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

871–880 of 930 posts

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#871

Post by jollofricepeas »

hellojesus wrote: post #852
jollofricepeas wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Consumers without jobs can’t consume.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#872

Post by BizarroLand »

hellojesus wrote: post #859
neycoda wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Are business owners not people?

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#873

Post by hellojesus »

BizarroLand wrote: post #872
hellojesus wrote: post #859

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Are business owners not people?

Clearly I included one too many words:

How does it victimize?

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#874

Post by desiarnezjr »

selcuka wrote: post #661
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have to. They could get their own distribution channel. Distribution is a thing, you can't just complain that you don't have it for free.

That's literally the meaning of being a monopoly: There are no other distribution channels that can compete with Amazon. They are a distribution monopoly.

Distribution channels are endless, and as large as Amazon is, they are only one amongst many, albeit with plenty of vertically integrated advantages.

In the case of a firepit, local consumer channels would likely be speciality shops, hardware and big box with probably a couple of layers of distribution and logistics in between. That market however is more likely to offer $500-$1000 firepits, because that's the way it WAS before Amazon, ALi, etc etc opened up new digital channels to drive down volume, manufacturing and up quantity (which eventually results in either greater margins or lower prices).

Those same non Amazon channels will also sell Joe FBA's $200 firepit as well, perhaps for $400 using those other channels.

To access and operate a business around those traditional / other channels however is nowhere near as simple as "order 50 of these on Ali" + "sell these as FBA on Amazon" = $profit.

It's a lot of work. I wouldn't necessary call Amazon a shortcut, but it's a path to market that is easier, but at a cost.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#875

Post by desiarnezjr »

hellojesus wrote: post #868
resuresu wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human labor has little value in the age of chatgpt and onlyfans. Did you know there are teenage girls selling bottles of their dirty bathwater for more money than the average blue collar worker makes in a month. As time goes on, its starting to look like this whole free market thing isnt such a good idea anymore.

What is not free market about teenage girls offering dirty bathwater? Are you upset that there is demand for this product? The girls here actually have a competitive advantage! They have a time limited product (beauty, youth) that is not easily replicable.

Exactly! In whichever market that you can sell dirty bathwater, I think they may have an advantage over my sales of "Smelly Old Nerd dirty bath water".

I'll either find a better channel, price point or give up on my dream of dirty bath water money. Point being the actual value is the packaging and selling of said bathwater.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#876

Post by meowtimemania »

lobochrome wrote: post #693
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…

Agreed. It’s a net positive for society if the entire CSFC (Cheap Shit From China) economy is slowly collapsing.

Is the "cheap shit from china" any different than the "slightly more expensive shit from america" that probably isn't even from america?

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#877

Post by redwood »

taeric wrote: post #542
redwood wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that explicitly the case? Because the same antics apply to the marketplace and the copying of ecosystem participant services there too..

Is what explicitly the case? The PDF for the allegations of this case are in the link. No mention of AWS.

But Amazon is mentioned and Amazon owns AWS and many of the abuses described with respect to the e-commerce marketplace are also relevant to the AWS marketplace. I hear you on how they are not directly and literally mentioned in the text explicitly however one can understand why there's a thematic overlap and certainly I can imagine if I were AWS I would be sweating right now

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#878

Post by SenAnder »

hellojesus wrote: post #861
SenAnder wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon inflating rates after capturing the market, permitting counterfeits, and penalizing sellers offering lower prices off-Amazon, has nothing to do with market efficiency or commoditization.

> and penalizing sellers offering lower prices off-Amazon Why shouldn't they be allowed to do this? If you want to sell on their market, you promise not to undercut them. Amazon exists as a discovery tool for consumers. They don't want third party sellers to get free advertising. That isn't anticompetitive.

You've explained what gives Amazon the leverage to set such terms, and why they'd want to set such terms, but you haven't explained why preventing other platforms/sellers from competing on price isn't anti-competitive - you merely asserted that it is so.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#879

Post by lots2learn »

xyst wrote: post #50

Decouple Amazon Warehouse division from Amazon Web Services (AWS largely subsidizes losses incurred by warehouse division), then we will see change. Right now FTC going after low hanging fruit. But we all know Amazon will challenge it in court, appeal, appeal, appeal, pay the reduced fine, slow roll any changes, and business will continue as usual. Break up the tech giants and each individual unit cannot survive as-i…

Funny because alot of sellers are complaining about high fba fees eating into their profits. If you remove the subsidy (assuming there is one which I doubt) those fees would rise to hurt sellers more.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#880

Post by thewix »

hellojesus wrote: post #852
jollofricepeas wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Cept the part about Amazon not letting you sell your goods cheaper elsewhere. That keeps the price inflated and is anti-competitive since it squashes competition from other marketplaces, not because their platform is better, mind you, but because they have all the power.
Post reply on HN