6 ms·

Trump is not entirely wrong. Is Amazon too big?

25 points by 3327 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
vlozko 9y ago
He could make this a win for both consumers and himself if he goes after Amazon where it really fails badly: counterfeit goods.
- jfoster 9y ago
  Arguably might be a win for Amazon too.
reificator 9y ago
The article title is "Donald Trump steps up attacks on Amazon" and the article offers no evidence for the current post's title of "Trump is not entirely wrong. Is Amazon too big?". In fact the article states that USPS profits off of Amazon, exactly the opposite of the accusation. In keeping with tradition here, the answer to the post's question is "no".
- ethanwillis 9y ago
  This is a much better article with more info than the OP: http://fortune.com/2017/12/29/trump-amazon-post-office/ http://fortune.com/2017/12/29/trump-amazon-post-office/
  - reificator 9y ago
    I forgot that I have the http://maketrumptweetseightagain.com/ http://maketrumptweetseightagain.com/ extension installed, which apparently works on embedded tweets as well. Just open up the page and there's the tweet in crayon in the middle of the article... https://i.imgur.com/poq2tYw.png https://i.imgur.com/poq2tYw.png
    - ethanwillis 9y ago
      lmao, my girlfriend uses the one that replaces pictures of trump with cats.
  - reificator 9y ago
    Yes, that is a much better article for the current title of the post. It still doesn't actually argue anything about Amazon's size but it does at least go deeper into the financials of the situation.
evan_ 9y ago
This is an incredibly stupid headline. Trump didn’t criticize Amazon because it was a monopoly, he criticized it because he thinks that Amazon owns the Washington Post and he’s mad at the Washington Post.
- ethanwillis 9y ago
  And anti-trumpers don't defend Amazon because they don't believe it's a monopoly, they defend it because Trump criticizes it. The point is that the motivation doesn't matter too much if the end result is the same. Amazon IS too big and we need to do something about it. We can all have differing motivations but still want the same thing.
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    Ends doesn’t justify the means and motivation really does matter. If this really is done to hit The Washington Post, is that not a bit disturbing? It’s got a few parallels with the Gawker situation but a load worse imho.
    - themoat 9y ago
      I think it kind of depends on what the ends and means are. Also, why does motivation matter in this case specifically. I believe that the enemy of my enemy is my friend can apply in certain situations. I don't need someone's motivation to strictly align with mine. Sometimes a unified goal is enough.
      - ethanwillis 9y ago
        Completely agree that it depends on the ends and means. In pretty much any issue we're always going to have to work with people who have differing motivations than ours, and motivations that we don't agree with. I think you've got the right question in asking why the motivation here disqualifies the end goal.
  - evan_ 9y ago
    If I say “the claim that Amazon costs the USPS money has no basis in fact”- or point out any of the other factual innacuracies in the president’s months-long tantrum about Amazon and the Washington Post- that isn’t defending Amazon. If there’s a case to be made against Amazon then it should be made without making things up.
jedwhite 9y ago
The story itself is reasonable but the headline added by OP substantially misrepresents the content. The story title itself is "Donald Trump steps up attacks on Amazon." OP headline for HN is "Trump is not entirely wrong. Is Amazon too big?" That is not an accurate description of the story at all.
Gustomaximus 9y ago
I suspect at some point t we might see Amazon regulated like a utility. For example in Australia/UK phone networks must give reasonably priced access for virtual phone network companies to use their infrastructure and compete. I'd love to see something like this with companies like Walmart. Imagine that got broken up into 6,000 invividual stores. It would be a jobs boom with every store now needing an accountant, marketing help etc. Then we have 6,000 stores all looking back into each others markets wondering if the can open a competing store and how they can improve. I really think breaking g up large companies will be a boom for economies.
- reificator 9y ago
  > I'd love to see something like this with companies like Walmart. I think there would be some serious unintended consequences here. Think about Walmart's negotiating position and logistics network going up in smoke overnight. Costs go up and selection vanishes. This hurts doubly in small to medium sized towns where Walmart already crushed the competition.
- adventured 9y ago
  We had that decentralized system. It was terrible for everyone. That's why Walmart stomped them. It was bad for consumers - selection would implode, individual stores can't handle inventory as well or bargain properly, their pricing power is low. It was bad for employees - very poor wages, zero benefits, no dependability that the business would be there tomorrow. It was bad for competition - stores constantly went under. Walmart benefits from a national system of standards, of training, inventory, pricing & buying, shipping, storage, quality control, etc and so on for dozens of other major issues. Walmart also benefits from being able to offset weaker stores with stronger stores. You can yield a small profit over here, and make up for it with a better profit over there. Without that, the store simply goes under given the hyper thin margins, when things slip (inevitable).
  - Gustomaximus 9y ago
    I dont think it would be as bad as you feel. Things like pricing can be overcome as we have better information flow these days so the opportunity to order from a variety of suppliers is much easier than ever to create competition. And wages...well I dont think the centralised system is showing much benefit there to debate the counter point. The key is seeing the problem as a flow rather than 2 options. Yes large centralised systems are more efficient. So over time stores would re-centralise with the benefit being 'as they centralise'. When you break up a large player you now have many opportunities for improvement/innovation rather than someone entrenched who can win via their scale alone. The best stores will grow and spread, become entrenched and then we rinse and repeat. I feel people forget a core component of governments role in healthy capitalism is ensuring a level playing field. This allows competition and innovation. I agree that centralisation has benefits for business but these seem to entrench and stagnate the business while they hold out competition through their scale rather than theses qualities. Some business you can legislate for this level playing field, others it best to break-up and let the market sort itself.
adventured 9y ago
The problem is straight forward: Amazon is clearly not too big today. Their retail sales are a bit over a third that of Walmart (and that's only if we count the marketplace sellers in Amazon's retail total). They have plenty of competition in cloud services, Azure and Google will likely gradually continue to take market share there. It will be too big in retail, tomorrow - maybe. Given all that can go wrong, that's a big maybe. Pre-emptively punishing them for what they may or may not become ten years from now, is an obnoxious perversion of justice. It's a massively positive for consumers today that Amazon exists, that they have the scale that they do, and that they're as friendly toward consumers as they are. It'll still take another ten years of torrid growth just for Amazon to catch up to Walmart's retail scale.
- anothergoogler 9y ago
  Wal-Mart engages in anti-competitive practices and also might be too big, so I'm not sure it's a good reference point.
  - adventured 9y ago
    It's a great reference point because we're dealing with things as they actually are, not a theorized ideal scenario. Walmart made it through the era of peak Walmart-fear, they're not going to get broken up at this point. There is no scenario where that happens now.
- ethanwillis 9y ago
  I also love amazon sending me bootleg merchandise or allowing price gouging after natural disasters. Truly a panacea for consumers.
Mononokay 9y ago
Answer: no. Amazon benefits the vast majority of people, and acting as if a company can get "too big" is a bit silly. It's hysteria like this that ended in the Bell split, something that undeniably harmed everyone involved.
justboxing 9y ago
Mods & Readers, Please Flag.
- ethanwillis 9y ago
  Is it because the article/headline are bad or because you don't like the idea?

