> But, just as in 1993 with Walmart, and now with Amazon, the basic fact remains that consumer preferences shift. Tragedy of the commons and undesirable local

> But, just as in 1993 with Walmart, and now with Amazon, the basic fact remains that consumer preferences shift. Tragedy of the commons and undesirable local optima are still a thing. Yes, we might want cheaper and more convenient shopping and continue to buy stuff from Amazon, and also still might not want the long term negative effects of Amazon slowly crushing all competition. The rest of the article is about whether what Amazon is doing fits an existing definition of anti-competitive. That's all fine and good, but a larger question is whether that definition of anti-competitive is the only thing we should be worrying about. e.g. yes, Amazon forces market conditions to improve for customers in the short term, but I have zero doubt that once they crush competitors they'll happily jack up prices. There's also perhaps an argument that the level of automation and technological prowess that amazon brings is different from what Walmart had back in the 90s. There the argument was that walmart is walmart, but local shops still at least have a premium niche to fill (which, while true, did do disasters to many local economies which didn't have the clientele for niche stores). Now perhaps Amazon is good enough that it might even destroy that gap too.