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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

#42
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 games are specifically programmed for that architecture and sometimes studios are paid for exclusivity. The written word is universal.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#45
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.

You can at least copy files onto it if you already have non-DRMed ones

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#46
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.

Don't all grocery stores do this?

Grocery stores generally don't have monopoly power to start with, and therefore cannot illegally maintain such power no matter what they do.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#48
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.

Don't all grocery stores do this?

Not really, or, at least, not at the same scale.

Staples (peanut butter, canned fruit, etc.) tend to have store brands, but grocery stores doesn't have a store brand version of the vast majority of popular products.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#49
> 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

I'm no fan of Amazon, but that kind of makes sense - if they use another fulfillment service, Amazon wouldn't be able to guarantee next-day delivery for their products?

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#50
Decouple Amazon Warehouse division from Amazon Web Services (AWS largely subsidizes losses incurred by warehouse division), then we will see change.

Right now FTC going after low hanging fruit. But we all know Amazon will challenge it in court, appeal, appeal, appeal, pay the reduced fine, slow roll any changes, and business will continue as usual.

Break up the tech giants and each individual unit cannot survive as-is.

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