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

Amazon Is a Monopoly

marketplacepulse.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 348 posts

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#131

Post by Alupis »

toasterlovin wrote: post #97
Alupis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that not a conflict of interest then? To operate a 3rd Party Marketplace while also harvesting said marketplace's data and then deliberately targeting top products, killing those 3rd parties in the process?

They're not your lawyer. They're allowed to have a conflict of interest. Especially one that you are fully aware of going into the relationship. I just don't get it. Do you think someone selling a generic product that only differentiates on price has some unalienable right to make money on Amazon.com? Or that some wholesaler buying branded products has an inalienable right to somehow not get squeezed out when the onl…

We're discussing anti-competitive behavior, and it seems this is a clear exhibition of that.

It's not about what intrinsic value any particular seller can bring - it's whether or not Amazon has become a defacto monopoly and/or practices anti-competitive behaviors.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#132

Post by Alupis »

perl4ever wrote: post #130
Alupis wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. Until recently, Walmart hasn't had a Marketplace - so while Walmart has (and does) exploit their vendors with pricing and what-not, they haven't been able to wield that club against their competition directly like Amazon does. People have also been saying Walmart is quite anti-competitive for years for what that's worth too.

"Until recently, Walmart hasn't had a Marketplace" No? When exactly did they start selling large numbers of items on their website that aren't in stores?

"Marketplace" refers to 3rd parties selling on the platform. Until recently, Walmart.com was exclusively products sold by Walmart - now they let 3rd parties list and sell products too (just like Amazon).

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#133

Post by perl4ever »

crazygringo wrote: post #29
DickingAround wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you figure? Amazon makes less than half the revenue of Walmart. Personally it seems kind of silly to talk about any of them as a 'monopoly' when I literally use a competitor to each of the biggies (Amazon, Apple, Google, etc.) every week. Why does anyone consider these companies a 'monopoly' when I'm easily and conveniently getting the same product from someone else?

They're each (arguably) a monopoly in their own principal market(s) which (mostly) aren't the same. You're not buying toilet paper from Apple. You're not searching the internet with Amazon. For the discussion to make sense, you have to specify which market you're looking at -- a company can have a monopoly in one market (e.g. search) but not in another (e.g. mobile phones).

I'm not buying toilet paper from Amazon or searching the internet with Apple!

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#134

Post by abakker »

pessimizer wrote: post #106
abakker wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing. As the saying goes, “get while the getting is good”. If I don’t take the cheap fare today, it doesn’t buy me anything in the long run anyway. Present dollars saved are a certainty, and if history repeats, there is a reasonable likelihood of future disruption being my easy-our for an anticompetitive Uber.

I don't know if it's a good strategy to wait as long as it took Uber to supplant taxis for something to supplant Uber. If it follows that pattern, you won't live to see it, so "easy-out" is probably not the greatest descriptor. That being said, your individual boycott will have a minuscule effect, and money in your pocket is good. I just can't imagine that capitalism is meant to work like this; paying people to use y…

A cynical person might say that it is meant to work exactly like this. Killing off older companies seems likely to be a service to progress and the economy. (not to the employees, which is a reason why I'm not a genuine advocate of pure capitalism). nevertheless, There are organizational, bureaucratic, and process debts in addition to technical debt, and I think capitalism acknowledges that in the end, those debts never get paid. Borrow against the future and burn out bright and fast. The good news, is except for capital itself, borrowing technology/process/and bureaucracy against the future is borrowing from yourself, not creditors.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#135

Post by ken »

jimbokun wrote: post #125
tj-teej wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: once the taxi industry has died what makes you believe that Uber won't implement similar policies?

Then it's time to apply anti-trust law to Uber. (Assuming Lyft or other companies are no longer viable competitors.)

Why not try to apply that to taxis now? Alternatively: why would the government care that a new monopoly replaced what is essentially an old government-approved one?

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#136

Post by social_quotient »

blairanderson wrote: post #120

I run a consulting company for Amazon suppliers. We have roughly 2-dozen Amazon suppliers and our first-hand experience is that Amazon is absolutely stifling competition/business to the detriment of customer. The biggest problem is `agreements that restrain trade` is a monopoly practice that happens across the board. They're a black box AND have tiny support systems for their marketplace. One recent example. A client…

For better coloring which tariff specifically?

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#137

Post by dahfizz »

tj-teej wrote: post #87
lisper wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a huge Uber fan, but in their case at least I don't think you're being entirely fair. My home airport is SFO. The official taxis there have an extremely annoying pricing policy: if your destination is more than 20 miles form the airport they add a $50 surcharge to the cost of your trip. (I live 25 miles away.) And you can't summon a cab with an app. If you're at the airport they are very convenient. If you ar…

Serious question: once the taxi industry has died what makes you believe that Uber won't implement similar policies?

Uber doesn't have the government protections existing cabs do. If Uber starts mistreating their customers, the customers have plenty of other rideshare alternatives.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#138

Post by [deleted] »

pessimizer wrote: post #106
abakker wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing. As the saying goes, “get while the getting is good”. If I don’t take the cheap fare today, it doesn’t buy me anything in the long run anyway. Present dollars saved are a certainty, and if history repeats, there is a reasonable likelihood of future disruption being my easy-our for an anticompetitive Uber.

I don't know if it's a good strategy to wait as long as it took Uber to supplant taxis for something to supplant Uber. If it follows that pattern, you won't live to see it, so "easy-out" is probably not the greatest descriptor. That being said, your individual boycott will have a minuscule effect, and money in your pocket is good. I just can't imagine that capitalism is meant to work like this; paying people to use y…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#139

Post by kevinsundar »

Supermancho wrote: post #100
kevinsundar wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my point exactly. Someone was going to do it. Amazon did it. So if today its Amazon and tomorrow someone else, why be up in arms about it?

> So if today its Amazon and tomorrow someone else, why be up in arms about it Because it doesn't matter who ultimately made an anti-competitive world marketplace, it's still anti-competitive and ultimately impossible to run morally when you participate in it in parallel. eg if ebay was undercutting other people's auctions via buyout prices under their own brand

But doesn't the customer benefit in that scenario? They get the items they want for a lower price from a brand they trust (they're on their website for a reason). And if the customer is benefitting, isn't that the best outcome of capitalism?

In that scenerio, and captialism in general, eBay doesn't owe sellers on its marketplace the right to sell items at all. They've just been given a chance to make hay while the sun shines.

Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly

#140

Post by snarfy »

mbesto wrote: post #123
rb808 wrote: post #81

I think I can generalize that the problem with Amazon is similar to many of the modern tech companies in that they're super well funded and aren't expected to make a profit which allows them to undercut incumbents. Amazon can price lower than Target/Wallmart/B&N/Local Stores, lose money every year while the competition slowly dies. Uber can price lower than local taxis, lose money every year while the competition slo…

> and aren't expected to make a profit Sorry to be harsh, but this "no profit" trope specifically when it comes to Amazon needs to die in a hot fire. "“Percentage margins are not one of the things we are seeking to optimize. It’s the absolute dollar free cash flow per share that you want to maximize, and if you can do that by lowering margins, we would do that. So if you could take the free cash flow, that’s somethin…

When you reinvest your profits back into the company, your net profits are zero and you don't pay any taxes. This is where the distortion comes in. It's government subsidized growth. At this point it's grown over all the competitors and affects the market.
Post reply on HN