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The Anti-Amazon Alliance

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Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#21

Post by subhobroto »

Amazon is successful because they allow people to order cheap consumer goods real fast, sometimes same day and have a great return policy to boot.

The typical consumer does not care about "Made in U.S.A" vs "Made in China" vs "Made in Taiwan". They do care whether it's $9 vs $27.

The typical consumer does not care whether the workers were paid fair wages and given enough bathroom breaks so as not to urinate in a bottle to meet strict deadlines. They do care whether it's $9 vs $27.

The typical consumer does not care whether the IP of a company was stolen and cheap copies were made that were defective and buggy compared to the original product. They do care whether it's $9 vs $27.

If the $9 product does not work, they can buy 2 more to even break even or just return it and get something cheap instead.

Thus, Amazon has figured out how to appeal to the typical consumer.

Exploiting workers, suppliers, distributors, the country it's founded in are some of they way they deliver that promise.

Jeff Bezos is not the monster here - he's just responding to market forces.

Until the fundamental consumer model changes, competing with Amazon is not very logical or effective. It might make people feel good, but not effective.

Can the competition provide the same product at $9 while doing all the warm and fuzzy things?

That's the real question.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#22

Post by CPLX »

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…

These are all fine and perhaps valid, but it's not a serious conversation until you add this at the top:

- Because Amazon has extreme market power and engages in predatory anti-competitive behavior

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#23

Post by twojacobtwo »

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 not?

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#24

Post by wpietri »

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.

I look forward to citations for both those points. But I suspect what you mean is not that the employees did anything illegal, but that you believe a company is legally allowed to fire you for that. If that company is eager to fire people for trying to organize. Because that is what I'm objecting to here.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#25

Post by softwaredoug »

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…

Yeah I agree. A lot of large companies can invest deeply just to drive out their competition. WalMart famously did the same to drive out other businesses in the 90s and 00s.

I think though we need to recognize that Amazon is succesful for a reason, and those reasons are why they are in a position to invent even deeper and more relentlessly...

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#26

Post by javajosh »

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…

>other orgs heavily micromanage or have structures that create more politics than value

Isn't it hard to generalize like this? Consider Apple under Jobs: arguably Apple succeeded because of Jobs micromanagement because Jobs had (to quote Bill Gates) "great taste". Without that unifying sense of taste, you get something like Google, which is quite data-driven, and which doesn't have any unifying personality.

Although, in a way it feels funny drawing general conclusions from observations of unicorns which are, by definition, extremely rare and unique. It feels akin to cargo-culting.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#27

Post by lotsofpulp »

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…

>To compete with Amazon, you have to learn from them, and be prepared to adopt their practices as the new industry norm.

Amazon has taught me to go out of my way to buy directly from manufacturer or a reputable retailer that doesn't offer third party sellers on their website.

I don't want to save 10%, 20%, even 50% to risk any chance of getting some counterfeit crap. Hopefully, there will be sufficient customers like me to make it economical to offer quality, vetted goods at whatever price it takes. Sadly, I see even target.com now allows third party sellers.

I wouldn't care about third party sellers if the retailer explicitly mentioned they don't commingle and allowed me to restrict all of my searches to items procured, shipped, and sold directly by the retailer.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#29

Post by seph-reed »

subhobroto wrote: post #21

Amazon is successful because they allow people to order cheap consumer goods real fast, sometimes same day and have a great return policy to boot. The typical consumer does not care about "Made in U.S.A" vs "Made in China" vs "Made in Taiwan". They do care whether it's $9 vs $27. The typical consumer does not care whether the workers were paid fair wages and given enough bathroom breaks so as not to urinate in a bott…

> Jeff Bezos is not the monster here - he's just responding to market forces.

Market forces are not moral. You don't get a free pass on your actions because you made a bunch of money.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#30

Post by subhobroto »

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…

> To compete with Amazon, you have to learn from them, and be prepared to adopt their practices as the new industry norm. Not just dismiss them as some relentless and heartless evil empire.

Amazon has figured out how to appeal to the typical consumer and keep them real happy.

Exploiting workers, suppliers, distributors, the country it's founded in are some of they way they deliver that promise.

Jeff Bezos is not the monster here - he's just responding to market forces.

Until the fundamental consumer model changes, competing with Amazon is not very logical or effective. It might make people feel good, but not effective.

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