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I can't see how Oracle and IBM can compete long-term against the breadth of IT infrastructure Amazon has built. I can't see how Walmart and Target can compete w

by rrggrr 10y ago

I can't see how Oracle and IBM can compete long-term against the breadth of IT infrastructure Amazon has built. I can't see how Walmart and Target can compete with the distribution network and frictionless transactional model Amazon has developed. I'm not sure any company has the same depth of real-world data for training AI systems... 300 million users "liking" with their wallets and not a simple mouse click for example. Its been 127 years since the Sherman anti-trust act was passed. Its probably time for a serious re-think.

L_Rahman 10y ago
Are you a Stratechery / Ben Thompson reader by any chance?
sol_remmy 10y ago
It worries me how easily you call for the government to take control of a multinational company and forcefully split it into pieces.
- rrggrr 10y ago
  I said it was time to re-think anti-trust. You brought your own issues to the table and assumed I was calling for a breakup.
  - pedalpete 10y ago
    Can you give more details on what you are suggesting then?
user5994461 10y ago
There are hundreds of shop chains like wallmart that also have millions of customers coming to their shop and spend real money. Warehouses and inventories have been counting the most successful and most profitable products for a very long time. Didn't wait for amazon.
exolymph 10y ago
I've written about this take, which I disagree with: https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/aws-outage-centralization.html https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/aws-outage-centralization.htm...
cookiecaper 10y ago
I wouldn't count out the likes of Walmart. They're making big strides and taking ecommerce and digital marketplaces ever-more seriously. It seems like it will be much easier for Walmart to close the gap against Amazon than vice-versa; Walmart has already done the harder part of getting a warehouse within 10 miles of most populated areas. Californians or people in other anti-Walmart areas may not realize the nexus that Walmart represents for many Americans. In most places that are not actively anti-Walmart, it is one of the most frequent touchpoints for virtually everyone. Amazon's retail operation is being threatened from Prime-like shipping offerings (free 2 day) from lots of online stores, including Walmart. Walmart can also often allow same-day pickup at a local store, whereas the only hope of getting something similar on Amazon is living within Prime Now range. Amazon is also hurting its reputation as a retailer by allowing so much counterfeit material through FBA. When you take away the retail core of Amazon, I'm not sure what consumer-facing value you really have left. They have Echo, but that's pretty meh. They have a crappy Netflix ripoff, which may hold some attention, but without a reason to shop at Amazon, the reason to use Prime Video is diminished. Google has them nicked pretty good on web and mobile platforms. You sort of get stuck with a group of loose things that are kinda good, but not really enough to hold interest independently, IMO. If Walmart et al go in for the kill, I think Amazon's prospects as a consumer brand are weak. I suspect the only thing that keeps Walmart from seriously weakening Amazon is a dissonance between corporate values that keep them from competing on the same wavelengths (see Clayton Christensen). Of course, AWS will continue to make gobs and gobs of money for the foreseeable future, but there's nothing really inherent about that either. Google is laying the foundation to plow over them in cloud via Kubernetes. With the right marketing buzz, AWS can be cast as outmoded and overpriced and hurt significantly on that front too.
- Jb611 10y ago
  It's much easier (maybe too easy) for anyone to sell on Amazon compared to Walmart.com. This allows Amazon to alway have a huge selection with a bunch of sellers competing to offer the lower price. This is going to let Amazon stay in front until the other companies catch up but it might be too late by then.
  - 10y ago
cookiecaper 10y ago
>Its been 127 years since the Sherman anti-trust act was passed. Its probably time for a serious re-think. I don't know much about anti-trust law specifically, but I agree that as it pertains to technology, we need to seriously re-evaluate the way the law is applied and revise some of the imperfect analogies that have been used as guidelines in tech-related court cases. Due to misapplied and woefully outdated IP and computer access laws, tech companies have protections that meatspace companies can only dream about. Walmart would LOVE to be able to tell people associated with Target that entering their store was a felony, and that they weren't allowed to duplicate their latest seasonal display. I'm sure they would also love to be able to put anyone who walks out of their store with a cart full of groceries under strict contracts forbidding the use of the public courts of law and mandating any dispute be settled in binding arbitration. Walmart doesn't get to use these types of protections (because they're ridiculous), but companies that exist in cyberspace do. They're unfair to everyone except the massive companies that are already entrenched players. Tech entrepreneurs would have a much easier time competing against the mostly-illusory "network effects" of cyberspace if there wasn't someone waiting on the edge with a sledgehammer to destroy your company via legal fees and/or handcuffs to literally put you in jail, as happened to Aaron Swartz. Tech companies also have totally unparalleled access to private data about their users, extracted just by utilizing them. Parcel carriers including the USPS aren't allowed to open your mail, scan it, and store the contents in a database associated with your name -- but Google is. Ironic that we were worried about someone reading our mail before the technology to collate more than a tiny portion was available, but now that every communication we've had over the last decade can be neatly arranged and instantly analyzed from anywhere in the world, we don't seem to mind at all. Tech law has gotten by under the radar for a long time. We need to rein it in.

