The Anti-Amazon Alliance • Hacker News Board

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#181

Post by TheGallopedHigh » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

Loughla wrote: post #164

zbobet2012 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>That is a strategy only available to... monopolies. Wait. And this is 100% not meant to be snide, it's a real question. Isn't that the actual strategy for tech startups? Work with investor capital long enough to get established and own the market by selling at negative margins, then increase the price once you own the market?

Yes this this is a very common strategy, not only in tech but many businesses

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#182

Post by darkerside » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

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…

Vertical integration, even to the point of being a vertical monopoly (which they aren't, because you're not locked into other services, they're just cheaper and more convenient) isn't necessarily anticompetitive.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#183

Post by nemonemo » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

Loughla wrote: post #164

zbobet2012 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>That is a strategy only available to... monopolies. Wait. And this is 100% not meant to be snide, it's a real question. Isn't that the actual strategy for tech startups? Work with investor capital long enough to get established and own the market by selling at negative margins, then increase the price once you own the market?

I think the difference might be in that startups often do not have their own dominant & profitable products that they can leverage to undercut the profit in complements.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#184

Post by som33 » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #159

rhizome wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing to recognize (or at least something I feel is under-recognized) is that Capitalism prefers monopolies or monopsonies, whichever the case may be. Capitalism talks a big game about the benefits of competition, but history tell us that it is actually their enemy. It reminds me of a Big Lie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie

This is precisely why we need capitalism as well as strong, enforced antitrust laws.

No thanks, the internet has fundamentally changed society. Software companies can now steal software and hack everyones machine on an unprecedented scale.

The last 20 years of PC gaming has been one of theft and grand larceny by steam, valve, EA and co. We used to get dedicated servers and level editors in games.

The internet allows companies to steal software from the point of production, because 2 or more computers in a network act as a single machine. So that means the internet is one giant world sized computer that companies de-facto own and control because they now "issue commands" to other nodes in the network.

We now live in a digital authoritarian society where we must get permission to use our software and have no privacy if we want to participate in the culture.

AKA the internet has been the greatest force for software theft and dispossession in all human history.

Because of the criminal way in which IP law was coded the public never got any property rights and this has created the greatest human rights disaster in all of history.

DRM in the OS, apps or games is literally you living in an open air prison and CEO's and government orgs can literally spy on everything you do.

Windows 10 is a case in point. There's no reason for client-server software anything for a home user.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#185

Post by d1zzy » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #63

subhobroto wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Because Amazon has extreme market power and engages in predatory anti-competitive behavior Sure it does. The American consumer continues to empower it to behave that way because no one other than Amazon gives them what they need. Kind of like how people continue to complain about their cable provider being evil but they don't do anything about it except complain. Want to solve your cable provider being evil? Star…

> Kind of like how people continue to complain about their cable provider being evil but they don't do anything about it except complain. > Want to solve your cable provider being evil? Start a cheap WISP. Anyone can do it, yet no one does. > Complaining is cheap. It takes a lot of work to actually do something. That "answer" elides so many problems that it smells strongly of BS: * Most people who complain about thei…

> The solution to most monopolies and other over-concentrations of market power isn't small-fry consumers attempting to compete with them directly; that idea doesn't even pass the smell test. The actual solution is some kind of government regulatory action, and the complaining you deride is part of the process to (possibly) make that happen.

You do realize that all the problems you listed exist because of regulation or can also be solved with regulation? Maybe instead of regulating how Comcast does business we should regulate things so it's easy to have many ISPs. That has a lot more benefits than trying to baby sit the one ISP:

* more jobs (many small companies are less efficient than one large company, economy of scale in reverse, leading to more jobs to do the same amount of work)

* better local community impact (decisions that impact the community aren't being made by people living somewhere far)

* more competition (better services, better prices, see some of the places where there's a lot of ISP competition are also the places that have the best cheap Internet and also overlaps with places with not very strong regulation, or enforcement, that directly affects running an ISP)

When I talk about relaxed regulation that affects ISPs I don't mean relaxed labor regulation (minimum wages, benefits), the bulk of the labor costs for an ISP comes from people that are payed much over minimum wage and get good benefits. But I do mean things like copyright strikes/enforcement and other Internet regulations, I mean things that control who and how can install wires, a fair market to rent existing wires and interconnect with existing ISPs.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#186

Post by miglmj » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 6:30 PM UTC

freeopinion wrote: post #60

koboll wrote: post #14

>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.

Trusted by less than 40% of people. "Most trusted" does not seem to be a high bar. In fact it doesn't even seem to mean "generally trusted." I would say that they are hurting for trust, right along with everyone else.

Something like consumer trust only makes sense if compared relatively to competitors, otherwise you're making a statement about the general public rather than about Amazon.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#187

Post by alkonaut » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

These days when Sweden is often touted as “the experiment”, you can actually go there to see what e-commerce looks like in 2020 without Amazon. It might sound crazy but there is... no Amazon.

If I go to amazon.se I end up at amazon.de There is no same day delivery of household products (like toilet paper). If I want a book I need to go to an online bookstore.

Why this is I’m not sure. But it’s interesting.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#188

Post by d1zzy » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 6:33 PM UTC

three_seagrass wrote: post #106

seph-reed wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

America has a weird wealth worship complex, though maybe worship isn't the right word. It's assumed that if you have wealth you are some sort of genius to be listened to about what's the moral right thing to do.

It's called a value system. Some things are valued more than others in certain cultures.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#189

Post by ars » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 6:35 PM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #8

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…

> 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…

> Honestly, Amazon's own product search is pretty terrible too

If they could just include shipping when doing a "sort by price", or a price limit search, that alone would help SO MUCH.

I pick "prime only", "under $10", and I get results where some other non-prime seller is selling it for under $10, with $15 of shipping. Useless.

Actually even ignoring shipping, if the under $10 price is for a non-prime option, why is that being included in a "prime only" search for under $10?

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#190

Post by lucb1e » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 6:35 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #187

These days when Sweden is often touted as “the experiment”, you can actually go there to see what e-commerce looks like in 2020 without Amazon. It might sound crazy but there is... no Amazon. If I go to amazon.se I end up at amazon.de There is no same day delivery of household products (like toilet paper). If I want a book I need to go to an online bookstore. Why this is I’m not sure. But it’s interesting.

Same in the Netherlands, it was recently announced that Amazon will open a Dutch store (not sure when) but it was quite a shock for me when moving to Germany that people here have no clue how to order things other than by going to Amazon. Too much effort to use google and try different web shops if all the web shops can come to a monopolizing marketplace instead I guess? Too bad that the marketplace also competes with its own sellers and has deeper pockets than any of them because they all pay the Amazon tax on every purchase anyway.

I'm trying to avoid it but between my poor German and few web shops catering to the tiny non-Amazon-going audience, it's hard.