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US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

reuters.com

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Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#211

Post by boplicity »

resters wrote: post #63

Amazon currently does not honor its prime shipping agreement with all domestic customers and has no customer service path to get the issue resolved. In some places USPS is unreliable and Amazon insists on using it repeatedly, violating its own promise to customers. This suggests to me that Amazon faces no competitive pressure to deliver good customer service.

This seems to be to be very regional. Here in Toronto, the shipping speed is truly incredible. I'll often order at night, and it arrives the next day. They've even started offering "overnight" shipping, with packages arriving between 4am and 8am. I do see an incredible push to increase their logistics capability, beyond what would be necessary if they were just coasting on their monopoly power. I do think they see their competition as being from local retailers, as much, if not more so than from other online stores.

As much as I don't want to be a fan of Amazon -- their offering, especially because of the logistics/shipping, combined with generally fair prices, is quite incredible.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#212

Post by cynicalpeace »

EasyMark wrote: post #209
daemoens wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why single out legacy media for this specifically? This isn't something newer media is better at.

I find that most people who criticize legacy media as a monolith are angry at it because it doesn’t meet their own political leanings. I certainly rank legacy media well above 99% of the drivel on social media and podcasts. But I think it is in fashion to only surround yourself by news sources which confirm your (or my) personal bias. I’m certainly not immune to it, but I read multiple sources from right, left, and c…

I explicitly said why I think legacy media sucks. They fail to show primary sources.

I find that most people who criticize people who criticize legacy media are angry that they don't meet their own political leanings.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#213

Post by cynicalpeace »

mrweasel wrote: post #202
cynicalpeace wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this to be the case with most primary sources, not just for court cases. A couple days ago, an American WWII bomb exploded at a Japanese airport and the article linked on HN didn't even show or link the video. Legacy media really sucks.

> Legacy media really sucks. Depends, the tabloids are really good at providing videos or photos from outside or pull them in so you can watch them on their site. The more "high-end" the media, the less likely their are to provide you with external material, in my experience.

This seems like an upside down world

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#214

Post by resters »

hyggetrold wrote: post #119
resters wrote: post #63

Amazon currently does not honor its prime shipping agreement with all domestic customers and has no customer service path to get the issue resolved. In some places USPS is unreliable and Amazon insists on using it repeatedly, violating its own promise to customers. This suggests to me that Amazon faces no competitive pressure to deliver good customer service.

> In some places USPS is unreliable I can live with USPS but what made me actually cancel my Prime account was their use of On-Trac shipping in California. They literally missed every single time and had to come back the next day.

I care less who delivers it than whether it actually arrives in In my zip code there are various blocks (including my own) where virtually nothing gets delivered in I've contacted customer service and gone through multiple escalations twice and nothing has changed and it appears to reach a black hole. Addresses a few blocks away get normal prime delivery in 1-2 days.

As much as I love Amazon (I've been a customer since the very beginning) this makes me think that antitrust action is needed. Seeing pictures of Bezos partying with the Kardashians doesn't help Amazon's cause very much either.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#215

Post by resters »

psunavy03 wrote: post #120
resters wrote: post #63

Amazon currently does not honor its prime shipping agreement with all domestic customers and has no customer service path to get the issue resolved. In some places USPS is unreliable and Amazon insists on using it repeatedly, violating its own promise to customers. This suggests to me that Amazon faces no competitive pressure to deliver good customer service.

Dealt with this having a delivery cancelled at a family vacation property out innawoods, and had to get Amazon to put a "no USPS" flag on the delivery.

I had done this a few years earlier bc USPS kept damaging heavy items, but it is apparently no longer possible.

For a while things got delivered via Amazon's subcontracted trucks but that stopped and now it's just whatever level of service USPS offers is what you end up with. Houses a few blocks away get normal prime delivery.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#216

Post by resters »

ceejayoz wrote: post #80
resters wrote: post #63

Amazon currently does not honor its prime shipping agreement with all domestic customers and has no customer service path to get the issue resolved. In some places USPS is unreliable and Amazon insists on using it repeatedly, violating its own promise to customers. This suggests to me that Amazon faces no competitive pressure to deliver good customer service.

