Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thebignewsletter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

581–590 of 653 posts

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

#581

Post by thaumasiotes »

defrost wrote: post #580
thaumasiotes wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what if we translate this into a very different society? You live in a big mansion. Your live-in cook heads into town one night and ends up getting into a fight in a bar. He breaks the other guy's leg. What should happen to you?

Now imagine a legal entity represented and managed by several officials. One of them heads into town, hires a bouncer to break a guys leg using the legal entities money, letterhead, and declares that this is work on behalf of the legal entity. What should happen to the legal entity wrt acts commisioned in its name?

They denounce the official and sue to recover the money he spent without authorization?

What happens if someone with no affiliation of any kind with the company hires a bouncer to break a guy's leg using company letterhead and a sworn declaration that the work is commissioned on behalf of the company?

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

#582

Post by [deleted] »

multicast wrote: post #579

This is getting silly on the same level like the EU demanding Netflix to pay a certain percentage to local movie funds or enforcing certain rules to platforms owned by Meta to protect "user interests" about which no user really cares about. Amazon is not a self-evident service run submissive on behalf of the citizens. It's a private company. Nobody forces to do business with amazon nor is one forced to buy anything f…

[deleted]

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

#583

Post by mardifoufs »

bbor wrote: post #566
mardifoufs wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal precedent exists for a reason. It's not waving the white flag, it's having actual standards and rules. I think Amazon is a shithole of a website and one of the worst examples of downward spirals into mediocrity, but there has to be some semblance of fairness. Targeting amazon for something Walmart or Target does, but without targeting them too is just wack. You can't just handwave that issue by saying that we c…

The basic question is "does the FTC have the right to make rules about our society". I think you're answering "no, it should be the legislative only", which sounds great but I think is a serious status-quo bias. The FTC makes rules about our society all the time, both _de jure_ and _de facto_. There is no moral justification for "starting here", but there is a definite practical one. It would be quite hard for the FT…

Actually, I think I agree with most of your points! I wasn't trying to advocate for the status quo or even a legislative only approach. I think what I would prefer is more of an "EPA" like approach of setting progressive timelines for compliance to a new standard or rule, then strict enforcement. Instead of grand and "bomb shell" one off attempts that sometimes feel just bizarre. Maybe the FTC does not have the power to implement something similar to the FTC , but it definitely would help more imo.

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

#584

Post by marcod »

cm2012 wrote: post #573
araes wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obvious astroturfing. The top two posts with the most upvotes are "Ebay is just as bad" for the startoff line, and "Everybody's just as bad as Amazon. Why are you being so mean and cruel to Amazon?" Obvious astroturfing, just like the entire Amazon review ecosystem. Surprise? No. https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ Bezos' wealth relative to "normal" shown as 1-pixel comparisons. Be careful once you get…

I think this lawsuit is dumb and anti-consumer. I've also been active on HN since 2008. Not astroturfing :)

I still don't get how for me as a consumer it's bad that I see the full price and don't have to add the shipping on top only at the end of an order pipeline.

Doesn't showing the total price make it much easier to compare? Aren't politicians pushing on other service industries (airlines, ticket sales) to do just that with all their stupid hidden fees?

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

#585

Post by marcod »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #559
bbor wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I LOVE that link, but I think serious accusations like that need better justification/explanation. Are you saying that Amazon is buying upvotes for comments they like, or that that comment was written by a shill? The former is very possible but hard to prove either way, but the latter seems really unreasonable. In this example, it's a poster that's been here since 2017, talking about things like startup culture, Covi…

Almost every claim of astroturfing is from someone who doesn't understand the basic argument opposing their position.

Unless it's Amazon reviews, where almost every glowing 5 star review is paid for.

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

#586

Post by marcod »

mycologos wrote: post #527
_uhtu wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate that every discussion of reigning in abusive companies has to come with 1000 comments about how other companies are also being abusive, which should apparently make us just wave the white flag. Nah, let's deal with all the monopolies, and Amazon is a good place to start since like you said, they are just incredibly blatant.

In what sense is Costco an "abusive" company? They squeeze their suppliers, but their suppliers legitimately have other options. I'm not aware of any market what Costco is the only game in town.

I can see this both ways. Obviously, nobody is forced to sell to Costco, Amazon, or Walmart, but in a business with thin margins, like Retail, the only way to stay afloat is to sell high numbers. A quasi-monopoly does force vendors to comply in a way.

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

#587

Post by marcod »

exabrial wrote: post #25

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

To me it does feel much worse if one company is singled out. But, yes, bring back the Sherman Antitrust Act with good enforcement.

Personally, I think much of this is in large parts the fault of one party that likes to systematically defund government institutions, so they can say "see big government doesn't work!"

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

#588

Post by meatmanek »

OJFord wrote: post #565
phendrenad2 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please somebody make a site with no payola Aliexpress?

Is that a joke? It's far more of a nightmare. Sort by price and it's only sorting on the 'from' price, which isn't even necessarily the same product, doesn't include the shipping, and doesn't account for wild variation (in not just base price but also inexplicably shipping) when you change quantity or colour.

I would love to see some regulation (/ enforcement) that if you're going to lump different variations of a product together into one product listing, they need to be substantially identical in function and build.

Two different colors of the same specification iPhone are fine to group together (arguably even different storage configurations), but it should be illegal to have a product listing show up on a search page with a price of $5 when the title and photos show the $100 actual product, and $5 is what you pay for the charger brick. This is extremely common on AliExpress, and obviously the FTC's reach is limited there, but it also happens not infrequently on Amazon and eBay.

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

#589

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#590

Post by danielmarkbruce »

marcod wrote: post #586
mycologos wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense is Costco an "abusive" company? They squeeze their suppliers, but their suppliers legitimately have other options. I'm not aware of any market what Costco is the only game in town.

I can see this both ways. Obviously, nobody is forced to sell to Costco, Amazon, or Walmart, but in a business with thin margins, like Retail, the only way to stay afloat is to sell high numbers. A quasi-monopoly does force vendors to comply in a way.

Costco meets no reasonable person's definition of monopoly. Not quasi, not sort of, not anything. They do a couple hundred bill of sales in a multi-trillion dollar market. Sub 10% share.
Post reply on HN