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I reacted more to the word 'consumers' than 'competition' as the competition argument comes back around to what's best for consumers anyway. So I put my consum

I reacted more to the word 'consumers' than 'competition' as the competition argument comes back around to what's best for consumers anyway. So I put my consumer hat on and pondered what would I rather have: - The current situation - Intervention And I concluded I quite like the current situation, these companies provide meaningful benefits to me. If I put my tin foil hat on, it seems quite obvious that 'bad for consumers' is what someone wants you to think, but it isn't entirely true.

wavefunction 9y ago
>If I put my tin foil hat on, it seems quite obvious that 'bad for consumers' is what someone wants you to think, but it isn't entirely true. Is putting your tinfoil hat on really a good way to get to the truth of any subject? And you've concluded that because you prefer the current situation the situation faced by society or consumers is the same. And that's really just your opinion. My opinion, for example, is that Amazon has obviously operated maliciously in numerous examples. Not calling 911 when their employee was suffering from the heat of its facility, leading to his death. Encouraging individuals to sell (generate markets) on the Amazon network then under-cutting or pushing out that small seller when there's revenue to be earned instead by Amazon. Encouraging waste and flippant purchases that are fulfilled in an inefficient and non-evironmentally friendly manner. Amazon is Walmart, online. And neither organizations present long-term benefits to society, in my opinion.
CodeCube 9y ago
Unfortunately, you may be happy with Amazon, but there's loads of examples of where this is going wrong for consumers. From issues with counterfit products (see the post recently about the guy who unknowingly was "charged" with import fraud and denied privileged flight status due to an Amazon order), to them taking advantage of the fact that people assume they're the cheapest price (they aren't always), to "prime shipping" becoming more and more of a thing you can't depend on (late shipments ... all the time). Maybe you live in an area that Amazon gives higher priority to, maybe you live closer to a shipping center than I do, maybe the things you tend to order tend to be highly stocked in their warehouses ... I don't know, but the more time passes, the more Amazon frustrates me personally as a consumer, and others as well based on articles being written and social media chatter; which is frustrating, because the average national retail store is terrible (and they already killed all the mom n pop stores), and having to maintain accounts on lots of smaller online retailers is a pain (not to mention lax security can lead to stolen credit cards, etc). So obviously, in some ways, I agree with you because Amazon does provide benefits ... they just need to not be the only viable player in the online space.
a_c_s 9y ago
What's best for consumers is having a variety of competitive choices: in the short term a monopolist can offer the 'one true best option', but over time they (like all companies) will stop acting competitively and then consumers will be harmed by the lack of other options. That's why it is bad for consumers when monopolists emerge: during the emergence they likely do benefit, but it can take decades for a market to recover once the monopolist stops being competitive.

wavefunction 9y ago

>If I put my tin foil hat on, it seems quite obvious that 'bad for consumers' is what someone wants you to think, but it isn't entirely true. Is putting your tinfoil hat on really a good way to get to the truth of any subject? And you've concluded that because you prefer the current situation the situation faced by society or consumers is the same. And that's really just your opinion. My opinion, for example, is that Amazon has obviously operated maliciously in numerous examples. Not calling 911 when their employee was suffering from the heat of its facility, leading to his death. Encouraging individuals to sell (generate markets) on the Amazon network then under-cutting or pushing out that small seller when there's revenue to be earned instead by Amazon. Encouraging waste and flippant purchases that are fulfilled in an inefficient and non-evironmentally friendly manner. Amazon is Walmart, online. And neither organizations present long-term benefits to society, in my opinion.

CodeCube 9y ago

Unfortunately, you may be happy with Amazon, but there's loads of examples of where this is going wrong for consumers. From issues with counterfit products (see the post recently about the guy who unknowingly was "charged" with import fraud and denied privileged flight status due to an Amazon order), to them taking advantage of the fact that people assume they're the cheapest price (they aren't always), to "prime shipping" becoming more and more of a thing you can't depend on (late shipments ... all the time). Maybe you live in an area that Amazon gives higher priority to, maybe you live closer to a shipping center than I do, maybe the things you tend to order tend to be highly stocked in their warehouses ... I don't know, but the more time passes, the more Amazon frustrates me personally as a consumer, and others as well based on articles being written and social media chatter; which is frustrating, because the average national retail store is terrible (and they already killed all the mom n pop stores), and having to maintain accounts on lots of smaller online retailers is a pain (not to mention lax security can lead to stolen credit cards, etc). So obviously, in some ways, I agree with you because Amazon does provide benefits ... they just need to not be the only viable player in the online space.

a_c_s 9y ago

What's best for consumers is having a variety of competitive choices: in the short term a monopolist can offer the 'one true best option', but over time they (like all companies) will stop acting competitively and then consumers will be harmed by the lack of other options. That's why it is bad for consumers when monopolists emerge: during the emergence they likely do benefit, but it can take decades for a market to recover once the monopolist stops being competitive.