Why Amazon Is Special and Apple Is Not
theatlantic.com
Why Amazon Is Special and Apple Is Not
1–10 of 77 posts
Re: Why Amazon Is Special and Apple Is Not
#2When has Apple ever "competed on price"? As far as I can tell, low cost competition has not been a problem for Apple.
Re: Why Amazon Is Special and Apple Is Not
#3TLDR - The cost of competing against Amazon is a magnitude higher than competing against Apple (see Android).
Re: Why Amazon Is Special and Apple Is Not
#4The article states that a company with high margins, is at risk of being outcompeted by companys with lower prices. This makes sense, but in the case of Apple, lower priced products have been there for a while and people still choose Apple.
Re: Why Amazon Is Special and Apple Is Not
#5There are a few things about this article that I must not be following correctly:
- Apple's core business is something 'everyone can do'. If so then why aren't there more people chasing down their position as 'most profitable tech company'?
- 'Practically nobody wants to' do what Amazon do?
I get the premise: Amazon are playing a long game but will be entrenched, whereas Apple's products tend to have a far shorter lifespan, therefore Amazon isn't being chased as furiously as Apple. However, it still seems a bit... wrong?
Re: Why Amazon Is Special and Apple Is Not
#6When has Apple ever "competed on price"? As far as I can tell, low cost competition has not been a problem for Apple.
In the 90's, Windows machines competed with Macs on price, and nearly made Apple extinct.
With the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Apple have been going from Early Mover to Early Mover, which has allowed them to keep their high margins. Unless they can keep finding even more new markets to move into, they are going to find it harder and harder to maintain high margins. They will then almost certainly have to lower their prices to remain competitive, or lose huge amounts of market share.
Re: Why Amazon Is Special and Apple Is Not
#7After seeing many cases where Amazon is not the cheapest, I wonder if Costco (and costco.com) could ultimately eat away at Amazon. It has incredible pricing power and an efficient infrastructure, and costco.com itself is growing rapidly. Most importantly, on many items Costco can beat Amazon's price by a significant margin (even comparing Amazon's tax-advantaged price to Costco's after-tax price)
Re: Why Amazon Is Special and Apple Is Not
#8There are a few things about this article that I must not be following correctly: - Apple's core business is something 'everyone can do'. If so then why aren't there more people chasing down their position as 'most profitable tech company'? - 'Practically nobody wants to' do what Amazon do? I get the premise: Amazon are playing a long game but will be entrenched, whereas Apple's products tend to have a far shorter li…
I think it means building phones and tablets is easier than building warehouses, developing partnerships and affiliates.
Keep in mind that Apple has been doing this (building touch screen devices) for about 6 years, while Amazon has been doing this (e-retail) for more than twice that time. Apple already has serious competitors, while Amazon maintains a near monopoly. I think this is the essence of what the article was getting at.
Re: Why Amazon Is Special and Apple Is Not
#9There are a few things about this article that I must not be following correctly: - Apple's core business is something 'everyone can do'. If so then why aren't there more people chasing down their position as 'most profitable tech company'? - 'Practically nobody wants to' do what Amazon do? I get the premise: Amazon are playing a long game but will be entrenched, whereas Apple's products tend to have a far shorter li…
You misinterpret what "core business" means. Apple's core business is making phones and tablets. There is now fierce global competition in these sectors.
I can't think of any other company that competes with Amazon at anywhere near the scale they are operating at.
Re: Why Amazon Is Special and Apple Is Not
#10As the update to the article quotes:
> The chances I leave [Apple] are minimal because I have all my music and photos and such on the phone. The inertia or friction of moving is fairly high.
This is also starting to become true with the kindle for consumers.
Another advantage of Amazon however is its many business customers - i.e. those who use and rely on AWS. I would imagine the friction of moving away from AWS are even higher for a business than for an end-user to transfer their songs and videos...