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If there has ever been a monopoly, those 3 companies are it. I wont speak for social media and search, but Amazon has a complete stranglehold on retail in the

If there has ever been a monopoly, those 3 companies are it. I wont speak for social media and search, but Amazon has a complete stranglehold on retail in the United States. People keep saying 'retail is dead', thats bullshit, Amazon has a monopolistic stranglehold on the selling of all goods. If that weren't the case, small shop brick and mortar shopping would still be a thing.

throwaway082729 8y ago
Walmart did too, for a long time. They have had a stranglehold on vendors for vendors and were the first to kill small brick and mortar shopping.
- fowkswe 8y ago
  Walmart was contained to its brick and mortar footprint (no one in NYC for instance could use it). Amazon available to the entire population.
craftyguy 8y ago
Apparently no one around here has ever heard of Standard Oil.
- your-nanny 8y ago
  a study of Standard Oil is really instructive. It is not a matter of there being no competition, it's a matter of having such market power that you can dictate rates for your competitors. Standard Oil got paid every time a railroad shipped a competitors oil!
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    > a study of Standard Oil is really instructive Judging by the downvotes I got for mentioning it, you and I must be the only ones on HN that think so.
systematical 8y ago
Yeah no one cares about monopolies anymore. But how exactly do you split up a search engine for instance?
- moate 8y ago
  You silo the search engine segment of the business as one company, the advertising segment as a separate business, etc etc. Alphabet is more than just the Google search engine at this point.
  - pnloyd 8y ago
    Wouldn't the loss of close integration between Google's ads business and services decrease their respective values though?
    - mechagodzilla 8y ago
      Ideally it would directly and immediately decrease their values by the amount they were effectively extracting due to their monopoly position.
- mechagodzilla 8y ago
  You would probably split google's search engine off from the rest of their services/products, so that they can't use their search engine dominance to unfairly harm competition. Similarly, you could divide Amazon into a platform company that does fulfillment for others and a separate company that sells their own products, as well as splitting off things like AWS into their own companies.
- andybak 8y ago
  Maybe that's not the right line to split across. Keep search intact but mandate that it must offer equal access to 3rd parties to match any access it has internally. (How you do this without a privacy disaster I'm not so sure about) I'm thinking along the lines of privately held public infrastructure like local loop unbundling in telecoms.
- 8y ago
StreamBright 8y ago
The question is what is the problem you are trying to solve by splitting Amazon. It seems that you are assuming the Amazon retail side will be split. I think AWS vs retail separation is a much more likely scenario. Btw. if it wasn't for the IT needs of retail AWS wouldn't have been born. Many small shops would not have been creating cloud computing as we know today. I am not sure what is the goal here and I think Elizabeth Warren is quite often wrong so I am not convinced that Amazon needs to be split. Companies like Walmart can (and do) challenge Amazon in many aspects and there are other companies like Ebay that are on the market. I do not think that Amazon retail is a monopolistic stranglehold at all.
saas_sam 8y ago
A monopoly means you are the exclusive provider of something. Amazon has a ton of competition. People are CHOOSING to use Amazon because they are the best at what they do, for now. It's convenient. There is NOTHING stopping you from using boutique websites, Target.com, your neighborhood supermarket, or whatever you want. You choose Amazon because they are the cheapest, fastest, and easiest to work with. That is not a monopoly.
- notyourwork 8y ago
  People always seem to conflate winning and monopoly which is false.
- 908087 8y ago
  If Amazon achieve their goal, you won't have the option of going to your neighborhood supermarket.. because it will have either been run out of business or acquired by Amazon.
  - fastball 8y ago
    And we can have that discussion then. When Amazon is actually a monopoly. Until then, they're not. And being good at business is not a problem.
    - 908087 8y ago
      The problem is that those who defend Amazon will continue claiming it "isn't a monopoly" as long as there's so much as a single person selling 5 widgets per year on the internet, reducing Amazon's market share to only 99.9999999999999%. "See, they still have competition!"
darkpuma 8y ago
Independent retail isn't dead but it sure is limping. I've been trying to get a book from a local book store that specializes in computer shit for a week and a half now; they had to special order (even though it's not particularly obscure) and said it would be three to four days, but it still hasn't come in and I think they're getting annoyed with me checking in daily. If I'd bought it on Amazon, I could have had it within hours. But I wasn't really in a hurry and thought I'd support a local business. I'd probably do the same again, but I can see why many people don't want to put up with this.
khrbrt 8y ago
Small shops are still a thing, but rising rents are as much to blame as Amazon for them closing their doors.
fastball 8y ago
1. Small brick and mortar shopping is still a thing. 2. Amazon has literally thousands of online competitors, many of whom also have physical stores that get tons of traffic: Walmart, Target, BBB, Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, Pharmacies, etc., etc., etc.
criddell 8y ago
I think retail is dead for me. Other than grocery store for food and the drugstore for health care items, I hardly ever go to a physical store for any reason. I was at an Apple store yesterday to get an iPad fixed and before that, I was at a record store just after Christmas. If Amazon was shut down tomorrow, I'm not going to start going to bricks and mortar stores again. I'd find new online suppliers.
mailslot 8y ago
Amazon isn’t a monopoly the way that AT&T or Comcast are. People have a choice and can easily go to Walmart, Target, or most any other retailers online or at a physical location. In this case, Amazon is winning by out-competing their competition. That’s not monopolistic, it’s winning at competition. Fairly, I might add. One way they’ve grown is by allowing small companies to easily add their products to their stores. Good luck getting Macy’s to sell your custom line of trollface shirts. Shelf space is live or die for small brands. Amazon has a lower barrier to entry without the strong arm tactics big retailers have used for years. Retail is often a middleman operation with exclusivity deals and price fixing. Brick and mortar is failing for so many reasons. It’s not that there are restrictions preventing fair competition, it’s that the old guard is slow and incompetent and likely won’t survive the old model of exclusivity on goods.
- burroisolator 8y ago
  "Amazon has definitely pioneered online commerce and has excelled at providing a very engaging customer experience and executing the complex supply-chain steps of delivery purchases to consumers. But its success is not the result of that alone. Amazon has also greatly benefited from many years of resolute avoidance of sales tax collection on purchases, giving it an inequitable and potent strategic pricing advantage over bricks-and-mortar retailers that have complied with sales tax requirements. A recent study found that households in states where Amazon collects sales tax reduced their Amazon purchases by eight percent after sales taxes collection was implemented. The effect is more pronounced for large purchases, where the decline was 11 percent. This advantage is slowly coming to an end, but, over the years, it has cost states and cities billions of dollars in lost revenue, while forcing local retailers to compete with one hand tied behind their backs." - https://www.indiebound.org/spotlightamazon https://www.indiebound.org/spotlightamazon While I believe that Amazon probably would have won regardless of sales taxes, emphasizing "fairly" seems a bit strong.

