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

Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

vanityfair.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 126 posts

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#101

Post by westiseast »

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 get shot down occasionally for my preference of Taobao over Amazon, but one of the key reasons is: taobao let's companies build their own strong brands on its platform

On Amazon, independent sellers are an after thought, hidden away and barely able to offer anything that distinguishes them from any other seller. On Taobao you can apply your own branding much more comprehensively and build a customer base that will follow you.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#102

Post by piaste »

kbos87 wrote: post #36
throwawayjava wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It pains me that my generation, a generation of people who dream of being makers and business owners... Not just business owners, but startup founders. Also, emphasis on the "owner" not the "maker". There's no real fetish for hackers disconnected from business ownership in the zeitgeist. Why would a temporarily embarrassed monopolist support monopoly busting?

Would there be so many “temporarily embarrassed monopolists” if people had an easier time imagining a world in which they didn’t have to be the end all be all winner in order to build and be proud of something sustainable?

Practically everybody can imagine that just fine. The HN bubble is tiny.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#103

Post by danenania »

kogepathic wrote: post #81
Y7ZCQtNo39 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying Amazon is no different -- they'll try and take on nearly every industry, but will really only have one core competence in 20 years?

> So you're saying Amazon is no different -- they'll try and take on nearly every industry, but will really only have one core competence in 20 years? I think that 20 years ago people couldn't see a competitor coming along that could disrupt Microsoft, because they were so big and into everything. But that's because no one foresaw the coming of the smartphone. Microsoft is still king on PCs, but the PC market has bee…

I think AWS in particular will be facing some major threats over the next 5-10 years, from Google but also from emerging players. Everything that makes them a top choice today is getting commodified, and they are rapidly falling behind on developer experience as they layer more and more complexity onto their workflows.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#104

Post by seagullz »

adventured wrote: post #84
seagullz wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, that makes it state-managed monopoly or whatever else you call it; keeping to the topic, any competition?

What did DARPA have a monopoly over exactly? They were and are a defense research agency.

Late Columbia professor Seymour Melman demystified this in his book "Pentagon Capitalism" back in 1970. And, for a summary, http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/PentagonSystem_Cho...

A lot of preconceptions may be in the way though in trying to understand this.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#105

Post by petey283 »

earlybike wrote: post #75

It’s not about Amazon, it’s about the tendency that most online-based consumer businesses evolve into monopolies. Mostly through network effects paired with smart M&A. So, the question is not if anyone can beat Bezos but rather beat online monopolies in general.

This. The article is just another example of media bias toward overarching narrative.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#106

Post by danstanflan »

rtpg wrote: post #13
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…

Let me add, not only are people paid very little, but they have no ownership (in the legal sense or otherwise) over the company they work for, and have less autonomy, which I believe leads to a less fulfilling work life.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#107

Post by gotrecruit »

colordrops wrote: post #86
ams6110 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

> Returning stuff by mail is a pain for now.

lol exactly. eventually, it will be as simple as a single click to schedule a pickup at a time of your choice.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#108

Post by narrowrail »

throwawayjava wrote: post #15
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 la…

>Amazon beating Walmart

Let's not get carried away here. In the most recent quarter, Walmart had revenues of $123B vs Amazon's $38B. Walmart still has time to figure out the ecommerce game.

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#109

Post by hunterjrj »

sah2ed wrote: post #83
caseysoftware wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People forget that just 20 years ago - August 1997 - Apple was on the verge of going under. Microsoft kept them afloat with a massive (at the time) $150M purchase. Microsoft was in the middle of their anti-trust fight so they couldn't afford to lose a "competitor" no matter how absurdly mismatched they were. iMacs, iPods, and eventually iPhones fundamentally changed everything. The economic behemoths regularly change…

> Microsoft was in the middle of their anti-trust fight so they couldn't afford to lose a "competitor" no matter how absurdly mismatched they were. That's one possible explanation. I think a much more plausible explanation was that Steve Jobs needed a significant amount of capital infusion to turn-around Apple but he needed the terms to be reasonable, which was why he leveraged on his longstanding friendship with Bil…

Jobs had leverage in the form a long-running lawsuit that he agreed to drop in exchange for the investment:

"In a remarkable feat of negotiating legerdemain, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs got needed cash — in return for non-voting shares — and an assurance that Microsoft would support Office for the Mac for five years. Apple agreed to drop a long-running lawsuit in which they alleged Microsoft copied the look and feel of the Mac OS for Windows and to make Internet Explorer the default browser on its computers — but not the only choice."

https://www.wired.com/2009/08/dayintech_0806/

Re: Can Anyone Beat Jeff Bezos?

#110

Post by philipov »

muzani wrote: post #92
refurb wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the _best case scenario_ for this economic model leads to a terrible status quo Terrible status quo? You realize that competitive pressure is what drives progress right?

Most of the giants today actually thrived without the competitors and were stunted only because of it. Who were the legit competitors to Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tesla? They grew into monsters without that competition, which is why they try to keep each other in check. Google made a social media platform and Microsoft made search engines.

Amazon: Barnes and Noble

Google: Yahoo!

Facebook: MySpace

Tesla: The Automotive Industry

Post reply on HN