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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

#481

Post by drc500free »

ben0x539 wrote: post #457
blibble wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. 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

What's the recourse if the market isn't working correctly?

Currently, the FTC suing them. Eventually, some sort of breakup and strict rules about counterfeits and house brands.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#482

Post by adventured »

It's not a coincidence that Bezos ran for the hills exactly like the Google founders did, with the anti-trust writing on the walls. Bill Gates did the same thing as well (although he stuck it out a bit longer), exiting with the anti-trust heat.

They're all terrified of the invasive investigations and what could be revealed, the scrutiny they'd be persistently under, and the time demands involved (it's no doubt miserable battling the government in a major anti-truist suit).

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#483

Post by fpgaminer »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #328
steveBK123 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ran a small FBA business for a year nowhere near any scale and it was an interesting lesson. People who weigh in on these tech topics should actually try these things out to understand them better. It's nothing like listing on eBay where there's some haircut off the top and that's that. There are fees for - accepting inventory, holding inventory, returning unsold inventory, shipping sales, processing returns, destr…

AWS works this way too but I’ll get dogpiled by Amazon sycophants and other people who have built their careers around getting witless companies sucked into the Amazon machine.

At least AWS gives me an invoice each month with a break down of fees. GCP just sends an invoice for the total amount. No detail, no breakdown. And I have never gotten any of GCP's many different pages under their billing system to spit out any numbers that make sense. Pick your poison?

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#484

Post by bpicolo »

gorbachev wrote: post #105
smugma wrote: post #2

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

Nah. You buy stock in the law firm(s) representing Amazon on this. Assuming they're a publicly traded.

Publicly traded law firms aren't currently a thing in the US, because non-lawyer ownership (or in this case, partial ownership) of law firms has been against legal ethics codes for a long time: https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/practice-innovat...

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#485

Post by afavour »

mrraj wrote: post #444
jollofricepeas wrote: post #52

FBA 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…

From the Bloomberg article : "Chuck Gregorich, who sells fire pits and outdoor furniture, says turning a profit on Amazon is getting harder. One of his popular fire pits costs $200, of which Amazon takes $112 for its commission, warehouse storage, delivery and advertising. That leaves him with $88 to pay the manufacturer, ship the product in from China and cover his overhead." I have a hard time sympathizing here. Th…

There’s maybe a chicken/egg scenario here. Perhaps, knowing the cut they would have to give to Amazon, they had no option but to manufacture in China?

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#486

Post by BeetleB »

mrraj wrote: post #444
jollofricepeas wrote: post #52

FBA 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…

From the Bloomberg article : "Chuck Gregorich, who sells fire pits and outdoor furniture, says turning a profit on Amazon is getting harder. One of his popular fire pits costs $200, of which Amazon takes $112 for its commission, warehouse storage, delivery and advertising. That leaves him with $88 to pay the manufacturer, ship the product in from China and cover his overhead." I have a hard time sympathizing here. Th…

Yes - some of the complaints seem legitimate (e.g. burying search results really far low - that hurts me as a buyer, and hurts the seller).

But complaining that you need to use Amazon's warehouses to be part of Prime? That's rather obvious! You can always sell as non-Prime. Many do and are successful at it!

Basically, Amazon allowed many businesses to exist by creating a very convenient way to sell. Chances are a lot of businesses selling on Prime who are complaining would not have been able to exist at all.

(Source: I'm a former FBA seller).

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#487

Post by newsclues »

BowBun wrote: post #471
mrraj wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Bloomberg article : "Chuck Gregorich, who sells fire pits and outdoor furniture, says turning a profit on Amazon is getting harder. One of his popular fire pits costs $200, of which Amazon takes $112 for its commission, warehouse storage, delivery and advertising. That leaves him with $88 to pay the manufacturer, ship the product in from China and cover his overhead." I have a hard time sympathizing here. Th…

You make a good point, but I think the parent point is true as well. You still have people actually producing work, unable to compete on these platforms where Amazon will literally make a copy of their product at a lower price. This is the result of commoditizing 'starting a business' to the point of near-worthlessness in the bottom 50%+. Like you say, I don't value the businesses that simply re-sell re-labeled produ…

"This is the result of commoditizing 'starting a business' to the point of near-worthlessness in the bottom 50%+."

Is this not just a market effect of saturating the market with competition because suddenly running a business is comparatively easy (communications technology, platforms and existing logistics and production networks) to any other era.

I can probably start a company drop shipping crap on Amazon in a short amount of time with a smartphone from my bedroom. The barrier to entry has dropped, rather quickly.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#488

Post by BizarroLand »

BowBun wrote: post #471
mrraj wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Bloomberg article : "Chuck Gregorich, who sells fire pits and outdoor furniture, says turning a profit on Amazon is getting harder. One of his popular fire pits costs $200, of which Amazon takes $112 for its commission, warehouse storage, delivery and advertising. That leaves him with $88 to pay the manufacturer, ship the product in from China and cover his overhead." I have a hard time sympathizing here. Th…

You make a good point, but I think the parent point is true as well. You still have people actually producing work, unable to compete on these platforms where Amazon will literally make a copy of their product at a lower price. This is the result of commoditizing 'starting a business' to the point of near-worthlessness in the bottom 50%+. Like you say, I don't value the businesses that simply re-sell re-labeled produ…

Amazon is basically allowing sellers to carry all the risk while product testing and marketing a product.

If it does well enough, Amazon can use the same manufacturer and release a branded "Amazon Basics" version that pops up in the same search for the same product but cheaper as Amazon doesn't have to pay someone else $112 for the listing and warehousing, and the original seller that did all of the actual "work" (as far as making it a profitable venture) is SOL.

Throw in a few dozen word salad named drop shippers who undercut Amazon in exchange for increased shipping times and the originator is wedged out of the market or cut to razor thin margins for years of effort.

Rinse and repeat.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#489

Post by internet101010 »

blibble wrote: post #347
karaterobot wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to look this up, so for other ignoramuses like me: FBA is Fulfillment by Amazon, where you sell things on Amazon and they handle payments and shipping to customers.

it's a genius business for a "retailer" normally they'd need to pay for storage, stock, liquidation of stock they didn't sell, returns etc and instead now you pay for all of that for them and what do you get in return? - a listing on page 17 of their ever increasingly shitty website behind legions of MINFARTO, PATRONICS and GIBRANKER aliexpress garbage - customer service staff with an inability to understand simple e…

Oh and if you want your inventory isolated so that it doesn't it mixed in with counterfeits... that's another fee.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#490

Post by emodendroket »

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 question the assumption that simply letting more small players compete is going to improve outcomes for anyone who doesn’t happen to own one of these smaller businesses.
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