Amazon Must Be Stopped • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#91

Post by eli_gottlieb » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 2:53 PM UTC

dkarapetyan wrote: post #6

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…

> 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.

Now you're getting it! Yes, that is exactly what we need to be doing.

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#92

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 3:22 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #88

emotionalcode wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I am saying that the collective unconscious belief system of a system itself (here, I am calling a collection of humans, or a society - to be a system) is what can direct it. This means all those side thoughts you think you ignore. When you choose to listen to analysis over intuition, but you might not consider the effect of ignoring intuition in favor of analysis, or you may even deny the existence of intuition…

We're getting into tricky territory with words :) I think it's important to make a distinction between clever emergent processes that people are involved in but aren't in control of and those that people made and are in control in. The distinction is vague, and arguable. I'm generally pretty down on systems (politics and economics are really burdened by these) which overreach by overstating our understanding of thing…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#93

Post by ende » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 3:37 PM UTC

VexXtreme wrote: post #54

mercurial wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are markets where one player enjoys a monopoly "free"? > Oh wait... it was tried 90 years ago and it didn't work out. Whether the current system is working is up for debate.

If a monopoly spontaneously emerges out of a free market, whereby no violence or coercion was used against other participants, then that business was simply better and more efficient at giving the market what it wants. It also doubles as a price signal to others that something in their way of doing business is inefficient and wasteful (or just not as efficient as the most efficient participant). I don't have a proble…

You touch on something important. Beyond the fact that the term monopoly gets thrown at a company without any further qualification of such a statement, there's no real thought put into how the company is using said alleged monopoly power to raise prices on consumers or create barriers to entry in the market.

Amazon's prices trend downward, constantly. Amazon is also itself a market facilitator, agnostic to which products sell, so long as they sell. High quality and low prices race to the top of customer ratings. Third parties sell on Amazon as well, providing a global market for local brick and mortar shops. Further, Amazon is by far not the only website selling things on the internet. The internet is pretty great at lowering barriers to entry.

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#94

Post by ende » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 4:12 PM UTC

The author appears to suffer from nostalgia bias, longing for turn of the century progressivism to reign in his old corporate foe. This same well of centralized thinking gave a brave new world eugenics, prohibition, and industrial nationalism. Antitrust is indeed an important emergency power of the government, but its utility is most often the self-corrction of errors caused by the state itself.

If you want to target monopolies in this modern age, go after companies like Comcast that arise out of state induced monoploy as a matter of necessity but go unregulated beyond that. The only thing Amazon is guilty of is decreasing costs of living for millions. It is no more at fault for liss of jobs in bygone industries as Ford was for layoffs in the horse and buggy industry.

The authors's argument essentially amounts to the Corporations Being All Corporationy.

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#95

Post by johnm111888 » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 4:14 PM UTC

I disagree completely. Amazon is successful through legal means. What do you want to do? Government punishing them for being too successful? As long as there isn't regulation that prohibits market entrants --a big reason for monopolies in the late 19th and early 20th century -- I don't see exactly what someone would suggest to do. The free market is a cumulation of mutually beneficial exchanges-- its a volunteer economy. Amazon's not forcing anyone to do anything. Publisher's do business with Amazon because it benefits them. They could easily stick with Barnes and Noble. Capitalism is by no means perfect but it's the best way to distribute capital. It's the only economic system that's brought masses of people out of poverty. For someone to say government should step in and set pricings!? Force Amazon to breakup?! Government knows better than anyone else? They know the market better than the participants? Who are these people in this all-knowing government? I'd like to meet them.

What industry does Amazon have monopolized anyway? 41% on new books? cool. their cheaper prices on books benefit all of americans more than it hurts the handful of publishers. Fact is monopolies are defined by if they set higher prices than would-be in a perfect competition industry. As long as prices are low -- it signals they have competition-- so don't come at me talking about how big of a monopoly they are.

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#96

Post by nitrogen » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 5:01 PM UTC

ende wrote: post #90

dkarapetyan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an entire field of mathematics dedicated to answering such questions and the answer is a lot more complicated than your simple quip. In fact the way most democracies are set up they are theoretically much less optimal than they could be and in some cases are as good as dictatorial systems because of susceptibility to being rigged. As usual wikipedia is a pretty good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

Would you mind slapping a name on said field of mathematics, because I dig that stuff but only ever stumble upon smatterings of it here and there. I'd love to get to the core of that field. Its like game theory + lots of other stuff. (Sorry for off topic)

There might be something here: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#97

Post by zyx321 » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 6:58 PM UTC

Vulkum wrote: post #82

zyx321 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9 Out Of 10 Americans Are Completely Wrong About This Mind-Blowing Fact Was Upworthy really the best source for this? The transcript is very nearly useless. Furthermore, 'true' captalism with a truly free market is quite unrealistic, since it would require all participants to be effectively omniscient and infinitely rational (and even then you would have to compare it to 'true' communism, where no one is ever selfish…

I think the original source is on a youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM . The video aggregates data from multiple sources: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequalit... http://danariely.com/2010/09/30/wealth-inequality/ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/03/334156/top-five-... http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/19/news/economy/ceo-pay/index.h... How reliable these sources ar…

I'm not disputing the video. I haven't been able to watch it yet.

I'm saying we shouldn't be supporting the likes of Upworthy under any circumstances.

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#98

Post by dkarapetyan » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 7:22 PM UTC

ende wrote: post #90

dkarapetyan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an entire field of mathematics dedicated to answering such questions and the answer is a lot more complicated than your simple quip. In fact the way most democracies are set up they are theoretically much less optimal than they could be and in some cases are as good as dictatorial systems because of susceptibility to being rigged. As usual wikipedia is a pretty good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

Would you mind slapping a name on said field of mathematics, because I dig that stuff but only ever stumble upon smatterings of it here and there. I'd love to get to the core of that field. Its like game theory + lots of other stuff. (Sorry for off topic)

It's not one specific subfield but a combination. A good starting place though is probably social choice theory with a bit of a background on Arrow's impossibility theorem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem.

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#99

Post by facepalm » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 8:55 PM UTC

deong wrote: post #79

facepalm wrote: post #20

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.

It comes down to a question of definition. Is it a monopoly if there is literally zero cost to entering a market, but the market conditions make it almost certain that you'll fail? Hatchette and any other publisher could stop selling their books to Amazon tomorrow. You could still buy them in paper from loads of physical stores, and you could still buy their ebooks from dozens of places, including little-known and di…

Maybe the kindle is just a desperate attempt to save some of the book business for Amazon. You are thinking too short term. Sure, maybe it will be a quasi monopoly for a while. But in the long run, why should people stick with the kindle? Other convenient devices and services will crop up making it seem very inconvenient to be tied to one vendor.

Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped

#100

Post by facepalm » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 8:58 PM UTC

marbletiles wrote: post #38

facepalm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's a tragedy of the commons at work here. Amazon is playing in a new global marketplace, and the unquestioned assumption is that the lower prices that result for consumers are an overall good for society. But there are plenty of indications that's not true, and that minimally higher prices spread across millions of customers that in turn support millions more local jobs may be better for society overall. Arguing…

What indications are there? And isn't what you describe just a very inefficient system for distributing money? Why not free up the workers and try to find something new for them to do?