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FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#31

Post by robertlagrant »

zht wrote: post #12
_uhtu wrote: post #3

I'm honestly not sure how you could make the case that they aren't maintaining and abusing monopoly power. I mean they literally blatantly copy the designs of other companies who sell on amazon, then put their own results for their own products higher in search results than what they copied off of. It's incredibly blatantly anti-competitive.

I've found that many people will spend a lot of time and energy defending large companies (and often their CEOs) against perceived bullying. Amazon, Tesla, Elon, Meta, etc etc. I don't really understand it.

Some people will just defend anyone or anything regardless of tribalism. Just based on what they think is ethical and/or factual.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#32

Post by j_maffe »

charcircuit wrote: post #17
criddell wrote: post #5

I wish they would add ebook DRM to the list. Amazon has essentially locked the Kindle so that it can only purchase from Amazon and Amazon ebooks can only be used on the Kindle. On top of that, they offer no way of transferring ebooks and, AFAIK, offer no way to remove DRM after a work enters the public domain.

If you buy a PS5 game you can only play it on the PS5 and they don't remove DRM after the came goes into public domain.

PS5 doesn't have a monopoly over the console market, Amazon does.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#34

Post by fasthands9 »

>The complaint alleges that Amazon violates the law not because it is big, but because it engages in a course of exclusionary conduct that prevents current competitors from growing and new competitors from emerging

>Anti-discounting measures that punish sellers and deter other online retailers from offering prices lower than Amazon, keeping prices higher for products across the internet. For example, if Amazon discovers that a seller is offering lower-priced goods elsewhere, Amazon can bury discounting sellers so far down in Amazon’s search results that they become effectively invisible.

I feel like ultimately they are accused of violations because they are big. I don't think that's the worst thing. But as others have pointed out - their tactics are very similar to deals grocery stores and retailers make with suppliers all the time. The only difference seems to be that Amazon is big enough that suppliers can't legitimately threaten to take their business to another store - because there isn't one.

Their complaints that Amazon makes prices higher for products across the internet is clearly only true because they are so big.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#35

Post by takinola »

zht wrote: post #12
_uhtu wrote: post #3

I'm honestly not sure how you could make the case that they aren't maintaining and abusing monopoly power. I mean they literally blatantly copy the designs of other companies who sell on amazon, then put their own results for their own products higher in search results than what they copied off of. It's incredibly blatantly anti-competitive.

I've found that many people will spend a lot of time and energy defending large companies (and often their CEOs) against perceived bullying. Amazon, Tesla, Elon, Meta, etc etc. I don't really understand it.

Perhaps they have a different opinion than you do on the issue?

I don't have a POV on this particular case but it seems reasonable to assume that there are other (reasonable) people that have different values and judgements than you do. Just because these companies and CEOs have a lot of resources should not automatically kick in the "David v Goliath" instinct that most people have

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#36

Post by libraryatnight »

charcircuit wrote: post #17
criddell wrote: post #5

I wish they would add ebook DRM to the list. Amazon has essentially locked the Kindle so that it can only purchase from Amazon and Amazon ebooks can only be used on the Kindle. On top of that, they offer no way of transferring ebooks and, AFAIK, offer no way to remove DRM after a work enters the public domain.

If you buy a PS5 game you can only play it on the PS5 and they don't remove DRM after the came goes into public domain.

You can't think of a few reasons this is not a great comparison? Like, base expectations to begin with would disqualify this analogy as useful.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#37

Post by my123 »

criddell wrote: post #5

I wish they would add ebook DRM to the list. Amazon has essentially locked the Kindle so that it can only purchase from Amazon and Amazon ebooks can only be used on the Kindle. On top of that, they offer no way of transferring ebooks and, AFAIK, offer no way to remove DRM after a work enters the public domain.

(disclaimer: Amazon employee)

For that one, it's mandated by publishers. There's nothing that can be done for e-readers from vendors that don't support third-party applications.

Amazon e-books are accessible on Android and other platforms in addition to Kindle devices.

Kindle is also not locked to only ebooks from Amazon, but third-party DRM schemes are not supported. Calibre for example comes with good tooling for that use case.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#38

Post by lotsofpulp »

travoc wrote: post #24
HDThoreaun wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't all grocery stores do this?

Grocery stores are not a monopoly.

Neither is Amazon. Aliexpress, Walmart, Newegg are direct competitors selling cheap crap.

Then there is Target/Home Depot/Lowes/Staples/Costco/Best Buy/etc

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#40

Post by WillPostForFood »

AlbertCory wrote: post #4
smugma wrote: post #2

Time to buy AMZN? https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/the-hedge-fund-that-made-a-k...

My prediction (you can check my results): AMZN price will be largely unchanged. There does seem to be some antitrust exposure there: ========= Anti-discounting measures that punish sellers and deter other online retailers from offering prices lower than Amazon, keeping prices higher for products across the internet. For example, if Amazon discovers that a seller is offering lower-priced goods elsewhere, Amazon can bu…

Conditioning sellers’ ability to obtain “Prime” eligibility for their products—a virtual necessity for doing business on Amazon—on sellers using Amazon’s costly fulfillment service

Isn't Prime a fulfillment service in this context? How would a seller be Prime eligible without using Amazon fulfillment?

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