Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

ftc.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 930 posts

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#311

Post by _ea1k »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #76
wordsarelies wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to come out that Amazon calls the manufacturers for their basics goods, sends them the leading competing item and has them make it with slightly less expensive components to undercut the cost of the competitor. It's so blatantly obvious if you've ever done a side by side in things like lamps, backpacks etc and other super simple designs.

Walmart has been doing that for decades. And they probably were not the first. It is not a novel strategy.

My biggest issue with the way Wal-Mart (and most other retail) did it is that it was... scammy.

Want an HDMI cable? Here's an overpriced Monster cable. Oh, don't want to pay absurdly high prices? Save money by buying one that is only 300% more than it should be instead of 400%!

The nice thing about Amazon was that it broke this model. Suddenly you could buy Anker or (insert small third party here) at very reasonable prices.

Amazon destroying those competitors is doing some damage to this, though.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#312

Post by lancesells »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #261
kmeisthax wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they are forced to work. If you don't have a job you starve, that's how our economy works. That's a very soft form of force (specifically, a sin of omission), but it is still force. Likewise, quitting your job is extremely disruptive and carries risk of bankruptcy if you can't get on to another employer in time. It's not simply a matter of "switch to the best offer available".

I was alive before Uber, AMZN existed and nobody starved, people just worked elsewhere, so this assertion is just not true. People have to work, but they don't have to work for AMZN, they didn't before it existed. Sure, quitting is disruptive, but people are not actually forced to work for any company, come on.

You don't think the large companies that existed before Amazon abused those workers? Wal-Mart never did anything wrong to their workers? It's a repeating playbook.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#313

Post by pixl97 »

stale2002 wrote: post #307
binarymax wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're over generalizing. There are plenty of sellers that took the time to develop their own products and sell them, only to be copied and undercut by Amazon.

That is literally the opposite of anti-competitive. That is the definition of a pro competitive behavior. Lower prices for consumers is the whole point of a competitive market! Yes, big companies can compete in the market, by offer better quality stuff, for a lower price. Thats what we want! You are literally arguing in favor* of monopolies, and against competition by saying that other companies shouldn't do a better…

Reality is far more complex then the simple take you have here.

>by offer better quality stuff,

Amazon, for example, offering counterfeits of your product as your product is not under the definition of "better quality stuff"

>for a lower price

Again, offering a lower price consistently is one thing. Using pricing as a weapon, for example selling a product lower than cost in order to monopolize a market is not.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#315

Post by _ea1k »

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.

I guess I do that to some degree. Amazon is doing some bad things, but I have a difficult time seeing that without also seeing the good impacts that they've had.

I remember online retail before Amazon dominance. Return policies and return shipping was a real mess. Amazon actually greatly improved the customer service experience. It also changed some markets in ways that were undoubtedly pro-consumer.

It also has had a lot of negative impacts, as their model (including the free shipping concept) has made it practically impossible for small independent stores to compete in online sales.

Put another way, very few things are all bad or all good. A lot of internet commentary wants to magically keep the good and vaporize the bad, but it just doesn't work that way.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#316

Post by m463 »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #279
tornato7 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just counterfeits but pages upon pages of shitty products from companies like WOWZAMGO and PARTUE that, now that they have sponsored rankings, will always come up first in search. They also all have endless fake reviews. This renders Amazon's search essentially useless.

WOWZAMGO makes quality products. I bought their portable usb battery and it only caught fire after the 20th charge cycle. PARTUE, on the other hand… don’t ask!

What's funny is that I couldn't tell if this was serious or sarcastic at first glance. (caught fire -> sarcastic)

Thing is, these silly UPPER-CASE-NONSENSE-COMPANIES are winning against established brands with quality products.

Except there is a trend now where a brand with products of known good quality like YETI can now charge outrageous amounts of money - like 10x or more.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#317

Post by thfuran »

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)

>(a brewer cannot be a wholesaler or a retailer)

Does that mean brewpubs can't exist or just that they couldn't also sell the beer bottled?

But regarding Amazon, I agree.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#318

Post by _ea1k »

lancesells wrote: post #159
vasilipupkin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and others spend a lot of time attacking large companies simply because they are large. In this case, AMZN. AMZN is like the cheapest place to buy things online. But it's not the only place. So, why is FTC going after them?

> others spend a lot of time attacking large companies simply because they are large This isn't the FTC's complaint but search "How Amazon treats their workers" and see why large companies get attacked. Typically the only way you're going to become this large is by abusing people in some sort of way. Amazon abuses their workers, their sellers, etc. Meta abuses their users. Google abuses their users. Uber abuses their…

Search for "How Starbucks treats their workers" and see why large companies get attacked too. If you search for your favorite local coffee shop, you won't see such complaints.

But go to /r/starbucks and you'll sometimes hear that a lot of small shops are worse, for various reasons.

Large companies attract certain classes of criticism not by being worse, but by being more visible. Unfortunately, this actively masks some of the wrongs that they actually do.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#320

Post by morkalork »

kmeisthax wrote: post #290
catiopatio wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren’t those outlets even less targeted?

The key was that people self-selected into those outlets. If you were selling, say, game controller skins; you'd be making a pretty sure bet buying ads in GameInformer or on Joystiq. The problem with going back to that kind of business model is that these dedicated websites with specific niche audiences are dead or dying because the ad dollars moved elsewhere.

Shouldn't the ad dollars be moving back in after super targeted advertising got neutered?
Post reply on HN