A ‘Grass-Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded By Its Biggest Rivals

This ain't it.

10 minutes is 60x 10 seconds.

And if you can't get the meat of your argument out in a few minutes, there's something wrong with it.

(And that's windbag-me saying this.)

You're also going a bit overboard with the Actualized videos of late. Might want to give it a break.

That's not exactly true. Corporations have many of the same rights. For example, in Citizens United vs FEC, the Supreme Court wrote that:

"The Court has recognized that First Amendment protection extends to corporations (...) The Court has thus rejected the argument that political speech of corporations or other associations should be treated differently under the First Amendment simply because such associations are not 'natural persons'."

(page 25 in https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf )

If the First Amendment is the recognition of a right, then corporations have that right, just like natural persons. This concept in the US is called "corporate personhood" and it has long been recognized by courts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#Case_law_...

> In 1818, the United States Supreme Court decided Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (...) Beginning with this opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court has continuously recognized corporations as having the same rights as natural persons to contract and to enforce contracts.

How does it benefit society that non-Amazon sellers have to either use their competitor's infrastructure to compete with them on sales, or build their own infrastructure while attempting to grow on an unknown platform? Amazon's infrastructure may be meritable, but leveraging it to compete with their own customers is not.

> And further, I don't think explaining away a corporation's dominance by using monopolistic practices is very convincing when they rose to power so recently: how did Amazon get so big in the first place?

So you think that 25-year-old companies can't be monopolies?

> Also, most of the monopolistic practices, of the kind that would allow a company to maintain dominance in spite of merit, are things Amazon is not doing.

Let's I produce and market a product, i.e. the Iron Gym pull up bar that goes in your door frame. I start selling it on Amazon. Amazon then leverages their platform to identify successful products, identifies my Iron Gym pull up bars are successful, creates an Amazon Basics pull up bar that's identical, and uses their platform to boost their pull up bar over mine. So I take all the initiative, do all the work, and take all the risk, and once I show that I have merit, Amazon swoops in and takes all the rewards. How is that not maintaining dominance in spite of merit?

This is just one case. There are many.

> It's monopolistic practices are limited to it's own platform.

And what a limitation that is, being limited to the largest online sales platform in the world!

In general I don't give a rat's ass about the greater good. I'm far more concerned with what's earned and what's right, since I don't have a crystal ball and I'm not a Culture Mind. But for the sake of civil argument and all that, let's talk about the greater good...

> (now) that Amazon was first to sell stuff online at scale?

You mean letting people reap the rewards of being first, if they can get them, doesn't motivate them to innovate further? Doesn't motivate others to innovate? Doesn't indicate a stable market and encourage investment?

> So you think that 25-year-old companies can't be monopolies?

That's not my point at all! I'm also hard pressed to imagine how you thought it was, but I'll try to be more clear. As I understood it, you were saying that essentially the only reason Amazon is as powerful as it is now is because it acted monopolistically. But to act in such a way, you already have to be in a position of wealth and power, to throw your weight around like that. So my question is, how did Amazon get that powerful originally, so that it could become monopolistic (assuming that it is, now)? My answer is, because it was really good at what it did.

> Let's I produce and market a product, i.e. the Iron Gym pull up bar that goes in your door frame. I start selling it on Amazon. Amazon then leverages their platform to identify successful products, identifies my Iron Gym pull up bars are successful, creates an Amazon Basics pull up bar that's identical, and uses their platform to boost their pull up bar over mine. So I take all the initiative, do all the work, and take all the risk, and once I show that I have merit, Amazon swoops in and takes all the rewards.

Now I'm confused. First, you talk about the greater good and dismiss my comments by saying that's what really matters. Now, all of the sudden, when it comes to companies that aren't Amazon, it's about merit and what you've earned again? How does it serve the good of society (now) for Iron Gym to reap the benefits of being first, to paraphrase a man I met once?

And then, you talk about how they should get the benefits of being first to market--- why should they, but not Amazon? Because Amazon is too successful now?

> How is that not maintaining dominance in spite of merit?

Because the only reason someone would choose Amazon's product instead of theirs is because it's better. Either A) it's cheaper, B) it gets faster shipping, C) it's easier to find, or D) some combination of the three. It's better.

> And what a limitation that is, being limited to the largest online sales platform in the world!

Ha ha. But seriously, my point is that they aren't using the government to crush competitors, or anything of the sort. They are influencing their own product, which they maintain and own.