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The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

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Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#101

Post by Jensson »

endisneigh wrote: post #93
Jensson wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For b2c monopolies matters, for b2b it is enough to be a dominant player to engage on a lot of harmful anti-competitive practices. This is a b2b situation that harms consumers, in that situation it doesn't matter that there are competitors, what matters is how much power Amazon has over vendors.

I disagree. Demanding the lowest price does not harm consumers. Overstock, Wayfair, Walmart and others do the same thing. The result is the lowest price for a given product on all sites. This is unquestionably good for consumers.

Most disagrees with you here, including those who makes the laws and the courts.

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#102

Post by burkaman »

someonehere wrote: post #54

What does breaking up Amazon look like? I’m genuinely curious because half the comments I see in here are “break up Amazon!” or “break up FAANG!” What does that look like? What would Amazon look like if broken up? In the end we all know lobbyists from Amazon will somehow influence their outcome.

Amazon marketplace, AWS, Whole Foods, Twitch, Fulfillment by Amazon, and maybe Amazon Studios could all be separate companies. I think Amazon marketplace would also be forced to end some practices like not allowing sellers to have lower prices elsewhere.

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#103

Post by endisneigh »

Jensson wrote: post #101
endisneigh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Demanding the lowest price does not harm consumers. Overstock, Wayfair, Walmart and others do the same thing. The result is the lowest price for a given product on all sites. This is unquestionably good for consumers.

Most disagrees with you here, including those who makes the laws and the courts.

> Most disagrees with you here, including those who makes the laws and the courts.

Downvotes don't mean anything. Most of the folks on here have no idea how e-commerce works. Amazon will win. It's simple to see - them losing would imply they are obligated to feature higher prices, which is clearly worse for customers and inherently at odds with what the FTC is supposedly trying to accomplish.

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#104

Post by endisneigh »

dwallin wrote: post #94
endisneigh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assumption here is that they have to sell on Amazon to begin with, which they do not. There are plenty of products that you cannot buy on Amazon, so your entire post is ridiculous as it shows again, you don't need Amazon to succeed to begin with.

You are a seller. Amazon makes up 40% of your sales. You have your own first party website where you can profitably offer your product for 5% less and still make an additional 10% profit but it only makes up 5% of your sales currently. What's your move in this position? You can't just imagine all companies as perfect frictionless spherical interchangeable cows. In reality companies as large as Amazon can have signifi…

You can lower the product for 5% on both your site and on Amazon. Since Amazon makes up the plurality of your sales you gain more sales both there and on your site. Everyone wins except for you, and such is the life of race-to-the-bottom e-commerce sales.

What I'm describing is already what happens, by the way. Look at Anker for an example.

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#105

Post by platz »

thelastgallon wrote: post #17

An excerpt from: https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/ Amazon binds its sellers over to something called Most Favored Nation status. That means that sellers can't offer their goods more cheaply than they do on Amazon – even if it costs them (lots) less to sell in Target or direct from their websites. This means that every time a seller adds a dollar to their Amazon sale price, they have to add a dollar to…

Why rely in a promise. what happened to the lawsuits?

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#106

Post by endisneigh »

proamdev123 wrote: post #81
abirch wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. I quit using Amazon late last year and it's pretty easy to change to different vendors. Hopefully more consumers do this so that vendors don't have to use the Amazon price everywhere else on the internet.

Where do you shop online now for things that you used to buy on Amazon? Have you found any unexpected pros or cons from going to alternative online stores? I’m not planning to leave Amazon, but I’d love to find good alternatives.

eBay, Walmart, Wix, Shopify stores, etc. You can use Google Shopping to find even more places. Amazon rarely has the best price for all items these days.

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#107

Post by locallost »

endisneigh wrote: post #34
Jensson wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is none of Amazons business what prices they put when they list their wares on other services, the only reason they care is that they want to crush the competition. Dictating how retailers can interact with your competitors is anti-competitive. Dictating what prices they can offer when they put up listings is a part of that, it is anti-competitive.

[flagged]

It's pro consumer to pay more than you would've because one company in an allegedly free market decides what the price is allowed to be.

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#108

Post by ARussell »

endisneigh wrote: post #95
ARussell wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not GP. I didn't make that argument. I agree that Amazon is not obliged to allow just anyone on their platform. Sellers must abide by the rules that Amazon sets in place. At the same time, Amazon must abide by the laws of the locations at which it wants to sell. So if a state says that they cannot force a seller to keep their lowest price on Amazon, then that's the way it is.

> So if a state says that they cannot force a seller to keep their lowest price on Amazon, then that's the way it is. Yes, but at the end of the day Amazon to remove the seller for any reason, so even if the FTC succeeds here, Amazon will simply purge those sellers who are not offering the best price, even if not explicitly stated. There is no reality where Amazon allows their site to be inundated with higher priced…

Perhaps you are right, and also then again perhaps those companies find that they have cause to file a lawsuit.

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#109

Post by xbmcuser »

Semaphor wrote: post #52

Hm, is the forced price country dependent? Because I’ve actually bought or found several products via Amazon, that I later started buying for less on the seller’s private store. Germany.

european countries usually have customer protections with teeth where as US seem to have corporate protection rather than consumer protections

Re: The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”

#110

Post by thsksbd »

someonehere wrote: post #54

What does breaking up Amazon look like? I’m genuinely curious because half the comments I see in here are “break up Amazon!” or “break up FAANG!” What does that look like? What would Amazon look like if broken up? In the end we all know lobbyists from Amazon will somehow influence their outcome.

One option is to divide AMZ along business units. Thats the natural, easy way to do so. Itd cause least loss of value to the shareholders.

I disagree. AMZ babies would still be essentially monopolistic in their markets. Nor do I think shareholder value, after being inflated through monopolistic abuse, is sacrisanct.

Divide AMZ slicing through the business units. Make a half dozen vertically integrated baby AMZs. They all have access to AMZ IP, held by a separate company that can license it out to third parties (ie if they don't license their web tech to, say, Best Buy this AMZ baby has no revenue and goes to receivership since all other AMZ babies don't have to pay licensing fees).

EDIT: I almost forgot liability. Transfer all current known and unknown AMZ liabilities, including fraud and sale of fake goods, to the baby AMZs.

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