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Amazon Must Be Stopped

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21–30 of 106 posts

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#21
Are we really facing "less variety of products and lower quality of the remaining ones"? I see more variety in Amazon's kindle store than I ever saw in a traditional publisher's range, and while the average quality may be lower the peaks are as high as ever.

If Amazon really did undercut Diapers.com by selling at a loss, that sounds like a perfectly good case for existing antitrust laws, not something that requires executive action. For the rest, I'm happy to reap the benefits of what Amazon gives us.

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#22
We have to remember that when we talking about giant companies we are talking about giant institutions, of a form and culture that has not existed in human history. The closest parallels common throughout human history are armies.

I think that our 20th century paradigms have failed to understand and shape these institutions, each with their own trappings. Labour unionism, which was deeply rooted in man labour cultures and many countries' political systems was amazingly corrupt. They became their own institutions layering their own dynamics and interests into the already impossible mesh. The results were far from unanimously positive.

Liberal-capitalism nurtured the concept of non natural person, corporate entities. The cultural relationship between individual, employers, consumers and investors and the institutions is grafted onto the idea that the institution is a legal person. At this point, companies are far more than risk sharing and limiting devices. They are institutions of the same gravity as churches, bureaucracies, aristocracies and such. They are entrenched. I don't mean that in a strictly accusatory sense. They are just part of the web of culture, laws, economies and everything else.

First of all, we all need to have the humility to understand how little we know about how these things work. We are designed to operate within social institutions, not to build and destroy them each generation. No one built feudalism or poleis. No one really designed the international system of nation states. No one created Danish national identity. These things just evolved. Those are the kinds of things we're dealing with.

I don't know what is the right way of dealing with Amazon, Google or Walmart as a (global) society. I think I would be more comfortable if the times brought around a period of miniaturization, where these mega institutions gave way to hundreds or thousands of smaller ones.

For Amazon, what's keeping them huge is (a) dispatch & postal delivery is surprisingly hard. (b) The chain between design, manufacture, marketing and delivery is surprisingly cumbersome. Amazon is a company that does what a market would do in a world fewer impediments.

Maybe the next few decades will make global delivery trivial. This would enable products to come directly from suppliers and simplify the chain. Software developers once had to sell software through software stores. The modern incarnations of software store is a relatively thinner layer. Producers are closer to consumers and the intermediaries are really just market makers.

PS: Price controls have a bad track record dating back to Roman times.

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#24

At least for ebooks it recently occurred to me that it will probably be difficult for any ebook vendor to establish a monopoly. After all, everybody can just offer ebooks on their web site.

The Kindle is attempt to do exactly that, breadth of offering and convenience is a pretty big hurdle to overcome.

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#25
Modern society always progresses at the cost of old, inefficient jobs, while redistributing the wealth from those destroyed markets. The only concern is whether the redistribution of wealth is towards equality or inequality. As long as wealth is transferred to more people, the overall gain of buying power will eventually create a better economy.

The problem is really not about monopoly, but whether the beneficiaries of these business contain a larger population.

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#26
post #12

Hmm, then we also need to stop Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Dropbox, TimeWarner Cable, military industrial complex, some big oil companies, a few hedge funds, a few banks, etc. Probably might as well call it quits with this whole capitalism thing. In all seriousness though why don't any of these articles ever address the underlying issue of why this stuff happens. If you have a certain kind of economic system then so…

that's why anti-trust laws exist. If we break them up as they grow, we still reap the benefits of economic growth without the dangers of the monopoly.

Sure but that still doesn't address the actual problem and from a certain viewpoint two companies doing the same thing is less efficient than a large company doing it because of economies of scale. So which is it? Do we want efficiency or fairness?

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those the same people whose jobs were lost due to Walmart and Amazon? Or who prefer to have a vibrant local downtown?

If you want a job, why not just dig a hole in the street and try to get paid for it? That would not be different from keeping a job that is not needed anymore alive just for the sake of the job. If you feel bad about Amazon, donate 10% of what you buy at Amazon to a "hole digger foundation" which pays people who lost their jobs because of Amazon to dig holes.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#28
But in truth doesn't Amazon act more as a economic lubricant? Connecting consumers with all sorts of industries and businesses all across the world? For every industry or business that's "trampled" aren't an equal or greater number of businesses benefiting? It's like a shit hot postal service with a great website that's hugely profitable and ploughs most of its profits into making the service even better. It renews my faith in the human race to get big stuff done, and done well. I'd say we need to keep an eye on it, especially its tax affairs, but for now its probably best just to wait and see what happens ...

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#29
post #21

Are we really facing "less variety of products and lower quality of the remaining ones"? I see more variety in Amazon's kindle store than I ever saw in a traditional publisher's range, and while the average quality may be lower the peaks are as high as ever. If Amazon really did undercut Diapers.com by selling at a loss, that sounds like a perfectly good case for existing antitrust laws, not something that requires e…

In my experience, Amazon almost always isn't the cheapest place to get something online.

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those the same people whose jobs were lost due to Walmart and Amazon? Or who prefer to have a vibrant local downtown?

If you want a job, why not just dig a hole in the street and try to get paid for it? That would not be different from keeping a job that is not needed anymore alive just for the sake of the job. If you feel bad about Amazon, donate 10% of what you buy at Amazon to a "hole digger foundation" which pays people who lost their jobs because of Amazon to dig holes.

Incidentally smile.amazon.com does this for charities. Whatever you buy from that link a certain percentage of the sale goes to your chosen charity.
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