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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”

#431

Post by takeda »

coconut08 wrote: post #428
slibhb wrote: post #423

Legality aside, I'm not sure that Amazon is winning in the long run with this strategy. I mostly buy products direct from the manufacturer these days and virtually all manufacturers have high quality websites with solid ordering experiences. As long as they have the name recognition, they can either sell for higher on Amazon and take the advertising hit or just ignore Amazon altogether. I continue to buy some stuff o…

i would pay more money to not have to put my credit card into or attach my identity to 100 different random websites all of which almost certainly have worse security practices than amazon and many of which absolutely will have that data stolen at some point. even for people who don't think about stuff like that, it's way easier for the average person to buy everything from a single place than to go to a bunch of dif…

There was this feature provided by banks. I remember BofA was one. Unfortunately they removed it. You could create a temporary credit card number for specific vendor.

It even had option to set one time limit or recurring limit.

I don't understand why it was taken away, was it giving too much control to the customer?

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

#432

Post by thereddaikon »

thfuran wrote: post #253
rqtwteye wrote: post #221

While they are at it they should also go after the credit card companies. They have managed to extract a 2-3% tax on most retail transactions. There is really no reason why the fees should be that high in the age of electronic transactions.

We should cap the fees. France has fees of something like 0.25% due to regulation.

They also need to be required to act more in line like telco common carriers. The payment processors have too much say in what they will and wont allow to be transacted on their networks which has nothing to do with financial risk or legality.

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

#433

Post by granzymes »

taeric wrote: post #427
granzymes wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, in this case I am cheating because I already know that this SKU is offered for a lower price with faster shipping from Walmart. I suspect that listing is what triggered the loss of the buy box.

But that is a non-sequitur. Literally, in that that doesn't necessarily follow. We literally don't know why the buy box doesn't have it here and I could guess at a few other reasons. Most likely, I'd guess that the cheapest option not being Prime factors in to it more so than external offers being cheaper.

You're right, shipping speed likely also factors into it in addition to cost (that's why I also mentioned the shipping speed). If Amazon can't deliver within its 2-day Prime guarantee it is less likely to promote the offer.

Of course, without access to Amazon's systems I can't say for sure why any individual listing is or is not promoted. I'm just making an educated guess based on what the FTC put in its complaint.

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

#434

Post by lhoss »

keepamovin wrote: post #215

I think the general idea across many companies in the U.S. is a good one: breaking up monopolies that are more vulnerable to external, globalized forces. The goal is to fertilize the business landscape with their metaphorical "whale-fall carcasses," enabling a flourishing of smaller, competitive entities. This strategy aims to revitalize and fortify the American economy against the looming tidal wave of foreign compe…

yes , one good reason for the break-up, that also Scott G. explains in this new vid: https://youtu.be/jl-SRHMzZHk?si=o2LpMMESWEIrejld ( Interestingly he his Amzn stock holder, favors the breakup, and believes the parts more valuable than the behemoth currently itself. thus a Win,Win,Win !)

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

#435

Post by amoshi »

coconut08 wrote: post #428
slibhb wrote: post #423

Legality aside, I'm not sure that Amazon is winning in the long run with this strategy. I mostly buy products direct from the manufacturer these days and virtually all manufacturers have high quality websites with solid ordering experiences. As long as they have the name recognition, they can either sell for higher on Amazon and take the advertising hit or just ignore Amazon altogether. I continue to buy some stuff o…

i would pay more money to not have to put my credit card into or attach my identity to 100 different random websites all of which almost certainly have worse security practices than amazon and many of which absolutely will have that data stolen at some point. even for people who don't think about stuff like that, it's way easier for the average person to buy everything from a single place than to go to a bunch of dif…

Many sites support Paypal which means your payment data is safe

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

#436

Post by dmonitor »

trinsic2 wrote: post #294
AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to add Microsoft to this list unless you live in complete denial about the massive monopoly that they have in office IT. And they are actually the first that should be broken up, splitting the office suite from everything else.

Microsoft should be the first one to be split up. Their dominant position is more pervasive than any other market because the operating system people use in their computers is the gateway to get too these other services. The second should be Apple for the same reasons. Then Amazon.

