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Sometimes I wonder how far Amazon will go, and if/when antitrust mechanisms will start tapping the brakes. They went from an online bookstore to the entire bre

by jpk 9y ago

Sometimes I wonder how far Amazon will go, and if/when antitrust mechanisms will start tapping the brakes. They went from an online bookstore to the entire breadth and depth they are now with still higher aspirations. Where will they stop? Healthcare? Utilities? 2027: "We want to own all the water companies so we can plumb Amazon-Basics-knockoff Soylent to your faucets."

opportune 9y ago
I'm ready for this kind of obscene horizontal integration to stop. It's of course logical for tech companies to explore new areas to make money in, but if the end result is only a few corporations controlling most of our economy, it's not worth it. I don't even really see limiting horizontal integration as unethical/anti-business at all, if implemented well. Sure Bob Shareholder won't be able to directly invest the $X in profit from his Amazon/Google stock back into the company, but that profit would instead be given as dividends that he could then invest in companies that would be doing what Amazon/Google wanted to do anyway.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  It is sobering to think that Walmart's revenue is 2.6% of the US GDP. But then again, that includes a bunch of overseas revenue, so that's not exactly apples-to-apples. And it's actually comforting to see that Walmart is 4x the size of Amazon, because I don't think they have the same scope of ambition or cultural / technological relevance today. I certainly don't think that the Walmart of 2030 will be controlling all aspects of our daily life, though people may have worried about that 20 years ago. But companies ebb and flow and I suspect that Amazon will reach its own "dominance high point" in the next decade or two and then retreat in terms of ambition and relevance. New swaths of the economy will open up that Amazon is ill-equiped to dominate, just like has happened to corporations for the last century before them.
  - opportune 9y ago
    This is true, but then again Walmart gave up on anything more than being a supermarket (except for being an online store, but that's just them addressing their competition). Walmart isn't scary because they're not reinvesting their profits much compared to their competitors, which tells you they really aren't in "growth mode" anymore. Amazon hasn't given up yet and we'll see how long that takes. It could be the next Walmart, or it could be the next Enron, or even the next East India Company.
twothamendment 9y ago
I'm glad I have a well!

by jpk 9y ago

opportune 9y ago

I'm ready for this kind of obscene horizontal integration to stop. It's of course logical for tech companies to explore new areas to make money in, but if the end result is only a few corporations controlling most of our economy, it's not worth it. I don't even really see limiting horizontal integration as unethical/anti-business at all, if implemented well. Sure Bob Shareholder won't be able to directly invest the $X in profit from his Amazon/Google stock back into the company, but that profit would instead be given as dividends that he could then invest in companies that would be doing what Amazon/Google wanted to do anyway.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago
It is sobering to think that Walmart's revenue is 2.6% of the US GDP. But then again, that includes a bunch of overseas revenue, so that's not exactly apples-to-apples. And it's actually comforting to see that Walmart is 4x the size of Amazon, because I don't think they have the same scope of ambition or cultural / technological relevance today. I certainly don't think that the Walmart of 2030 will be controlling all aspects of our daily life, though people may have worried about that 20 years ago. But companies ebb and flow and I suspect that Amazon will reach its own "dominance high point" in the next decade or two and then retreat in terms of ambition and relevance. New swaths of the economy will open up that Amazon is ill-equiped to dominate, just like has happened to corporations for the last century before them.
- opportune 9y ago
  This is true, but then again Walmart gave up on anything more than being a supermarket (except for being an online store, but that's just them addressing their competition). Walmart isn't scary because they're not reinvesting their profits much compared to their competitors, which tells you they really aren't in "growth mode" anymore. Amazon hasn't given up yet and we'll see how long that takes. It could be the next Walmart, or it could be the next Enron, or even the next East India Company.

twothamendment 9y ago

I'm glad I have a well!