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

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

#461

Post by itslennysfault » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:37 PM UTC

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…

I would (and sometimes do) pay more money to not give money to Amazon. Also, I feel like the vast majority of sites support Google Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal and/or Venmo these days so I rarely find myself entering my credit card number.

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

#462

Post by user3939382 » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:40 PM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #406

user3939382 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parler Strawman in any case, having a technical option doesn’t negate massive horrible effects on the public.

So it’s a straw man that anyone can’t just set up a blog or do podcast and publish their ideas?

It’s a strawman because GP wasn’t commenting on whether or not there is a technical way of reaching the public, but rather that media consolidation hurts the public. Those are orthogonal issues.

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

#463

Post by BoiledCabbage » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:42 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #152

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, you disagree because you fundamentally don't understand what's going on. I'll explain it to you. A company makes a product - it costs $10 per unit to make. To list and sell with Amazon, they are charged $12 per unit. To make a profit the company adds and additional $1 per unit. They sell the product on Amazon for $23 per unit. Online retailer Foo also has a store, and provide the same services that Amazo…

I do understand, but what you're describing is bad for Amazon's customers, as you note yourself. Furthermore, again, no one is obligated to sell with Amazon. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of sellers who do not sell their stuff on Amazon. It's not some requirement to do business in the 21st century. In any case, we can come back to this case a year from now, and we can pretend to be shocked when nothin…

I think you're looking at the short term and small scale instead of the long term and large / societal scale.

Yes I'm the short term Amazon's customers don't get the discount they could get om Foo retail. Bit then they become Foo retailer customers and they benefit. Too many things optimize for the small scale.

Similarly Amazon's upon losing customers to Foo retailer has to become more efficient overall (or reduce its rent seeking fee) to stop losing customers. So now all of Amazon's customers for that product benefit, even those that didn't move. And potentially even those customers for other Amazon products.

This is the purpose of capitalism - marker competition. Nobody wins with laisse-fair capitalism except rent seekers. Society benefits from market competition in capitalism and this is pushing for it.

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

#464

Post by da_chicken » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:45 PM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #375

da_chicken wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's several problems with that. It's true that the US government does make those demands, but it's very important to note that the US government organization is not a reseller of goods. It is almost exclusively a consumer. It is not in direct competition in the same marketplace with private industry outside of a few select industries (e.g., USPS, limited healthcare). Next, MFN tariffs kind of by definition only a…

You are confusing unrelated things. As used here, "MFN" refers to a common type of term found in standard business contracts that have nothing to do with the WTO or the government. This discussion is about Amazon's use of MFN terms when contracting with ordinary domestic businesses.

That's not what you used the term for. If there is conflating going on, it started with your post.

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

#465

Post by 93po » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:45 PM UTC

pierat wrote: post #383

cwoolfe wrote: post #244

This strategy has been adopted by eBay as well and artificially drives up prices. Let me elaborate. Recently, eBay has made it so that only the products with paid ads are shown in places where customers click. This drives up the cost of everything by more than 10% which is eBay's ad fee. I refused to buy a paid ad to sell my MacBook. It sat on the site for a month, which is highly unusual for an in-demand and rightly…

Thats not the only thing I caught, at least with Ebay. During the pandemic, I decided to sell a bunch of a component I had stockpiled. (Im not a scalper. I got the parts when my dad died.). I put them for sale with $100 minimum, auction. They ended up selling for $300. I was definitely happy.... until Ebay refused to send me my money, and instead demanded access to a bank account, after the sale was complete. Fuck th…

Wow, this is wildly unethical and shitty. I'm never using ebay again.

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

#466

Post by 93po » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:46 PM UTC

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…

privacy dot com does this really well

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

#467

Post by dmix » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:49 PM UTC

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…

This is explained in the OP article linked here...

Although I guess not everyone actually reads the articles so reiterating in the comments is useful.

> Still, why can’t a third-party seller offer a lower price outside of Amazon? Good question! That’s where the scheme gets very clever. Originally, Amazon imposed contracts, as the FTC noted, “barring all sellers from offering their goods for lower prices anywhere else.” But Europeans, and Senator Richard Blumenthal, complained about these price parity agreements, so Amazon dropped its explicit contractual requirements in 2019.

> However, this change was a farce. The firm simply did through code what it couldn’t do through contract. "Amazon,” claims the FTC, “has implemented an algorithm for the express purpose of deterring other online stores from offering lower prices.

> Today, Amazon tells sellers that if it detects a lower price for their products on any other online store, they will be punished, which is to say, their ability to get their products onto a place on the Amazon website where customers click will go away. The net effect, as Amazon itself wrote, is that "prices will go up."

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

#468

Post by BLanen » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:49 PM UTC

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 countries have solved this without needing monopolies/monopsonies by having sane payment methods.

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

#469

Post by brewdad » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:59 PM UTC

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…

Why not? If I'm willing to pay Amazon $6 for an item I could get for $5 at Walmart, why wouldn't Amazon want to make that sale?

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

#470

Post by umeshunni » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:59 PM UTC

seydor wrote: post #390

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #357

The FTC is going to lose this case like they have lost others. They are suing someone with the power of a government. Whether it is "right" or not, the legal case needs to be incredibly strong and airtight to make it through court, and a loss looks really bad. It signals that other companies can be even more anticompetitive because they know the FTC will lose against the biggest fish in court.

> a loss looks really bad To whom? it's not like they will lose customers. It's better to try than not to try

> a loss looks really bad > To whom?

To the FTC led by Lina Khan, and supported/appointed by the Dems, in an election year.

Also, the FTC's warning will start being ignored by companies if they have a track record of crying wolf: https://www.wsj.com/articles/lina-khan-is-taking-on-the-worl...