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FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

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Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#561
post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't they? You've arranged to have product you didn't create shipped to a warehouse you don't operate to be stored by a system you don't maintain to be sold on a storefront under a brand you made up and that you didn't create to be fulfilled by a shipping apparatus instead of you going to the UPS Store. What exactly are YOU doing here that merits a payday? Mediating a relationship between Amazon and a Chines…

> What exactly are YOU doing here that merits a payday? The hard part. Finding a product people want. If that were so easy, Amazon would just be a store, no sellers. That part they can't do themselves.

Oh yes, Amazon Inc., famously they have a hard time finding out what customers want.

Come on.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#562
post #50

Decouple Amazon Warehouse division from Amazon Web Services (AWS largely subsidizes losses incurred by warehouse division), then we will see change. Right now FTC going after low hanging fruit. But we all know Amazon will challenge it in court, appeal, appeal, appeal, pay the reduced fine, slow roll any changes, and business will continue as usual. Break up the tech giants and each individual unit cannot survive as-i…

Does AWS include the Prime streaming platform?

It sends a chill down my spine to see that one of the perks of being a Prime member is unlimited photo storage.

It’s sickening to realize there’s a bunch of Gullible Guses and Ginas that are holding off cancelling their Prime subscription because their pictures are held hostage by Amazon.

I bet dollars-to-donuts that half of those folks don’t know how to articulate the sentimental attachment to their Prime subscription either.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Product dumping is not illegal if you have a national newspaper that can be used to target any politician and if you make sure to contribute millions and make sure your employees do the same for the political party in power.

If Bezos were using this Washington Post for this purpose a member of the newsroom would immediately leak it. It would be a career defining story for that journalist. The fact that we’ve heard nothing strongly suggests it isn’t happening.

I've heard this "if it were happening someone would leak it" argument throughout my life, even though I've lost count of all the counterexamples that disprove this mentality.

Before Snowden PRISM was considered impossible (even though previous people had leaked it but never got picked up by the media cycle), before Epstein it was impossible that billionaires were trafficking children for sex, before 2008 it was impossible that wall street was colluding to rig the market - the consistent thread in all of these is that the "impossible" was happening for several years before it was ever exposed.

I understand the incentive to leak it exists, but that doesn't mean there isn't a stronger incentive to keep it a secret.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#565

I signed up as a Seller on Amazon a while back, with one primary goal: sell extra copies of my book, published by Pantheon Books in 2017. The publisher offered me boxes of them at dirt-cheap prices and I took them up on their offer. So I started selling on Amazon, and I set my price as the lowest possible for "New" condition hardcover. For a while my price got listed on the main book product page. Only briefly though…

> They were pissed

Huge corporations do not get pissed. It's not personal. They were not angry or acting spiteful.

Note: I'm only addressing those three words, not any other points you made.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#566
post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see a longer take regarding what makes you think these claims are strong. Especially with the backdrop of losses the FTC has been having, though, these feel weak. It sucks that the only real commentary out right now is the expected appeals online. So, we'll see. Hopefully quickly.

Seems to me, the case is so strong, the complaint speaks for itself. It's convinced me. I'd love to see a longer take, though, addressing the specific points in the complaint, and what makes you think each one is weak. It sucks that most of the opposition I've seen is along the lines of "if Amazon isn't allowed to engage in anticompetitive behavior, the FTC is coming for your mom and pop shop next" / "where's the lin…

You feel in bad faith here. But sure, lets start looking at the points:

Paragraph 1, almost literally: "the early days of the internet were great for competition..." I, uh, don't know what to tell you here. Isn't even really a point.

Paragraph 2: Amazon is big.

Paragraph 3: Amazon is a monopolist.

4: Amazon's fees can be upwards of half the costs of sellers.

This point, finally, could be something. The examples that have been made public, though, are for sellers that are basically drop ship sellers. I'd love to see better evidence here.

5: Amazon also sucks.

I mean, this is kinda the core of my main counter point. Amazon is losing on its own terms. And if it doesn't get its shit together, it will lose soon.

That said, I do think this point muddies my view by discussing the old "relevant, organic searches." All of search has gotten bad. And Amazon's was never good.

6: Amazon sucks, but is getting away with it.

Ok...

7: Amazon doesn't enter agreements where people can undercut them directly in costs... Or something?

Sadly, I've run out of steam rather quickly on this. The claim here seems to be that Amazon enters all of the same agreements that other retailers do. With similarly bad results happening. I'd be delighted to find that general ruleset changed. I fail to see how this is even pretending to move in that direction.

8: We want to be clear it isn't just that Amazon is big. It is the practices they use.

This is the real kicker in all of this. The main practices they keep calling out are not unique to anyone in retail. Please make them illegal, but don't pretend going after Big Tech isn't an optics thing.

Skimming the rest: I'm now officially out of steam. What paragraph do you feel is actually strong? There is some neat analysis of the buy box... but it isn't that neat, all told. Amazon was silly proud of their 1-click nonsense for a long time. And it is probably a safe wager that, sure, most people don't make it to page 2 of searches; but also most searches don't result in a sale.

I'd almost be willing to take the price harm to consumers as a strong point, but Amazon has NEVER been price competitive for basically anything. It has always been cheaper to buy something somewhere else. This hasn't been a secret for anyone for a long time. It just wasn't egregiously more expensive for Amazon, and their pro consumer return policies made for a loyal customer base.

Again, don't take my criticism of FTC here as praise for Amazon. I don't vilify them as much as many do, but I do think they have been doing some hilariously non-forced screwups lately. This is still a pretty shit case.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#567
post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What exactly are YOU doing here that merits a payday? The hard part. Finding a product people want. If that were so easy, Amazon would just be a store, no sellers. That part they can't do themselves.

Oh yes, Amazon Inc., famously they have a hard time finding out what customers want. Come on.

That part they can't do themselves at the same scale as all of the sellers can.

That is what I meant.

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy. The iOS improvements to privacy with advertiser ID becoming opt-in instead of opt-out has been brutal on targeted advertising.

sounds like a good thing to me

But could you have guessed that this policy would have helped (albeit in its own small way) to prop up a monopoly in the advertising world?

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#569
post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point, but I think the parent point is true as well. You still have people actually producing work, unable to compete on these platforms where Amazon will literally make a copy of their product at a lower price. This is the result of commoditizing 'starting a business' to the point of near-worthlessness in the bottom 50%+. Like you say, I don't value the businesses that simply re-sell re-labeled produ…

Is drop shopping the kind of business to fight for supporting? That’s all this is.

Dude needs to learn how to weld his own fire pits, teach some new employees, rinse repeat

Re: FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power

#570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me a business that Amazon couldn't destroy just for kicks. Also, it's not like you have any choices. If you manufacture your products yourself, you have to fund a massive venture to handle the workload. If you outsource the products, then the companies you pay to manufacture your stuff can easily make knockoffs and then let drop shippers undercut you with inferior versions of your own products. Look at a lot of…

Apple Iphone, airpods, ipad, macbook. Google search. Coke. Boeing. Caterpillar. Goldman Sachs. AirBnB. Exxon. AutoDesk. BlackRock. CME. Costco. JP Morgan Chase. Mastercard, Visa, Nike, TSMC and a thousand others. They started out as a retailer, and opened up a bunch of their infrastructure to competitors. The idea that they'd make it easy for competitors using their infrastructure to beat them makes zero sense.

Those are good ones but i was thinking of local stuff like grocery (which they tried and are currently failing) and gas (not that i use it). Also, real services like plumbing, electric, vehicle maint. ... Angies list got that corner ;)
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