If Apple had >5% desktop market penetration, you’d have a point.

They should definitely open up iOS to installing apps outside the app store, but their position isn’t nearly as abusive as Microsoft’s. Even their 50-60% share of the mobile market is pretty competitive compared to Windows.

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

#437

Post by taeric »

granzymes wrote: post #433
taeric wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is a non-sequitur. Literally, in that that doesn't necessarily follow. We literally don't know why the buy box doesn't have it here and I could guess at a few other reasons. Most likely, I'd guess that the cheapest option not being Prime factors in to it more so than external offers being cheaper.

You're right, shipping speed likely also factors into it in addition to cost (that's why I also mentioned the shipping speed). If Amazon can't deliver within its 2-day Prime guarantee it is less likely to promote the offer. Of course, without access to Amazon's systems I can't say for sure why any individual listing is or is not promoted. I'm just making an educated guess based on what the FTC put in its complaint.

Totally fair, and I think this is the kind of thing they could/should make rules around having a good audit mechanism for regulators to check.

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

#438

Post by mschuster91 »

RandomLensman wrote: post #272
exabrial wrote: post #25

Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, break them all up. And for the love of crap, stop approving billion dollar mergers.

Highly fragmented markets are also bad for price discovery - so how do we know what size to have?

At the very least a line can be drawn when a company cross-subsidizes a barely profitable enterprise to the tune that they're drowning out competitors, or when they exploit workers so absurdly insane that they're forced to resort to piss in bottles because the algorithm penalizes them for taking a civilized bathroom break. AWS makes boatloads of money on AWS and uses that to stay afloat with shipping stuff.

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

#439

Post by kij »

takeda wrote: post #431
coconut08 wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i would pay more money to not have to put my credit card into or attach my identity to 100 different random websites all of which almost certainly have worse security practices than amazon and many of which absolutely will have that data stolen at some point. even for people who don't think about stuff like that, it's way easier for the average person to buy everything from a single place than to go to a bunch of dif…

There was this feature provided by banks. I remember BofA was one. Unfortunately they removed it. You could create a temporary credit card number for specific vendor. It even had option to set one time limit or recurring limit. I don't understand why it was taken away, was it giving too much control to the customer?

I use Revolut alone for that reason. Single-use virtual cards they call it.

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

#440

Post by happytiger »

In order to effectively break up Amazon someone needs to deliver a trusted e-commerce layer for payments and delivery that rivals it and their delivery side.

People buy from them because it’s incredibly easy to check out, and because it’s incredibly reliable for delivery and most importantly they are the verb for e-commerce on the Internet: they own “buy online” as a brand and that’s a hard thing to compete with even if it gets broken up like ma Bell. Those three elements are very hard side problems you have to overcome to build a competitor.

Shopify is well on their way to delivering an easy checkout experience that could be aggregated to create a competitor of sorts, but delivery remains the hard side problem — the network of warehouses and reliable short term delivery windows you can count on. This aggregates demand and enables centralized payments, but you end up essentially replicating Amazons delivery system eventually to gain efficiency or remaining vulnerable until someone comes and takes you out with shipping rates.

It’s also the Craigslist problem all over again as well, because every small category of Amazon is an ocean to a competitor and each needs to solve all three hard side problems, so peeling off each division and improving the experience to consumers is a colossal task that wouldn’t create the same potential for efficiencies of scale or would end up advancing the possibility of winner take all relocation of the exact same issues.

I really do think Amazon needs to be broken up to create more competition, because the alternative seems like it would look a lot like the Costco scene from Idiocracy. That’s not a healthy end-result.

Also IMO Jet.com was the last upstart of any seriousness and they got taken out by Walmart, and that’s another angle anyone who breaks up Amazon has got to think about.

And then their is their oil and gas pipeline in the form of AWS, which is a strategic barrier all itself and allows Amazon to have insane scale that’s entirely paid for by entirely different customers. They can effectively operate for free on their own cloud.

They have layer upon layer of network type advantages that have to be unbundled if they are to be broken up, and unless it’s done profoundly well, they’re going to remain 1100 lb gorillas.

I could probably organize these thoughts better and more concisely but don’t have time at the moment, but this is what immediately comes to mind.

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