Earlier quoted context omitted.
there is limited shelf space. they take the original product off the shelf.
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.
FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
381–390 of 930 posts
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#382>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 discov…
Maybe they are only so big because their anti-competitive behaviors have kept alternatives from taking their users. I'd love to be able to stop giving amazon as much money as I do, and I know a lot of people who feel this way.
This is partially solved by Shopify for Shopify sites, and Apple Pay/Google Pay/PayPal for third parties, but it's still often more friction to go to a 3p store.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
They straight up copied products in their store an then listed theirs higher in search results. There was a famous instance of a bag. You can't be more monopolistic than that. They also got insight into every states future plans (which are secret for some reason ) when they offered to build new HQs but then decided not too. This gives them a huge advantage over anyone else who wants to setup a nation wide logistics s…
That's not what the word "monopoly" means though...
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
The complaint [0] has 32 pages detailing Amazon's durable monopoly power in two relevant markets, so your claim that it lacks a monopoly might do with somewhat more of a counterargument than you've presented. [0] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.32...
"Monopoly: the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service." Given that there are things such as Walmart.com, eBay, Shopify, and many hundreds of other online commerce stores, they are self-evidently not a monopoly. In fact, they don't even have a majority share of eCommerce in the US. And they also don't have majority share in cloud services. Nor do they have a monopoly in eBo…
The way this argument is normally presented is somewhat intentionally obtuse. Obviously Nike has a monopoly on Nike shoes, but "Nike shoes" isn't any kind of sensible market definition because you go to a shoe store and there are a dozen brands of shoes that are all pretty fungible with each other.
But then you get into something like "GM-compatible brake pads" and that is a sensible market definition, because if you have a GM car and you need new brake pads, they need to be compatible with your car. But you'll also notice that this isn't the same thing as GM-brand brake pads. You could get GM-compatible brake pads from a variety of OEMs that are all compatible with your GM vehicle.
Or, it could be the case that only GM makes GM-compatible brake pads. In which case they would have a monopoly in that market. Not because it's a monopoly on their brand of brake pads, but because it's a monopoly on any brand of brake pads compatible with that brand of cars -- which is something else entirely.
Notice that they don't even have to be the same company. If you have a Studebaker, the Studebaker Corporation is no more, and you may have trouble finding parts. It may even be the case that some independent third party has a monopoly on some such parts, even though it's a monopoly on parts for one specific brand of car.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#385Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#386I 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…
never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity, EXCEPT when money is involved. if money is involved, and it can be explained by malice, then it is malice, every time. the other seller likely reported you as counterfeit, and Amazon believed them.
The FAANG corollary:
When you make it a point of pride to only hire the smartest, most elite engineers on the planet, presumption of stupidity no longer applies.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#387I'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.
Amazon simply hasn’t got monopoly market share or even e commerce monopoly market share.
And btw all retailers copy products. Surely you’ve bought store brand corn flakes at some point for instance.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#388FBA seller here. A lot of mom and pop businesses (~$20 million) have been built on Amazon over the past 10 years. Most of us are in the $250k to $5 million dollar range. The impact of Amazon’s monopoly power is felt big time by us as we’re being squeezed with no place left to go online especially post-iOS change. Our second option used to be the Facebook/Instagram/TikTok to Shopify connection but with that being dead…
I can't help but think that Amazon should be replaced with a non-profit or regulated public utility that provides a single unified online marketplace, part of internet infrastructure like ICANN. Sellers would select among competing fulfillment services (warehouse+shipping). Platform referral fees would go toward customer remediation, anti-counterfeiting, and review integrity. I don't merely say this as a "fuck Amazon…
if the market was working correctly Amazon's profits would be driven down to zero and you'd effectively have this
> As a matter of fact I would suggest that Amazon as it exists is anti-capitalist. It is feudal.
absolutely
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
Guessing this is also related, from page 10: Amazon has implemented an algorithm for the express purpose of deterring other online stores from offering lower prices. [redacted] Rather than trying to compete, Amazon uses [redacted] Ultimately, this conduct is meant to deter rivals from attempting to compete on price altogether-competition that could bring lower prices to tens of millions of American households. As a r…
What especially rankles is how Amazon doesn’t give a fuck about counterfeits. So they’re allowing counterfeits (amplifying the mentioned effect) to discourage direct-sellers from attempting to compete on price. Meanwhile, I have to order from direct sellers to be sure I will get a genuine, new product. So I don’t even get Amazon’s lower-but-still-higher-than-optimal price, but a yet higher one. As far as I’m concerne…
I don't know the law very well, but I would hope there's a legal doctrine that responsibility has to effectively land somewhere. If a company is passing responsibility en masse to some other entity that cannot be effectively sued, then the responsibility should actually lie with the first company.
Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
The local Kroger supermarket has Kroger branded items on the shelf right next to the national brand. The latter is always more expensive, I usually buy the Kroger brand. The supermarket wouldn't stock the national brands at all if customers weren't buying them.
Isn't that exactly what Amazon is doing?