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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

#851

Post by CaffeinatedDev »

ggreer wrote: post #394
CaffeinatedDev wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has been cognizant of this[antitrust risk] for a while now I believe. The internal systems are all set up to run independently, most systems are modular and already run as separate entities with permissioned access. Proof: worked as an SDE for AWS and Amazon for 7 yrs.

Isn't that done because independent modular systems make it a lot easier to build stuff inside of such a large company? Bezos said as much in 2002 when he issued his API mandate.[1][2] 1. https://chrislaing.net/blog/the-memo/ 2. https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611

> independent modular systems make it a lot easier to build stuff inside of such a large company

Yep this is definitely true. I sort of saw it as a two birds kind of situation. I wasn't privy to the reasons for c suite decisions but imo they are definitely cognizant of regulatory concerns.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#852

Post by hellojesus »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #788
notyourwork wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is drop shopping the kind of business to fight for supporting? That’s all this is.

Whoa buddy. That’s a hell of an assumption. 1. Manufacturing does not happen in America anymore. 2. The proliferation of counterfeiters does not allow dropshippers to scale to a meaningful size. Everyone is game to Alibaba. Within our industry of paper goods, our manufacturers have to get their parts and raw materials from overseas. The larger FBA mom and pops will design and market their products here in the US usin…

Nothing you mentioned harms consumers. To me it sounds like the situation is as follows:

- Amazon offers a marketplace to sellers, which happens to be the largest marketplace with the most potential buyers.

- Amazon charges a fee to list on their site.

- Amazon doesn't let buyers sell their products for lower on a site that isn't Amazon. (Makes sense; they want to be paid for attracting consumers.)

- Buyers are cost sensitive and buy the cheapest product.

The outcome seems to be the most favorable condition for consumers. The complaint here seems to be that Amazon is so efficient that people would prefer to buy from them.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#853

Post by hellojesus »

mcfedr wrote: post #755
starluz wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is the issue for consumers as well. The first 16 pages of every search are nearly identical low quality fba products. Need a search layer to find the small sellers!

Yea, but be honest, you really only want to buy from FBA because that's the one that will arrive tomorrow

This means Amazon has the most efficient pipeline to consumers. Where is the harm? It seems like a benefit to consumers.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#854

Post by hellojesus »

tebbers wrote: post #754
ComputerGuru wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storage plus shipping through FBA isn’t cheap. The problem isn’t that FBA is expensive, the problem is that selling on Amazon but not via FBA is heavily punished with placement and appearance leading to poor conversion rates.

And that hopefully will be the basis of any anticompetitive action. Sounds like logistics and commerce might need to be broken up.

Why? This doesn't make any sense. Why would a vertically integrated business that provides the most efficient outcome for the consumer need to be broken up?

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#855

Post by hellojesus »

buildsjets wrote: post #706
meetingthrower wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah all for < $200 shipped!

Dude needs to learn how to build his own fully automated robotic fire pit factory.

The complaint here is that someone cannot offer a comparable product for as low cost as their competitor?

For all of history we've known that this would lead the least competitive to liquidation.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#856

Post by hellojesus »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #753
letsdothisagain wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti-competitive bit is they have all the sales information that would typically be a trade secret for a company. Go ahead, call up your local 7-11 and ask them what their sales were for the quarter. They'll tell you to fuck off.

Your local grocery store has store brands that compete with the name brands. Your local grocery store also charges for shelf placement. Amazon is actually more open than other stores about this information, giving product rankings so that you could decide to knock off popular products too.

Also, in direct response to the Gp, grocery stores buy sales data that contains their sales + their direct competitors down to the product level. It is anonymoized but freely available.

Edit: Also companies like Google scan emails for information. Amazon stopped including prices in their emails because Google was getting a direction stream of sales data with full costing info.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#857

Post by hellojesus »

ameister14 wrote: post #588
trogdor wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person you are responding to was saying that dropshippers are being eaten because the products they are selling lack innovation. For example, Amazon cannot swoop in and sell a cheaper Amazon Basics version of a product to which you own a critical patent.

I'm aware. They are really saying, though, that without barriers to entry and in a competitive market, players that don't innovate don't survive. >First movers should not get a license to continue to reap a profit in a competitive market absent real innovation, which would come in the form of reputation (trademark) or technology (patent). The problem with that is that this is not a competitive market, so the player t…

But that is definitionly winning the competitive market. Amazon has a competitive advantage because they have the largest inventory and almost always the cheapest prices, or at least speedy delivery for a marginally increased cost.

That is the definition of winning a competitive market. The consumers win.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#858

Post by lvl102 »

lbsnake7 wrote: post #193
lvl102 wrote: post #114

Out of all the natural tech monopolies, Amazon is the ONLY one that did the opposite of exercising market power. They actually brought fast shipping to the market. A decade ago, you had to pay a crap ton of money to ship things even two days. They forced the incumbents such as Walmart to change. They’re constantly improving e-commerce. Heck they even opened up aws and created an entire industry. Amazon did more to re…

They did all those things unsustainably so they could gain market share and raise prices when people were locked in. Similar to Uber and AirBnB etc. All those things are good but not feasible and subsidized by the capital/venture markets. The game is market share and ecosystem lock-in both from suppliers and customers. A truly competitive marketplace allows any supplier to easily match with any customer. Suppliers ga…

How did they actually raise prices? They are still competing on prices on everything. They have the best return policy even besting Costco. FTC and Lina Khan can pound sand. They should go after Walmart for destroying American towns and small businesses before they go after Amazon. I cannot think of a single company that produced more utility for consumers than Amazon.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#859

Post by hellojesus »

neycoda wrote: post #671
BizarroLand wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The whole Amazon Basics thing, cannibalizing sellers, should be illegal. It just victimizes people trying to make a living in a crap job market where online sales are closing street shops.

How does it victimize people?

Sellers are offering a generic product without barriers to entry like trademark, patents. Somebody else notices and contracts the same manufacturer to produce it or finds someone else who will (or makes it themselves). The new entrant sells it for cheaper.

All I see is basic economics. Business cannot stay afloat if their marginal cost exceeds marginal revenue. This is the best outcome for consumers.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#860

Post by hellojesus »

hnlmorg wrote: post #747
deepsun wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In efficient market every business must have razor-thin margins, otherwise competitors squeeze into it. Good fat margins are a result of an ineffective market.

So Amazon making good fat margins on every small business that sells on Amazon is demonstration of an ineffective market. And hence why the FTC are stepping in.

What? Amazon is offering lower prices to consumers, which is why they're winning business.

If other competitors could get their costs as low or lower than Amazon's, then they could enjoy those margins themselves.

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