25 points by 3327 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

He could make this a win for both consumers and himself if he goes after Amazon where it really fails badly: counterfeit goods.

jfoster 9y ago
Arguably might be a win for Amazon too.

reificator 9y ago

The article title is "Donald Trump steps up attacks on Amazon" and the article offers no evidence for the current post's title of "Trump is not entirely wrong. Is Amazon too big?". In fact the article states that USPS profits off of Amazon, exactly the opposite of the accusation. In keeping with tradition here, the answer to the post's question is "no".

ethanwillis 9y ago
This is a much better article with more info than the OP: http://fortune.com/2017/12/29/trump-amazon-post-office/ http://fortune.com/2017/12/29/trump-amazon-post-office/
- reificator 9y ago
  I forgot that I have the http://maketrumptweetseightagain.com/ http://maketrumptweetseightagain.com/ extension installed, which apparently works on embedded tweets as well. Just open up the page and there's the tweet in crayon in the middle of the article... https://i.imgur.com/poq2tYw.png https://i.imgur.com/poq2tYw.png
  - ethanwillis 9y ago
    lmao, my girlfriend uses the one that replaces pictures of trump with cats.
- reificator 9y ago
  Yes, that is a much better article for the current title of the post. It still doesn't actually argue anything about Amazon's size but it does at least go deeper into the financials of the situation.

evan_ 9y ago

This is an incredibly stupid headline. Trump didn’t criticize Amazon because it was a monopoly, he criticized it because he thinks that Amazon owns the Washington Post and he’s mad at the Washington Post.

ethanwillis 9y ago
And anti-trumpers don't defend Amazon because they don't believe it's a monopoly, they defend it because Trump criticizes it. The point is that the motivation doesn't matter too much if the end result is the same. Amazon IS too big and we need to do something about it. We can all have differing motivations but still want the same thing.
- lostlogin 9y ago
  Ends doesn’t justify the means and motivation really does matter. If this really is done to hit The Washington Post, is that not a bit disturbing? It’s got a few parallels with the Gawker situation but a load worse imho.
  - themoat 9y ago
    I think it kind of depends on what the ends and means are. Also, why does motivation matter in this case specifically. I believe that the enemy of my enemy is my friend can apply in certain situations. I don't need someone's motivation to strictly align with mine. Sometimes a unified goal is enough.
    - ethanwillis 9y ago
      Completely agree that it depends on the ends and means. In pretty much any issue we're always going to have to work with people who have differing motivations than ours, and motivations that we don't agree with. I think you've got the right question in asking why the motivation here disqualifies the end goal.
- evan_ 9y ago
  If I say “the claim that Amazon costs the USPS money has no basis in fact”- or point out any of the other factual innacuracies in the president’s months-long tantrum about Amazon and the Washington Post- that isn’t defending Amazon. If there’s a case to be made against Amazon then it should be made without making things up.

