4 ms·

Retailers like Amazon or Walmart shouldn't be allowed to make their own competing brands.

skrowl 8y ago
Should the government seize the means of production, comrade? Businesses should be allowed to create whatever products they want, as long as they don't do anti-competitive things like work together with their competitors to fix prices. Free markets are important.
- wgerard 8y ago
  > Businesses should be allowed to create whatever products they want, as long as they don't do anti-competitive things like work together with their competitors to fix prices. Or say, if they owned a huge marketplace and eventually started producing a product, and then refused to stock their competitor's product in the huge marketplace.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Do you demand that the local supermarket carry every brand of chili on earth?
    - wgerard 8y ago
      I don't think that's a good analogy; there are significant differences between a local supermarket (local, items must fit in the store) and Amazon's marketplace (global, items can be located anywhere globally within reason).
    - mistermann 8y ago
      The justice department(?) demanded that Microsoft stop bundling (or forcing, can't remember the specifics) IE on Windows. Laissez faire capitalism has both benefits and risks, casual/militant dismissal of concerns can sometimes have negative consequences, sometimes very severe.
- 2_listerine_pls 8y ago
  >> Free markets are important. There aren't free markets in a pure sense and it's a good thing: - Standard oil was broken into exxon, chevron, etc... - Laws were introduced to prevent railroad barons from owning every industry by forcing fair treatment. - Electricity producers aren't allowed to sell directly to their customers in many countries. They are forced to sell it to resellers. >> as long as they don't do anti-competitive things like work together with their competitors to fix prices That's subjective, What does anti-competitive mean? it could mean making cheaper competing products as a retailer. It could mean refusing to host your product just like it happened to chrome cast. It could be ranking competing products lower.
- W-_-D 8y ago
  Amazon is in an unusual place of both controlling the market and entering the market however. That doesn't really fit with the nice simplistic ideological "Free market" concept. It's hard to see any motivation for them not to game the system if there's no regulation preventing it.
Harvey-Specter 8y ago
Basically every retailer has a 'house brand' of products that are manufactured by some third party. This isn't new or unique. Why do you think this is bad?
- 2_listerine_pls 8y ago
  What makes you think it's a good idea to have 4 monopolies that are starting to eat every other business in the world?
  - Harvey-Specter 8y ago
    I haven't stated that I think it's a good idea. You've stated that you believe the government (presumably) should intervene and not allow retailers to have their own brands, I'm simply asking you to explain your position.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    This is akin to store brands by other retailers. Most store brands aren't specialized, they're generic and offer the consumer decent quality at a fair price. This forces brands to differentiate themselves in some way. This is a good thing in my opinion because it seems to weed out poor quality products. For commodity items like sugar and salt where differentiation is nonexistent, it doesn't make sense to pay a 100% premium for different packaging.
dazc 8y ago
The major supermarket chains in the UK have been doing it for years, with packaging almost indistinguishable from the well-known brand.

Should the government seize the means of production, comrade? Businesses should be allowed to create whatever products they want, as long as they don't do anti-competitive things like work together with their competitors to fix prices. Free markets are important.

wgerard 8y ago
> Businesses should be allowed to create whatever products they want, as long as they don't do anti-competitive things like work together with their competitors to fix prices. Or say, if they owned a huge marketplace and eventually started producing a product, and then refused to stock their competitor's product in the huge marketplace.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Do you demand that the local supermarket carry every brand of chili on earth?
  - wgerard 8y ago
    I don't think that's a good analogy; there are significant differences between a local supermarket (local, items must fit in the store) and Amazon's marketplace (global, items can be located anywhere globally within reason).
  - mistermann 8y ago
    The justice department(?) demanded that Microsoft stop bundling (or forcing, can't remember the specifics) IE on Windows. Laissez faire capitalism has both benefits and risks, casual/militant dismissal of concerns can sometimes have negative consequences, sometimes very severe.
2_listerine_pls 8y ago
>> Free markets are important. There aren't free markets in a pure sense and it's a good thing: - Standard oil was broken into exxon, chevron, etc... - Laws were introduced to prevent railroad barons from owning every industry by forcing fair treatment. - Electricity producers aren't allowed to sell directly to their customers in many countries. They are forced to sell it to resellers. >> as long as they don't do anti-competitive things like work together with their competitors to fix prices That's subjective, What does anti-competitive mean? it could mean making cheaper competing products as a retailer. It could mean refusing to host your product just like it happened to chrome cast. It could be ranking competing products lower.
W-_-D 8y ago
Amazon is in an unusual place of both controlling the market and entering the market however. That doesn't really fit with the nice simplistic ideological "Free market" concept. It's hard to see any motivation for them not to game the system if there's no regulation preventing it.

Harvey-Specter 8y ago

Basically every retailer has a 'house brand' of products that are manufactured by some third party. This isn't new or unique. Why do you think this is bad?

2_listerine_pls 8y ago
What makes you think it's a good idea to have 4 monopolies that are starting to eat every other business in the world?
- Harvey-Specter 8y ago
  I haven't stated that I think it's a good idea. You've stated that you believe the government (presumably) should intervene and not allow retailers to have their own brands, I'm simply asking you to explain your position.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  This is akin to store brands by other retailers. Most store brands aren't specialized, they're generic and offer the consumer decent quality at a fair price. This forces brands to differentiate themselves in some way. This is a good thing in my opinion because it seems to weed out poor quality products. For commodity items like sugar and salt where differentiation is nonexistent, it doesn't make sense to pay a 100% premium for different packaging.

dazc 8y ago

The major supermarket chains in the UK have been doing it for years, with packaging almost indistinguishable from the well-known brand.