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

The Amazon tax

seths.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

671–680 of 731 posts

Re: The Amazon tax

#671

Post by toss1 »

tt24 wrote: post #335
toss1 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is only 25% more, you are NOT getting ripped off. Mere economies of scale and purchasing power yield Amazon more than 25% lower costs. the mom & pop stores you accuse of ripping you off likely have even slimmer margins than Amazon, even at their prices. Yes, all of us who are not wealthy must have an upper limit to what we can support, and maybe 25% is over your limit, but please don't ignorantly accuse them of…

Sounds like the economy of scale option produced better results for consumers :)

If you take the view of a simpleton, sure, it seems "Better", for now, and depending on your definition of "Better". If it is only price, then sure.

But remember, the economies of scale first make things more the same and reduce variety, then enable eliminating competitors from the market, thus enabling enshittification at scale (not possible when there are readily available competitors and switching is easy).

For prices that are temporarily lower, getting a worse selection of worse products or services and no real choice, then prices higher than ever when the market is cornered, is not better. Yet this is the cycle that has happened for centuries, to the point where it can be considered inevitable if not fought.

And it is visible in this weeks earnings reports — corporate profits higher than ever, labor's portion of the economy smaller than ever, inflation increasing, and products universally shittier than ever.

But sure, they can go on complaining about how the small store is "ripping them off" whilst taking "LESS" profit from the system and providing a better service. That myopic approach to life, clueless about how things actually work, is what got us in this predicament in the first place.

Re: The Amazon tax

#673

Post by gz5 »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #590

I see the exact same thing on Play Store, and I think Google is outright complicit in fraud. The top result when you search for an app, even if by exact name, is always, literally 100% of the time, not the app you are looking for, but some other ad-infested knockoff spyware shit whose developer paid Google to be placed before the real thing.

fraud and/or trademark infringement.

i only play a laywer on HN but seems categorically different than the safe harbor dmca which protects youtube etc since google has full control?

same for the amazon case. amazon for fraud and/or tm infringement.

the buyer of the ads as well in both cases but of course those are smaller pockets to empty.

it needs to be done legally but i will say that ads can benefit startups and small companies wrt building awareness against brands which already have it - so i dont think 'ads are the scourge of the earth' but of course rule of law needs to apply.

Re: The Amazon tax

#674

Post by voakbasda »

14 wrote: post #611
ndiddy wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of an analogy I read a while ago in an article critiquing keyword based online advertising (can't find the article unfortunately). A restaurant wants to drum up new business, so the owner tasks three employees with handing out flyers with coupons attached. The coupons are marked to identify which employee passed them out, and each week the owner gives a bonus to the employee whose coupons get redeemed t…

This reminds me of my dad's story about decades ago as a kid paperboy they had a contest get people to sign up and who ever had the most after a few months would win a bike. He smoked everyone. They were desperate to know how he got so many people to sign up but he refused to tell them. His trick, well back then for a nickel you could go to a paper vending machine and buy a paper. But it would just open up and you co…

This kind of fraud has become so pervasive. People cheat the system and then get rewarded. Everyone else sees it and decides to follow suit. The enshittification of society.

Re: The Amazon tax

#675

Post by voakbasda »

antonvs wrote: post #656
SamBam wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they even have any idea that their ads are showing up for the specific competing doctor? Isn't Google the one deciding where the ads are most valuable?

If they don’t know, showing up and telling them will let them know. If you excuse the effects that people’s actions have because they didn’t realize they were causing them, you guarantee that those effects will never stop.

Yup. If every person that got misdirected by an ad went into the offenders business and raised hell, they would probably decide that it wasn’t worth it.

Re: The Amazon tax

#676

Post by wavemode »

seedless-sensat wrote: post #568
msy wrote: post #566

This is a lot of words to describe rent seeking. Google, Amazon, Instagram/Meta, ultimately all of these are earning their outsized margins through market-dominance enabled intermediation of commerce. I search for 'foo' and the top result is either Foo paying through the nose for what should really should be organic traffic or Bar 'buying' the click instead. In the absence of anti-trust the only winning move is to bu…

It was only 600 words. I understand there is a push against AI bloated slop here, but I don't think we should discourage good prose. I just wanted to share that I find Seth's daily blog consistently excellent.

I don't think parent commenter is complaining about the length. "a lot of words to describe..." is a rhetorical device. Their comment is basically saying "you wrote this whole article complaining about Amazon, but what they're doing is common and systemic."

Re: The Amazon tax

#677

Post by markmiro »

It’s not theft, it adds friction for their own customers who pay for Amazon Prime. I think it’s counterproductive over the long term.

Secondly, taxes are not voluntary. You are required to pay them. Comparing government to business doesn’t make sense.

Re: The Amazon tax

#678

Post by dannyw »

gz5 wrote: post #673
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #590

I see the exact same thing on Play Store, and I think Google is outright complicit in fraud. The top result when you search for an app, even if by exact name, is always, literally 100% of the time, not the app you are looking for, but some other ad-infested knockoff spyware shit whose developer paid Google to be placed before the real thing.

fraud and/or trademark infringement. i only play a laywer on HN but seems categorically different than the safe harbor dmca which protects youtube etc since google has full control? same for the amazon case. amazon for fraud and/or tm infringement. the buyer of the ads as well in both cases but of course those are smaller pockets to empty. it needs to be done legally but i will say that ads can benefit startups and s…

There's no inherent fraud or trademark infringement in advertising/bidding for search terms of your competitors. A classic example is Dominos bidding for 'Pizza Hut', and vice versa.

There may be trademark infringement when you use another company's trademarks. There are some exceptions, for example copy like 'Compatible with $X' or 'Learn why users are switching from $X to ' are generally fine. The line has been drawn over decades of court battles and case law.

At work, we've dealt with a few examples that go as far as falsely impersonating our brand.

Recently, we've started getting 'explanations' from these (usually fly-by-night operators) that it was 'unintended' and the result of AI targeting and optimization. Yeah, right.

Re: The Amazon tax

#679

Post by ilaksh »

IAmBroom wrote: post #386
ilaksh wrote: post #254

The solution could be common evolving public protocols to create large alternative non-profit marketplaces.

> non-profit marketplaces So, um, Marxist utopias? Profit is exactly why all marketplaces exist.

There are ways to collect necessary operational fees without needing to turn a profit, and it's also to operate a digital marketplace on the communities own collect infrastructure, so that might not even be necessary.

Amazon exists as a big monopoly marketplace because they started collecting a large number of goods they were selling for profit and then leveraged that momentum and near monopoly into controlling the whole market. But it started out as just a retailer. For digital goods, we can create digital marketplaces that aren't controlled by one of the retailers in that market.

Re: The Amazon tax

#680

Post by AndyMcConachie »

applicative wrote: post #577
msy wrote: post #566

This is a lot of words to describe rent seeking. Google, Amazon, Instagram/Meta, ultimately all of these are earning their outsized margins through market-dominance enabled intermediation of commerce. I search for 'foo' and the top result is either Foo paying through the nose for what should really should be organic traffic or Bar 'buying' the click instead. In the absence of anti-trust the only winning move is to bu…

There is no rent seeking or monopolistic or technofeudal or enshittifying aspect of Amazon at all. The people who made their names beginning twenty years ago by marketing these expressions are losers who have simply been proven wrong. It is monotonous middle brow repetition See eg the left wing expose of the above mentioned brain death in Maher Aquanno https://archive.ph/YJaZr better in their academic papers like Mon…

Amazon regularly sends me spam emails.
Post reply on HN