jedwhite 9y ago

The story itself is reasonable but the headline added by OP substantially misrepresents the content. The story title itself is "Donald Trump steps up attacks on Amazon." OP headline for HN is "Trump is not entirely wrong. Is Amazon too big?" That is not an accurate description of the story at all.

Gustomaximus 9y ago

I suspect at some point t we might see Amazon regulated like a utility. For example in Australia/UK phone networks must give reasonably priced access for virtual phone network companies to use their infrastructure and compete. I'd love to see something like this with companies like Walmart. Imagine that got broken up into 6,000 invividual stores. It would be a jobs boom with every store now needing an accountant, marketing help etc. Then we have 6,000 stores all looking back into each others markets wondering if the can open a competing store and how they can improve. I really think breaking g up large companies will be a boom for economies.

reificator 9y ago
> I'd love to see something like this with companies like Walmart. I think there would be some serious unintended consequences here. Think about Walmart's negotiating position and logistics network going up in smoke overnight. Costs go up and selection vanishes. This hurts doubly in small to medium sized towns where Walmart already crushed the competition.
adventured 9y ago
We had that decentralized system. It was terrible for everyone. That's why Walmart stomped them. It was bad for consumers - selection would implode, individual stores can't handle inventory as well or bargain properly, their pricing power is low. It was bad for employees - very poor wages, zero benefits, no dependability that the business would be there tomorrow. It was bad for competition - stores constantly went under. Walmart benefits from a national system of standards, of training, inventory, pricing & buying, shipping, storage, quality control, etc and so on for dozens of other major issues. Walmart also benefits from being able to offset weaker stores with stronger stores. You can yield a small profit over here, and make up for it with a better profit over there. Without that, the store simply goes under given the hyper thin margins, when things slip (inevitable).
- Gustomaximus 9y ago
  I dont think it would be as bad as you feel. Things like pricing can be overcome as we have better information flow these days so the opportunity to order from a variety of suppliers is much easier than ever to create competition. And wages...well I dont think the centralised system is showing much benefit there to debate the counter point. The key is seeing the problem as a flow rather than 2 options. Yes large centralised systems are more efficient. So over time stores would re-centralise with the benefit being 'as they centralise'. When you break up a large player you now have many opportunities for improvement/innovation rather than someone entrenched who can win via their scale alone. The best stores will grow and spread, become entrenched and then we rinse and repeat. I feel people forget a core component of governments role in healthy capitalism is ensuring a level playing field. This allows competition and innovation. I agree that centralisation has benefits for business but these seem to entrench and stagnate the business while they hold out competition through their scale rather than theses qualities. Some business you can legislate for this level playing field, others it best to break-up and let the market sort itself.

adventured 9y ago

The problem is straight forward: Amazon is clearly not too big today. Their retail sales are a bit over a third that of Walmart (and that's only if we count the marketplace sellers in Amazon's retail total). They have plenty of competition in cloud services, Azure and Google will likely gradually continue to take market share there. It will be too big in retail, tomorrow - maybe. Given all that can go wrong, that's a big maybe. Pre-emptively punishing them for what they may or may not become ten years from now, is an obnoxious perversion of justice. It's a massively positive for consumers today that Amazon exists, that they have the scale that they do, and that they're as friendly toward consumers as they are. It'll still take another ten years of torrid growth just for Amazon to catch up to Walmart's retail scale.

anothergoogler 9y ago
Wal-Mart engages in anti-competitive practices and also might be too big, so I'm not sure it's a good reference point.
- adventured 9y ago
  It's a great reference point because we're dealing with things as they actually are, not a theorized ideal scenario. Walmart made it through the era of peak Walmart-fear, they're not going to get broken up at this point. There is no scenario where that happens now.
ethanwillis 9y ago
I also love amazon sending me bootleg merchandise or allowing price gouging after natural disasters. Truly a panacea for consumers.

Mononokay 9y ago

Answer: no. Amazon benefits the vast majority of people, and acting as if a company can get "too big" is a bit silly. It's hysteria like this that ended in the Bell split, something that undeniably harmed everyone involved.

justboxing 9y ago

Mods & Readers, Please Flag.

ethanwillis 9y ago
Is it because the article/headline are bad or because you don't like the idea?