throwaway082729 8y ago

Walmart did too, for a long time. They have had a stranglehold on vendors for vendors and were the first to kill small brick and mortar shopping.

fowkswe 8y ago
Walmart was contained to its brick and mortar footprint (no one in NYC for instance could use it). Amazon available to the entire population.

craftyguy 8y ago

Apparently no one around here has ever heard of Standard Oil.

your-nanny 8y ago
a study of Standard Oil is really instructive. It is not a matter of there being no competition, it's a matter of having such market power that you can dictate rates for your competitors. Standard Oil got paid every time a railroad shipped a competitors oil!
- craftyguy 8y ago
  > a study of Standard Oil is really instructive Judging by the downvotes I got for mentioning it, you and I must be the only ones on HN that think so.

systematical 8y ago

Yeah no one cares about monopolies anymore. But how exactly do you split up a search engine for instance?

moate 8y ago
You silo the search engine segment of the business as one company, the advertising segment as a separate business, etc etc. Alphabet is more than just the Google search engine at this point.
- pnloyd 8y ago
  Wouldn't the loss of close integration between Google's ads business and services decrease their respective values though?
  - mechagodzilla 8y ago
    Ideally it would directly and immediately decrease their values by the amount they were effectively extracting due to their monopoly position.
mechagodzilla 8y ago
You would probably split google's search engine off from the rest of their services/products, so that they can't use their search engine dominance to unfairly harm competition. Similarly, you could divide Amazon into a platform company that does fulfillment for others and a separate company that sells their own products, as well as splitting off things like AWS into their own companies.
andybak 8y ago
Maybe that's not the right line to split across. Keep search intact but mandate that it must offer equal access to 3rd parties to match any access it has internally. (How you do this without a privacy disaster I'm not so sure about) I'm thinking along the lines of privately held public infrastructure like local loop unbundling in telecoms.
8y ago

