Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because they can buy out the competition before you've even heard of them?
That didn’t work for taxis.
It did for centuries.
Amazon Is a Monopoly
291–300 of 348 posts
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
- If Google removed Amazon from search results, then that would be anti-competitive behavior. - If Apple banned the Amazon app from iTunes, then that would be anti-competitive behavior. You can still access Amazon in all these situations at amazon.com, and just like with the chromecast and Apple TV, whether or not there is access somewhere is irrelevant to the nature of the behavior being anti-competitive. Amazon was…
Apple bans all sorts of apps from their store. Is every app that Apple bans “anticompetitive”? Google removes and deprioritizes sites all the time that breaks rules. CVS stop selling cigarettes in their stores. CloudFlare just kicked off 8Chan. Spotify bans musicians. Which one of these are anti competitive and which ones aren’t?
There's a difference between enforcing a TOS for everyone and specifically banning someone who is a competitor.
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
So since Apple sells third party hardware at Apple.com, should they be forced to sell Dells?
Apple stores only sells accessories to their manufactured products, and isn't a retail platform. If Apple opened stores that sold a wide range a goods, including from other sellers, and then banned Dell, then yes, your hypothetical would be anticompetitive.
Then why aren’t apps an “accessory” to the iPhone where Apple can decide not to allow certain apps - including hypothetically Amazon? Do the console makers have a right to deny certain games on their platform?
Does a physical store have to sell every product imaginable?
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
For years Amazon had banned Chromecast and AppleTV devices from it's entire marketplace when they competed with their Firestick device. Not only did Amazon not carry it, but Amazon also prevented third party sellers from listing the competing devices as well. That is textbook anti-competitive behavior, which is probably why Amazon finally started selling them again recently.
Pretty much how Apple does not sell other phone brands? Stores have the power of deciding what they sell and what they do not sell. This is not anti-competitive by default.
Apple stores are not retail platforms. The App store is more comparable to Amazon.
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#295Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
This factoid has failed so many times it's astonishing it keeps being repeated. Any competitive system tends towards monopoly/oligoply. Market mechanisms encourage monopoly/cartel price/payment fixing that benefits shareholders/owners through strong-arming of downstream businesses, and - depending on the market - of customers. There is no "moving into the market", because as soon as a market consolidates around one o…
How would one split up Facebook? Amazon? What would it look like?
Eliminate the self-dealing by cleaving the advertising marketplaces from their other businesses. They can still show ads. They just wouldn't be able to run the auctions, exchanges, etc.
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#297Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
This factoid has failed so many times it's astonishing it keeps being repeated. Any competitive system tends towards monopoly/oligoply. Market mechanisms encourage monopoly/cartel price/payment fixing that benefits shareholders/owners through strong-arming of downstream businesses, and - depending on the market - of customers. There is no "moving into the market", because as soon as a market consolidates around one o…
> Market mechanisms encourage monopoly/cartel price/payment fixing that benefits shareholders/owners through strong-arming of downstream businesses Not market mechanism, governments protecting big biz. Without legislative protection a monopoly doesn't last long, as Standard Oil example shows. A typical cycle of crony-capitalism is: build big biz on a new market -> lobby heavy regulatory framework and a set of monopol…
What's the "anti-trust failure"?
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#299I 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…
> A client was on track to be selling $X-million this year of some appliances. Our client was forced to to stop selling because of trump tariffs. Amazon won't accept a "higher price" from our little company that only sells $Xm/year. A devil's advocate view: perhaps the supplier was buying low cost appliances from China, built in factories with who knows what labor standards or whether the work was compulsory, made al…
the devil's advocate's advocate would say that even if that was the case, a private organization being the world police of manufacturers' margin doesn't feel right.
Re: Amazon Is a Monopoly
#300How we actually define a company to be a monopoly seems to be somewhat arbitrary? I agree that Amazon engages in anticompetitive behaviour but I'm not sure that it can control prices or exclude competition to that extent? I mean every company can affect that, at what point does it become problematic?
boomerllennial belief seems to be that a monopoly is defined as “a company that should not be allowed to make offers that stoke my generations’s utter lack of impulse control”