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FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

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Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#291

Post by iteratethis »

What this world needs is pro-active legislation.

The current state of Amazon is the result of a very slow trajectory taking 20 years. It happened in plain sight and still we allow it to grow until it's a monster where most of commerce has to submit to.

We allow Google to become the leading search engine, advertiser, browser maker, mobile operating system maker. Effectively owning the internet. These should be 4 companies, not one. And even the 4 companies should not be of the current size.

Stop allowing companies to grow into platforms, gatekeepers, monopolists that squeeze everybody dry.

The current state is anti-market and anti-capitalistic. There no longer is any market when you allow these monstrosities.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#292

Post by arbuge »

ihaveajob wrote: post #82

In my opinion, Amazon needs to be split into at least 4 independent entities: - Online marketplace - Consumer products - Internet infrastructure - Delivery logistics Similar to the three-tier distribution system for beer in most states (a brewer cannot be a wholesaler or a retailer). This makes it easier for smaller players can compete with the big ones on quality at least, if not price or recognition. (Edit: format)

I would add a fifth - advertising.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#293

Post by bombcar »

brianstorms wrote: post #287

I signed up as a Seller on Amazon a while back, with one primary goal: sell extra copies of my book, published by Pantheon Books in 2017. The publisher offered me boxes of them at dirt-cheap prices and I took them up on their offer. So I started selling on Amazon, and I set my price as the lowest possible for "New" condition hardcover. For a while my price got listed on the main book product page. Only briefly though…

You haven't even begun to enter the world of unscrupulous activity, and Amazon is mostly 'hands off' because they don't care - but other 3rd party sellers DO and they know all the tricks about how to pump alternative sellers off the page, etc.

The whole thing is a worthless Alibaba ripoff now.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#294

Post by srackey »

malfist wrote: post #212
autoexec wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never once seen a store that removed the major name brands from the shelves and only offered their own generic brand. You might argue that having generics on the shelves at all means that new small brands have to pay more for placement, but that's not the same thing as stealing product ideas and leaving no other option but the generic version of that thing on the shelves.

Actually, isn't that what Bed Bath and Beyond did? Partly the cause of their failure?

Also what Trader Joe’s does. It’s kinda their whole deal, and partly the cause for their success.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#297

Post by pmarreck »

I don't like it, but I kind of don't blame them because it's, frankly, a rational act.

Everyone vies for control/power. Once you have control, you can exert pressure to get more from less (this is essentially what "bullying" is). There's nothing (but any laws set up to counteract this) stopping you, so you do it, because relative to you, there's only upside. Can you really blame these entities for taking advantage?

Literally, the thing we all want more of (success and control), will turn us into bullies. Veeeeery few people, or companies, get to that point and then continue to "play fair", at least completely. So we set up the system with rules we think will limit this, but it's not perfect, so rules get exploited.

In games (which are systems and sets of rules), one of the most fun things is to discover an "exploit". Sometimes this comes from a developer oversight, sometimes this comes from rule complexity leading to unexpected states, sometimes from bugs. I remember figuring out how to get an extra enchant on a weapon in Neverwinter Nights (I somehow got 1 past the supposed limit) and how fun that felt. But there was no cost to other people in doing this. (At worst, if I found too many exploits, the game would stop being fun due to not being challenging, and I would just "cheese" through it.)

Amazon is a bully that is cheesing its way through the rules, at some unknown but probably large success cost to many other people vying for the same control. Perhaps it's time to dismantle the bully dominating the schoolyard lunches.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#298

Post by mikem170 »

rattlesnakedave wrote: post #265
_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.

As a consumer, this doesn't really hurt me. I get good products for cheap delivered in two days or less. I don't see how the FTC is helping me here.

How do you know that you're not missing out on an even better deal?

If amazon had real competition maybe they would not have raised seller fees so much, and would not have prevented sellers from allowing lower prices in other places. So a cases can be made that they are using their market share to drive up prices, not lower them. Costing the consumer more.

There's other issues besides cost, for example counterfeits. If they had real competition then maybe they'd have to do something about all the counterfeit products they sell, which hurts both buyers and sellers.

Just a couple examples. There are other ways that monopolies can impact markets.

I've had similar thoughts about facebook. We could have had much better social/messaging systems, but facebook bought the competition. We likely missed out on more variety and perhaps much better options. Consumers were harmed by these lost opportunities.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#299

Post by pcurve »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #282
pcurve wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow... that BB article makes me sad. https://archive.ph/yw3Bv In 2016, they collected 35.2%. In 2022, they collected 51.8% in fee. That's insane.

This is not a defense of Amazon. A neighbor of mine who makes high end silver jewelry was doing fine with the gallery he used (in Santa Fe). The gallery collected about 30% of his sales price in fees. Another gallery approached him, asked to represent him instead. They took 50% in fees. He switched anyway. His income went up (and stayed up). Presumably the new gallery provides some combination of better environs, mor…

"But it shouldn't be assumed that the high fees necessarily mean reduced income for the original seller."

I agree. It just gets passed down to the customers. Most of my shock was directed at the 50% increase in fee in just a few short years. You can't do that without having a lot of leverage.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#300

Post by tw04 »

rattlesnakedave wrote: post #265
_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.

As a consumer, this doesn't really hurt me. I get good products for cheap delivered in two days or less. I don't see how the FTC is helping me here.

>I get good products for cheap delivered in two days or less.

You would be getting the same products for cheaper, that's the point. Their "two days or less" hasn't been true for several years. "Prime" to me basically has become "sometime in the next week" and there's a massive warehouse within 30 miles of my house.

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