They sell products at a loss to gain income in other places. For example, if you are a content producer you are competing with a company that sells "ad-free" video (Prime Video) attached to a low-cost service (Prime) so that they can sell more goods online. Amazon is killing content producers by running a negative margin content busine…

If they really are dumping, then I look forward to the lawsuit from all of their would-be competitors. That would help the increasingly centralized industry figure out what can be independent and what can only be done by monopolies.
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