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

US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 236 posts

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#131

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

scohesc wrote: post #4

I hope they include Amazon's practice of taking popular products on their storefront, making generic "Amazon Basics" versions, and selling them to undercut the popular options. Simultaneously owning a marketplace, approving who can and can't sell products on it, and then putting your own products on it to undercut other sellers is so scummy and muck rake-y. I hope they also include Amazon allowing thousands of Chines…

Idk how you fix that without effecting store brands at grocery stores.

And I think store brands are pretty mostly a win for the consumer (this is important for any monopoly case).

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#132

Post by yazzku »

slibhb wrote: post #64

More and more, antitrust is a means for people who dislike big, successful companies for no particular reason to attack them. On some level, the government is just throwing its weight around. The message is "don't forget who's really in charge." Consider all the "Lina Khan fans" you see on HN and elsewhere. They rarely articulate why the government should be suing these companies, which laws that company broke, or if…

> More and more, antitrust is a means for people who dislike big, successful companies for no particular reason to attack them. On some level, the government is just throwing its weight around. The message is "don't forget who's really in charge."

The same government that gives it tax cuts when building new "fulfillment centers" and billions of dollars in cloud/military contracts? Something doesn't add up in your logic.

> Consider all the "Lina Khan fans" you see on HN and elsewhere. They rarely articulate why the government should be suing these companies, which laws that company broke, or if those laws make sense. They just don't like big companies and want them taken down a peg.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/...

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#133

Post by kyleee »

oooyay wrote: post #123
hornban wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happened to come across her on 60 Minutes a couple of weeks ago, and that interview seemed awkward and sound-bitey to me. Thinking that she just might not be great at short-form segments I dug a little deeper and found an awesome long-form interview that she did with the Council on Foreign Relations. I highly recommend this to get a feel for what she is actually like as a policy person. She really impressed me. htt…

When Lina took over she wiped her series of interviews, thought pieces, etc from the internet almost over night (I've followed her since she was a fellow). Her long form writing and podcast interviews are incredible. She knows this problem space well in both modernity and history as well as having vision for the future. There is no one else I trust more than Lina to right this ship.

Why do that?

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#134

Post by shiroiushi »

BadHumans wrote: post #35
megaman821 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if I accept Khan's framing of, even though I haven't won any cases I have scared off potential mergers and that is a win. I think the US already leans too heavily on tying everything up in courts forever.

Don't fall for the Silicon Valley propaganda that things are on the downswing because the FTC is not allowing mergers or acquisitions. Plenty of both of those have happened this year. DirectTV is in the process of acquiring Dish Network and SlingTV which is one of the largest acquisitions of the year and should alone perish the thought that mergers aren't happening.

>DirectTV is in the process of acquiring Dish Network and SlingTV which is one of the largest acquisitions of the year

What's wrong with that? Who still watches TV (either OTA or from satellite) in this age, except for elderly people who haven't figured out how to use the internet? This seems like people complaining about the consolidation of companies in the landline telephone market. It's a dying market, so of course the companies still hanging on are going to merge so they can save costs and squeeze the few remaining customers more.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#135

Post by tick_tock_tick »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #12
LorenDB wrote: post #6

I don't care who wins the election next month, Lina Khan needs to be kept as FTC chair. The FTC has been on a roll the past while.

What has she done that didn't fail or get shot down as political overreach? (not being sarcastic...i mean that i may have missed something inadvertently)

Her massive political overreach has achieved the goal. The chilly effect on all the behavior they want to stop but don't have the authority too.

It's basically the executive sidestepping the legislator and blocking perfectly legal behavior by the threat of burying it in such long and expensive lawsuits it's not longer viable.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#136

Post by dbetteridge »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #99
ceejayoz wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn’t they drop the two-day shipping promise a while back?

It's only two day in America? It's next day in Australia. And we haven't even had Amazon for long...

East Coast only!

As usual Perth gets shafted with 3rd party couriers with 0 SLA :(

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#137

Post by grotorea »

shermantanktop wrote: post #94
bombcar wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Podcast" is now a generic term that covers any "talking head"-type Internet show, most of which are on YouTube.

Well nobody asked me before changing the meaning! And by the way, a “selfie” can only have one person in it, and a “video” is something on MTV. Don’t get me started on “hack.”

Well I hope you have a gay old time while surfing the world wide web.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#138

Post by jessriedel »

hughesjj wrote: post #62
jjtheblunt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has she done that didn't fail or get shot down as political overreach? (not being sarcastic...i mean that i may have missed something inadvertently)

> didn't fail or get shot down as political overreach? Progress requires testing the system and seeing where the failure points are . It's significantly better than the relative nothing we've gotten from past admins. Also with the current judicial and congressional makeup it's a wonder anything gets done.

Using public resources to sue companies, force them to pay for expensive defense in court, and then losing when the court decides they did nothing illegal?

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#139

Post by 8bitsrule »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #107
nnf wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Atlantic seems to have no problem linking to multiple outside sources in seemingly every article I read.

The Financial Times is also good about this.

Lately I think I've been seeing more science news sites linking to source articles, with DOIs usually abstracts-only are viewable) and Arxiv (often with PDFs) for example..

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#140

Post by lotsofpulp »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #115
tomschlick wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Walmart/CostCo/BestBuy/Kroger/etc not do this exact thing?

I think the algorithms make the difference here. You can't really make a cereal box stand out on a physical shelf in any unique way (or you can, but it'll be a cost expense. Ruining the point of undercutting). IME with online storefronts for traditional brick and mortar their own brands never seem to come on top. Meanwhle I will almost always get an AmazonBasics if it exists as a first result.

> Meanwhle I will almost always get an AmazonBasics if it exists as a first result.

99.9% of buyers prefer this over having to wade through innumerate random brands and try to discern quality.

Post reply on HN