Amazon staffers took bribes, manipulated marketplace, leaked search algorithms • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon staffers took bribes, manipulated marketplace, leaked search algorithms

#51

Post by lotsofpulp » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

donogh wrote: post #21

BoorishBears wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of me wants to believe this comment is satire, but the better part of me knows this is HN, so conceivably someone would call the barrier to entry for competing with Amazon's retail unit "very low"

In a sense entering the market is easy -- sign up to Shopify, drop ship from China, etc. On the other hand, competing in the market is not easy. Maybe that's what he meant?

Competing in any market isn’t easy, especially with low margins. If it was, someone would be doing it, since people have a goal to earn money.

The comment I replied claimed Amazon didn’t have competition, to which I wanted to point out that the retail side of Amazon has a ton of competition. And single digit profit margins are pretty hard proof of competition, and/or low barrier to entry. Because again, people have a goal of earning money, and the only reason they would accept single digit margins is if others would take their business.

Re: Amazon staffers took bribes, manipulated marketplace, leaked search algorithms

#52

Post by BoorishBears » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

shiftpgdn wrote: post #19

BoorishBears wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of me wants to believe this comment is satire, but the better part of me knows this is HN, so conceivably someone would call the barrier to entry for competing with Amazon's retail unit "very low"

It IS very low because anyone with a few hours can put together a shopify or woocomerece store and instantly start selling whatever their heart desires. Competing against Amazon's scale is tough as it would be a huge challenge to be able to offer next day shipping for free anywhere in the US, but you can add value other places.

The comment wasn't "the barrier of entry to selling a thing on the internet" the comment was in a thread where the context was competitors on the scale they could be replacements for Amazon.

The barrier for that is not a Shopify page... that's not going to get you a fleet of Boeing 767s that shore up your nation-wide logistics chain able to deliver a 3 dollar dog toy 200 miles in less than 24 hours.

Even Walmart is struggling to compete with that, how can someone say that there's a low barrier of entry there with a straight face?

In fact you seem to be aware of this because literally the next line down you say... Competing against Amazon's scale is tough

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This is just another typical HN contextomy. People need to learn read a comment in the context it's given, rather than going "well technically, if you just ignore the context given, it's actually this totally unrelated thing."

It gets exhausting having to constantly point out context that's literally right there.

Re: Amazon staffers took bribes, manipulated marketplace, leaked search algorithms

#53

Post by Zigurd » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

lallysingh wrote: post #10

kome wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is a soviet union cybernetics wet dream. Jokes side: Do you see society coming to realize that a similar system can actually implement a planned economy for real?

Who takes the hit when the demand projections are off?

An AI driven command economy does not have to be perfect to outperform a free market. If an AI-driven command economy outperforms free markets, the free market dies, just as when self-driving cars become more cheaply insurable because they cause less insured loss, and stop entailing traffic enforcement costs, the human driven car dies.

Re: Amazon staffers took bribes, manipulated marketplace, leaked search algorithms

#54

Post by wegs » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

lucaspm98 wrote: post #42

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is this not a condemnation of Amazon? this is a feature unique to capitalism not just Amazon.

Capitalists can value the long term advantages of having a fairly compensated and happy workforce. A company might be able to gain a short term benefit by mistreating or underpaying workers, but in a properly regulated capitalist system this will lead to public backlash, regulatory attention, corruption, and ultimately employees leaving for competitors.

Capitalist markets, even when thinking through the long term, don't work like that. A lot of costs of messing with employees are externalized. If I lay off my workforce after a product ships, issue stock options worth 10 cents, or otherwise, the result is a lack of trust in tech management as a whole.

The direct blowback on the individual company is pretty small. Would you ever find out if a manager you were interviewing with had done that? Or a startup?

The US was more efficient when companies treated employees better, and when companies were like a community who took care of each other. But, as an individual manager, and even more so as a company, I come out ahead if I treat employees more aggressively.

Better transparency would help. If employees could see company financials, it would solve a world of hurts. The information asymmetry is a lot of what leads to inefficient markets here.

Re: Amazon staffers took bribes, manipulated marketplace, leaked search algorithms

#55

Post by shiftpgdn » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

BoorishBears wrote: post #52

shiftpgdn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It IS very low because anyone with a few hours can put together a shopify or woocomerece store and instantly start selling whatever their heart desires. Competing against Amazon's scale is tough as it would be a huge challenge to be able to offer next day shipping for free anywhere in the US, but you can add value other places.

The comment wasn't "the barrier of entry to selling a thing on the internet" the comment was in a thread where the context was competitors on the scale they could be replacements for Amazon . The barrier for that is not a Shopify page... that's not going to get you a fleet of Boeing 767s that shore up your nation-wide logistics chain able to deliver a 3 dollar dog toy 200 miles in less than 24 hours. Even Walmart is…

No, I completely understood. This is like the people in the 90s who were going "How can anyone compete with Wal-mart who has retail stores in every city and an incredible distribution network?"

I stand by my statement that the barrier to entry for retail has never been lower.

Re: Amazon staffers took bribes, manipulated marketplace, leaked search algorithms

#56

Post by sidlls » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #48

sidlls wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s compare like to like, though. In theory anyone could start a site to provide a marketplace for sellers for $5/month in hosting and maybe a few hundred bucks in upwork costs for standing up a php e-commerce platform. In practice the cost to compete with Amazon is much higher.

Competition with any larger entity is more difficult in metrics that are improved by scaling. My point was that Amazon has many capable competitors.

The barrier to entry in that market (Amazon and its competitors) is staggering compared to the barrier to entry into the general "sell stuff online" market.

I also don't agree with your list of competitors. Amazon is more like a mall, while almost uniformly the others you list are more like a retailer acting as a middle-man between wholesalers and the general public. I'd agree with Aliexpress and maybe Walmart.

It's just not a healthy market.

Re: Amazon staffers took bribes, manipulated marketplace, leaked search algorithms

#57

Post by BoorishBears » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 7:34 PM UTC

shiftpgdn wrote: post #55

BoorishBears wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment wasn't "the barrier of entry to selling a thing on the internet" the comment was in a thread where the context was competitors on the scale they could be replacements for Amazon . The barrier for that is not a Shopify page... that's not going to get you a fleet of Boeing 767s that shore up your nation-wide logistics chain able to deliver a 3 dollar dog toy 200 miles in less than 24 hours. Even Walmart is…

No, I completely understood. This is like the people in the 90s who were going "How can anyone compete with Wal-mart who has retail stores in every city and an incredible distribution network?" I stand by my statement that the barrier to entry for retail has never been lower.

Apparently you don't stand by your statement since you literally just changed it...

My comment refers to "the barrier to entry for competing with Amazon's retail unit" to which you reply "it IS very low".

Which is comical.

Now it's shifting to "the barrier to entry for retail has never been lower."

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If you had said that we wouldn't be having this conversation, because newsflash:

> This is like the people in the 90s who were going "How can anyone compete with Wal-mart who has retail stores in every city and an incredible distribution network?"

It only took this little thing called the Internet taking off, a company that took decades to grow to the scale where they could compete with it along with their revenue from other business units like this little one called "AWS".

So yeah, if we're willing wait another couple of decades I'm sure the next Amazon would have an easier time now that they don't have to wait for the concept of Internet shopping to become mainstream.

Doesn't exactly address the original comment's point that the barriers to building something to compete with Amazon are very high though does it?

It's almost like trying to compete with Amazon's retail unit means somehow competing with a product riding on their revenue from all their other units, including AWS. The writing has been on the wall there though: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-cloud-is-funding-its...