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Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

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Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#11

Post by throwawayjava »

Osmium wrote: post #8
WisNorCan wrote: post #6

Apple iPhone seems to be doing quite well relative to Amazon’s Fire Phone. Also, Azure is doing surprisingly well relative to AWS despite a late start. Wouldn’t surprise me if Azure exceeded AWS in the near future. Amazon’s weaknesses are in the first case high-end design And in the second enterprise.

> Amazon’s weaknesses are in the first case high-end design Just design generally, including their website ... anecdotally, so many people I know don't really know that Amazon Prime Video exists, or if it does exist how to find it. Likewise for Music. Apple has this discoverability problem too (Apple Music doesn't have a web UI, it might as well not exist if you can't install iTunes, and then Apple wonders why its so…

> Amazon's current approach seems to be "well if we just sell it cheap enough, we'll get customers."

To be fair, there's also a (massive) market for that.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#12

Post by robotresearcher »

Osmium wrote: post #8
WisNorCan wrote: post #6

Apple iPhone seems to be doing quite well relative to Amazon’s Fire Phone. Also, Azure is doing surprisingly well relative to AWS despite a late start. Wouldn’t surprise me if Azure exceeded AWS in the near future. Amazon’s weaknesses are in the first case high-end design And in the second enterprise.

> Amazon’s weaknesses are in the first case high-end design Just design generally, including their website ... anecdotally, so many people I know don't really know that Amazon Prime Video exists, or if it does exist how to find it. Likewise for Music. Apple has this discoverability problem too (Apple Music doesn't have a web UI, it might as well not exist if you can't install iTunes, and then Apple wonders why its so…

The iPhone is an Apple Music client. That’s a pretty big installed base.

The iPhone music client is not very good. Maybe that’s more of an issue than the lack of web client.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#13

Post by rtpg »

kbos87 wrote: post #10

I don’t think that the world can quite fathom how dangerous Amazon actually is to virtually every industry. When it comes to purveyors of physical goods, Amazon has the power to reshape the fabric of our streets and neighborhoods in ways few people can fathom. Say goodbye to grocery stores and ground floor retail if they get their way. They are just smart enough to do it slowly enough where they don’t have any jarrin…

I understand the dangers of monopoly, but I wish there was a stronger argument here.

We've seen this sort of thing happen before, with Walmart. And none of these arguments worked! Walmart is big and dominant. It killed off smaller places, but people don't care because it has mostly everything and is cheap.

"This convenient good thing is actually bad!" isn't super convincing I guess....

EDIT: the ultimate irony being that Walmart/Amazon are the "ideal endgame" of market capitalism. Razor-thin margins everywhere, people get things cheap.

But how do you get cheap goods? Pressure suppliers, pay workers as little as possible. The _best case scenario_ for this economic model leads to a terrible status quo. And the only difference between this and other industries is the size of the slice of the pie the C-suite gets.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#15

Post by throwawayjava »

Invictus0 wrote: post #2

The problem with these new giants is that people really want them around. People don't care so much that their neighbors are going out of business; they just want their crap cheap and as soon as possible. The current legislative environment is entirely ill-equipped to deal with these companies, and moreover, no one even knows how to deal with them. What is clear, though, is that the proliferation of supercompanies li…

What small businesses? Local business competing with Amazon were killed off more than a decade ago by Walmart.

If the status quo when Amazon started was a high minimum wage with strong unions and employee (or at least local) ownership, this might be a more compelling argument. As it is, the capitalists in Bentonville are losing out to the capitalists in Seattle because the former rely on massively state-subsidized labor while the latter just axes the labor all-together.

I'm not saying it isn't a problem, but this isn't something that was created by (or even made worse by) Amazon. This is an important point because without a proper diagnosis, we'll never find the cure.

Also, Amazon beating Walmart is an exemplar of free markets at work -- one competitor besting another on merit alone (actually, even DESPITE massive federal and state tax incentives propping up the losing side!) Maybe the conclusion you should be drawing from your dislike of the status quo is that free markets aren't a panacea after all?

Finally, I'll note that Amazon distribution facilities -- for all the valid criticisms -- at least pay a (barely) living wage in many areas. Walmart pays substantially less.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#16

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

Arcaten wrote: post #9
Invictus0 wrote: post #2

The problem with these new giants is that people really want them around. People don't care so much that their neighbors are going out of business; they just want their crap cheap and as soon as possible. The current legislative environment is entirely ill-equipped to deal with these companies, and moreover, no one even knows how to deal with them. What is clear, though, is that the proliferation of supercompanies li…

To which ideals is Amazon's success "repugnant"? It seems to me that Amazon is facilitating demand much better than its competitors, which means, according to the rules of the free market, it should win. Or am I misunderstanding?