by rrggrr 10y ago

L_Rahman 10y ago

Are you a Stratechery / Ben Thompson reader by any chance?

sol_remmy 10y ago

It worries me how easily you call for the government to take control of a multinational company and forcefully split it into pieces.

rrggrr 10y ago
I said it was time to re-think anti-trust. You brought your own issues to the table and assumed I was calling for a breakup.
- pedalpete 10y ago
  Can you give more details on what you are suggesting then?

user5994461 10y ago

There are hundreds of shop chains like wallmart that also have millions of customers coming to their shop and spend real money. Warehouses and inventories have been counting the most successful and most profitable products for a very long time. Didn't wait for amazon.

exolymph 10y ago

I've written about this take, which I disagree with: https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/aws-outage-centralization.html https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/aws-outage-centralization.htm...

cookiecaper 10y ago

I wouldn't count out the likes of Walmart. They're making big strides and taking ecommerce and digital marketplaces ever-more seriously. It seems like it will be much easier for Walmart to close the gap against Amazon than vice-versa; Walmart has already done the harder part of getting a warehouse within 10 miles of most populated areas. Californians or people in other anti-Walmart areas may not realize the nexus that Walmart represents for many Americans. In most places that are not actively anti-Walmart, it is one of the most frequent touchpoints for virtually everyone. Amazon's retail operation is being threatened from Prime-like shipping offerings (free 2 day) from lots of online stores, including Walmart. Walmart can also often allow same-day pickup at a local store, whereas the only hope of getting something similar on Amazon is living within Prime Now range. Amazon is also hurting its reputation as a retailer by allowing so much counterfeit material through FBA. When you take away the retail core of Amazon, I'm not sure what consumer-facing value you really have left. They have Echo, but that's pretty meh. They have a crappy Netflix ripoff, which may hold some attention, but without a reason to shop at Amazon, the reason to use Prime Video is diminished. Google has them nicked pretty good on web and mobile platforms. You sort of get stuck with a group of loose things that are kinda good, but not really enough to hold interest independently, IMO. If Walmart et al go in for the kill, I think Amazon's prospects as a consumer brand are weak. I suspect the only thing that keeps Walmart from seriously weakening Amazon is a dissonance between corporate values that keep them from competing on the same wavelengths (see Clayton Christensen). Of course, AWS will continue to make gobs and gobs of money for the foreseeable future, but there's nothing really inherent about that either. Google is laying the foundation to plow over them in cloud via Kubernetes. With the right marketing buzz, AWS can be cast as outmoded and overpriced and hurt significantly on that front too.

Jb611 10y ago
It's much easier (maybe too easy) for anyone to sell on Amazon compared to Walmart.com. This allows Amazon to alway have a huge selection with a bunch of sellers competing to offer the lower price. This is going to let Amazon stay in front until the other companies catch up but it might be too late by then.
- 10y ago

cookiecaper 10y ago

>Its been 127 years since the Sherman anti-trust act was passed. Its probably time for a serious re-think. I don't know much about anti-trust law specifically, but I agree that as it pertains to technology, we need to seriously re-evaluate the way the law is applied and revise some of the imperfect analogies that have been used as guidelines in tech-related court cases. Due to misapplied and woefully outdated IP and computer access laws, tech companies have protections that meatspace companies can only dream about. Walmart would LOVE to be able to tell people associated with Target that entering their store was a felony, and that they weren't allowed to duplicate their latest seasonal display. I'm sure they would also love to be able to put anyone who walks out of their store with a cart full of groceries under strict contracts forbidding the use of the public courts of law and mandating any dispute be settled in binding arbitration. Walmart doesn't get to use these types of protections (because they're ridiculous), but companies that exist in cyberspace do. They're unfair to everyone except the massive companies that are already entrenched players. Tech entrepreneurs would have a much easier time competing against the mostly-illusory "network effects" of cyberspace if there wasn't someone waiting on the edge with a sledgehammer to destroy your company via legal fees and/or handcuffs to literally put you in jail, as happened to Aaron Swartz. Tech companies also have totally unparalleled access to private data about their users, extracted just by utilizing them. Parcel carriers including the USPS aren't allowed to open your mail, scan it, and store the contents in a database associated with your name -- but Google is. Ironic that we were worried about someone reading our mail before the technology to collate more than a tiny portion was available, but now that every communication we've had over the last decade can be neatly arranged and instantly analyzed from anywhere in the world, we don't seem to mind at all. Tech law has gotten by under the radar for a long time. We need to rein it in.