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

Not in major US cities such as where I live.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#217

Post by Jolter »

unmole wrote: post #157
aspenmayer wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fulfilled by Amazon is a 3rd party seller program where you send your items for sale to Amazon to be colocated and commingled with other 3rd party FBA seller items with the same SKU and also 1st party Amazon products with that SKU. If that sounds like a horrible idea for all involved, I would agree.

> colocated and commingled with other 3rd party FBA sellers I don't understand why this misconception is so widespread. Most inventory is tracked using seller specific FNSKU's. Ergo inventory is not comingled.

From that page:

> When more than one seller has inventory with the same manufacturer barcode, we may fulfill orders with the inventory that’s closest to the buyer, to facilitate faster delivery.

Isn’t that a form of commingling of inventory? If one of the sellers I selling fakes, I think the other seller would be blamed whenever this happens.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#218

Post by taeric »

nneonneo wrote: post #172
taeric wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ruling is linked in another thread. The last two pages outline what all is dismissed. My naive read is that a lot of the claims were dismissed already. I have no idea if that is normal or not. I also assume nobody really expected the entire case to get dismissed? I am interested in reading an analysis of this.

Only four of the twenty counts were dismissed (motion to dismiss granted), and only half of one claim was dismissed with prejudice. The remaining three dismissed claims can be amended and resubmitted to the court. All the federal claims stand. This is definitely not a win for Amazon.

I was going on the naive count of GRANTS at the last page of the ruling. So, was about 6 of the 12 parts of the summary at the end. Which makes it sound like a lot. :D

Still, I did not mean to imply it was most or even a majority. I didn't think anyone expected the case to be dismissed in full. I have no idea what the impact of getting States items dismissed is, all told.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#219

Post by consteval »

jessriedel wrote: post #167
Hasu wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is how our justice system works. First, the government accuses you of a crime, then they have to prove that you committed it, and you get to defend yourself. How else could it possibly work? Companies just get to break the law and no one can ever take them to court over it?

I’m not suggesting the justice system should change. I’m suggesting that civil servants who file and lose a ton of suits should be presumed to be doing net harm. Just as we would for prosecutors in criminal law. And when it’s politically motivated, it is not just harm in the sense of economic inefficiency, but further is unjust and lowers public trust in institutions.

The problem is that what you're suggesting will eventually boil down to useless regulators. And then companies will do a plethora of suspicious things, and then you the consumer will suffer.

It's the FTC's job to do this kind of thing. If we argue it shouldn't be their job then what will we be doing? Nothing? We've tried the "do nothing" approach more times than any of us can count, and it doesn't work.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#220

Post by consteval »

megaman821 wrote: post #82
BadHumans wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The claim that there are less mergers happening is from Khan not Silcon Valley. “Sometimes, you know, the companies decide that they’re going to abandon the merger,” Khan said. Stahl asked if abandoning a merger amid the FTC’s scrutiny was a win, to which Khan said, “That’s right.” https://legal-mag.com/ftcs-lina-khan-defends-merger-and-acqu...

Yes, because some mergers are bad. Like really really bad. For you and me, consumers.

If adobe merged with figma that would be catastrophic for that domain. Prices would skyrocket, quality would invariably fall off, and innovation would stagnate due to lack of competition.

Part of having a free market is maintaining it. You can't have a free market if it's constantly consolidating into a monopoly or pseudo-monopoly. This is bad for the products, for the market, and for the consumer.

The keyword in that last sentence is market. Plenty of people will argue what the FTC is doing is stifling economic growth - but it's the opposite. Anti-competitive behavior stifles economic growth in the long run, so preventing it allows smaller companies to grow and innovate. Keeping slow moving giants on life support and de-facto welfare is not good for the economy.

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