Free markets aren't a guarantee that things aren't repugnant (and likely the opposite -- most winners in free markets are repugnant in various ways).

Free markets are a travesty of economics; bring back competitive markets.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#17

Post by ams6110 »

kbos87 wrote: post #10

I don’t think that the world can quite fathom how dangerous Amazon actually is to virtually every industry. When it comes to purveyors of physical goods, Amazon has the power to reshape the fabric of our streets and neighborhoods in ways few people can fathom. Say goodbye to grocery stores and ground floor retail if they get their way. They are just smart enough to do it slowly enough where they don’t have any jarrin…

For me, Amazon is a long way off from threatening my local supermarket and other local retailers.

Would I buy clothes from Amazon? No, I like to try them on first. Returning stuff by mail is a pain.

Would I buy expensive home furnishings from Amazon? No, I like to see, touch, try these things before I spend a lot of money.

Would I buy perishable groceries from Amazon? No, because deliveries happen when I'm at work and I don't want perishable food sitting in the sun for three hours on my front porch.

Do I buy toilet paper from Amazon? No, because it's easier to pick it up at the store when I'm there for something else anyway, than to get it delivered and then have to deal with disposing of the cardboard box it came in.

And with anything Amazon, I'm worried about counterfeit goods.

So what do I buy from Amazon? Inexpensive, low risk, low margin goods, and the occasional book.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#18

Post by txmx2000 »

This is why this “net neutrality” nonsense is so dangerous. It’s an invented issue meant to weaken the FTC by transfering the power to regulate the internet to a government agency that doesn’t have anti-trust authority. The FTC made Amazon possible because, in the 2000s, it used anti-trust to keep local and state governments from taxing and outlawing internet sales of products. Now that Amazon is powerful, it’s lobbying to prevent the same power from being used against it. This is what net neutrality was created for. Nobody wants to slow down your Netflix.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#19

Post by gigatexal »

kbos87 wrote: post #10

I don’t think that the world can quite fathom how dangerous Amazon actually is to virtually every industry. When it comes to purveyors of physical goods, Amazon has the power to reshape the fabric of our streets and neighborhoods in ways few people can fathom. Say goodbye to grocery stores and ground floor retail if they get their way. They are just smart enough to do it slowly enough where they don’t have any jarrin…

As long as competent politicians exist (a misnomer?) to break up true monopolies I say let incumbent industries pay the price for failing to innovate. Why should we have car salesmen for example? A new car is more or less a homogeneous good so why does it need a middleman? I would buy a car from amazon in a heartbeat. Why should I have to wait in line for a teller or a free lane for self checkout at a grocer? Because that’s how we have done things for years we should? Because Amazon began as a book seller and has no business in disrupting other industries? Haha that’s laughable.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#20

Post by Invictus0 »

sweettea wrote: post #3
Invictus0 wrote: post #2

The problem with these new giants is that people really want them around. People don't care so much that their neighbors are going out of business; they just want their crap cheap and as soon as possible. The current legislative environment is entirely ill-equipped to deal with these companies, and moreover, no one even knows how to deal with them. What is clear, though, is that the proliferation of supercompanies li…

I have a lot of sympathy for this argument, but I don't think it's fleshed out enough. What happens to this argument if you do s/Amazon/Walmart/? I would generally hold Amazon is better than Walmart due to the relative decentralization of Amazon's sources (third parties can easily sell on Amazon, but not at Walmart). Your argument says Walmart is also unstoppable, at least without further tweaks --- and yet, we figur…

> Your argument says Walmart is also unstoppable, at least without further tweaks --- and yet, we figured out how to solve the Walmart problem.

You're proposing that the solution to "the Walmart problem" is to create a company even worse than Walmart, a company that drives other, larger companies out of business? Whereas Walmart put out the mom and pops, Amazon is putting out the Bestbuys and shopping malls. There is no difference. But people are celebrating this, and heralding a coming age where no one has to work (caused by Amazon-like processes and robots replacing retail workers and other jobs), without really considering the complete disaster that this would entail. The solution is not even more supercompanies.

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