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The Anti-Amazon Alliance

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Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#71
post #32

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…

have you talked to engineers who actually work at Amazon? they aren’t exactly running a tight ship. Market forces can make up for having a dysfunctional culture. This is roughly analogous to the role of luck in personal success- people say “I must have done something right!” when in reality you have far less control than you imagine

Really? The parts of Amazon that matter, like retail and AWS, have very high engineering standards.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#72
post #48
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you talked to engineers who actually work at Amazon? they aren’t exactly running a tight ship. Market forces can make up for having a dysfunctional culture. This is roughly analogous to the role of luck in personal success- people say “I must have done something right!” when in reality you have far less control than you imagine

I have plenty of friends who are ex-Amazon engineers, and for all of their (valid) complaints about the place (management, incentive structure, culture, etc.), one thing no one has ever complained about was the efficiency and quality of Amazon’s engineering work. The stuff i heard about their internal build systems alone is straight up awe-inspiring, and that’s even compared to other tech giants (which is where i met…

I think it's hard to generalize about anything as broad as engineering at companies at this scale. It's pretty clear they all have some really good engineering teams, especially on core functions. They also have some much weaker ones, and I've heard stories of flakiness from reliable people from all the big ones.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Amazon paid 7 billion in content costs this year, I would estimate it cost another 1.5billion to do the distribution. That doesn't include internal development costs, advertising costs, etc. Prime all together only made 14 billion. Considering that prime almost assuredly doesn't cover its 2day shipping we can be very sure, the video unit is _certainly_ not positive. What's even more important is this quote from Bezos…

Very common practice everywhere. When you sit at a bar and only order food, they usually lose money. Profits come from drinks.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Amazon paid 7 billion in content costs this year, I would estimate it cost another 1.5billion to do the distribution. That doesn't include internal development costs, advertising costs, etc. Prime all together only made 14 billion. Considering that prime almost assuredly doesn't cover its 2day shipping we can be very sure, the video unit is _certainly_ not positive. What's even more important is this quote from Bezos…

That's just describing the strategy of likely the majority of retailers in existence, from grocery stores to theaters though isn't it? Grocery stores have lead products that get people in the stores (like cheap roast chicken) and then make more margins elsewhere. Fast food sells burgers and hope people will buy fries. When theaters have movies that have won awards and have big buzz, it helps them sell more snacks. Department stores, classic electronics stores, and so on all have window display items and major flashy things that they hope will get people to come inside at all, at which point they may get those, get add-ons, or something else entirely.

Maybe for subscription video specifically Amazon is more unusual, but it's certainly not because Bezos came up with some wild strategy. Movie and TV producers themselves aim for far more monetization than just the sticker; merchandizing, product placement, ancillary media (sountracks/interviews/tie-ins), etc are all things commonly aimed for. And even for subscriptions there are players like Apple, who clearly are interested in selling more Apple hardware.

I guess what bothers me about what you're saying is that I don't think it makes sense that every single unit in a company needs to "pay its own way", and on the contrary that sort of reasoning in management is the source of a lot of horrors many of us have experienced in IT. Security say gets cut to the bone because it's "not a revenue generator" and down the road systems get broken into causing tons of costly damage (infuriatingly often externalized too to add salt to the wound). Outsourcing sometimes can be an answer, but that sometimes creates its own major headaches as well. Amazon's size and weight certain give rise to concerns that might be lower elsewhere, but some of the bonuses they bring represent quite genuine economic value, and either way I don't think justify what seems to be a general argument against vertical integration.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#75
post #8

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…

> 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. Honestly, Amazon's own product search is pretty terrible too, unless you're searching for a specific name-brand product. Google might not even have to be very good to be competitive. The best product search I've actually found is…

There are other specific sectors with great product search - RockAuto for car parts, for example. It's a striking example because the big auto parts stores (AutoZone, Advance Auto, Pep Boys, etc) all try to have an "Amazon style" search and it doesn't work. Heck, it doesn't work well on Amazon either.

In the specific sector of car parts, search is based on the year, manufacturer, model, and trim line/options of the vehicle. What's weird to me is that every one of these retailers has a point of sale system that works on the "specify vehicle, list and search within parts" model, yet they're using a traditional/"Amazon style" search on their own website.

RockAuto's site is ugly, but it's extremely functional. Their business model has complicated shipping (sometimes buying a more expensive item from the same warehouse as another item in your cart is less expensive after shipping than buying a less expensive item from a different warehouse) but there are UI affordances that make this easier to deal with. It's kind of sad that "show the shipping cost in the shopping cart, on the same page as the product list" is a noteworthy UI affordance, but it's so rare. (Also the option to select several items that meet spec, and it will automatically select the overall lowest cost after shipping set of products)

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#77
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.…

Where are you starting your product search? For everyone claiming they have found the better amazon, the more ethical amazon they never seem to be actually willing to NAME these great places so others can use them - if you are going legitimately would be great to get the name of these product search starting points. And I've tried google's shopping - blah. If that's your starting point we are going to be with amazon…

[deleted]

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#78

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…

Maybe there’s just a really big advantage to being the biggest monopoly in the room and whatever management quirks they happen to have are just window dressing?

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#79

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…

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

The other real question is "Will it continue to be legal for Amazon NOT to provide the warm and fuzzy things".

In virtually all other developed countries the answer is NO, but with legal bribery (unlimited campaign contributions & lobbying) the US may never change.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#80
First, WordPress stuck with React after Facebook made the smallest licensing concession, then WordPress coordinated with Google developers on the WordPress.org source code to integrate with AMP, and now WooCommerce is partnering with Google, which of course they would feel compelled to do via a kind of prisoner's dilemma with their competitor, Shopify.

People tend to deride WordPress source code on a technical level, but they forget about it and the ecosystem's importance as _free_, GPL tools that power over 1/4 of the web. Google is swinging its full weight into undermining this ecosystem so that it can turn WordPress.org source code into more ad real estate.

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