3 ms·

That seems a bit all or nothing. It could be worth considering if someone has monopolistic power (or some oligopoly) in one area such as distribution of product

That seems a bit all or nothing. It could be worth considering if someone has monopolistic power (or some oligopoly) in one area such as distribution of products, any product business must be run separately via Chinese walls or just not allowed. People seem to forget a fundamental part of capitalism is that government should intervene to maintain a level playing field. Then...what defines a level playing field..

TulliusCicero 8y ago
That's fair, but Amazon has only a small % of total retail sales (4% in 2017, according to a quick search). I'm not sure at what point it's commonly assumed that a company has monopoly or market power, but I'm pretty confident it's not 4% or even close to that. edit: another quick googling says that US courts apparently almost never conclude a company has market power if they have less than 50% market share: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://en.wikipedia.org/&httpsredir=1&article=1388&context=fclj https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?r... Amazon is still growing at a good clip but I'd be really surprised if they were able to pass even 20%, let alone 50%.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  Or forty-four percent of online sales. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/amazon-grabbed-4-percent-of-all-us-retail-sales-in-2017-new-study.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/amazon-grabbed-4-percent-of-...
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    I'm not sure that's a super meaningful distinction for market power. It's a different method of selling, but ultimately you're selling largely the same things. You probably wouldn't separate out "Ford has this much market share in dealerships vs online sales" most of the time, for example.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      Well, I suppose that's the key question. But I think that yuo might argue it is, because there's a huge "long tail" of goods that you can only really hope to sell online.
    - user3359 8y ago
      It is. Monopolies only exist within context. Zero to one has a good section on this.

TulliusCicero 8y ago

That's fair, but Amazon has only a small % of total retail sales (4% in 2017, according to a quick search). I'm not sure at what point it's commonly assumed that a company has monopoly or market power, but I'm pretty confident it's not 4% or even close to that. edit: another quick googling says that US courts apparently almost never conclude a company has market power if they have less than 50% market share: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://en.wikipedia.org/&httpsredir=1&article=1388&context=fclj https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?r... Amazon is still growing at a good clip but I'd be really surprised if they were able to pass even 20%, let alone 50%.

emodendroket 8y ago
Or forty-four percent of online sales. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/amazon-grabbed-4-percent-of-all-us-retail-sales-in-2017-new-study.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/amazon-grabbed-4-percent-of-...
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  I'm not sure that's a super meaningful distinction for market power. It's a different method of selling, but ultimately you're selling largely the same things. You probably wouldn't separate out "Ford has this much market share in dealerships vs online sales" most of the time, for example.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Well, I suppose that's the key question. But I think that yuo might argue it is, because there's a huge "long tail" of goods that you can only really hope to sell online.
  - user3359 8y ago
    It is. Monopolies only exist within context. Zero to one has a good section on this.