StreamBright 8y ago

The question is what is the problem you are trying to solve by splitting Amazon. It seems that you are assuming the Amazon retail side will be split. I think AWS vs retail separation is a much more likely scenario. Btw. if it wasn't for the IT needs of retail AWS wouldn't have been born. Many small shops would not have been creating cloud computing as we know today. I am not sure what is the goal here and I think Elizabeth Warren is quite often wrong so I am not convinced that Amazon needs to be split. Companies like Walmart can (and do) challenge Amazon in many aspects and there are other companies like Ebay that are on the market. I do not think that Amazon retail is a monopolistic stranglehold at all.

saas_sam 8y ago

A monopoly means you are the exclusive provider of something. Amazon has a ton of competition. People are CHOOSING to use Amazon because they are the best at what they do, for now. It's convenient. There is NOTHING stopping you from using boutique websites, Target.com, your neighborhood supermarket, or whatever you want. You choose Amazon because they are the cheapest, fastest, and easiest to work with. That is not a monopoly.

notyourwork 8y ago
People always seem to conflate winning and monopoly which is false.
908087 8y ago
If Amazon achieve their goal, you won't have the option of going to your neighborhood supermarket.. because it will have either been run out of business or acquired by Amazon.
- fastball 8y ago
  And we can have that discussion then. When Amazon is actually a monopoly. Until then, they're not. And being good at business is not a problem.
  - 908087 8y ago
    The problem is that those who defend Amazon will continue claiming it "isn't a monopoly" as long as there's so much as a single person selling 5 widgets per year on the internet, reducing Amazon's market share to only 99.9999999999999%. "See, they still have competition!"

darkpuma 8y ago

Independent retail isn't dead but it sure is limping. I've been trying to get a book from a local book store that specializes in computer shit for a week and a half now; they had to special order (even though it's not particularly obscure) and said it would be three to four days, but it still hasn't come in and I think they're getting annoyed with me checking in daily. If I'd bought it on Amazon, I could have had it within hours. But I wasn't really in a hurry and thought I'd support a local business. I'd probably do the same again, but I can see why many people don't want to put up with this.

khrbrt 8y ago

Small shops are still a thing, but rising rents are as much to blame as Amazon for them closing their doors.

fastball 8y ago

1. Small brick and mortar shopping is still a thing. 2. Amazon has literally thousands of online competitors, many of whom also have physical stores that get tons of traffic: Walmart, Target, BBB, Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, Pharmacies, etc., etc., etc.

criddell 8y ago

I think retail is dead for me. Other than grocery store for food and the drugstore for health care items, I hardly ever go to a physical store for any reason. I was at an Apple store yesterday to get an iPad fixed and before that, I was at a record store just after Christmas. If Amazon was shut down tomorrow, I'm not going to start going to bricks and mortar stores again. I'd find new online suppliers.

mailslot 8y ago

Amazon isn’t a monopoly the way that AT&T or Comcast are. People have a choice and can easily go to Walmart, Target, or most any other retailers online or at a physical location. In this case, Amazon is winning by out-competing their competition. That’s not monopolistic, it’s winning at competition. Fairly, I might add. One way they’ve grown is by allowing small companies to easily add their products to their stores. Good luck getting Macy’s to sell your custom line of trollface shirts. Shelf space is live or die for small brands. Amazon has a lower barrier to entry without the strong arm tactics big retailers have used for years. Retail is often a middleman operation with exclusivity deals and price fixing. Brick and mortar is failing for so many reasons. It’s not that there are restrictions preventing fair competition, it’s that the old guard is slow and incompetent and likely won’t survive the old model of exclusivity on goods.

burroisolator 8y ago
"Amazon has definitely pioneered online commerce and has excelled at providing a very engaging customer experience and executing the complex supply-chain steps of delivery purchases to consumers. But its success is not the result of that alone. Amazon has also greatly benefited from many years of resolute avoidance of sales tax collection on purchases, giving it an inequitable and potent strategic pricing advantage over bricks-and-mortar retailers that have complied with sales tax requirements. A recent study found that households in states where Amazon collects sales tax reduced their Amazon purchases by eight percent after sales taxes collection was implemented. The effect is more pronounced for large purchases, where the decline was 11 percent. This advantage is slowly coming to an end, but, over the years, it has cost states and cities billions of dollars in lost revenue, while forcing local retailers to compete with one hand tied behind their backs." - https://www.indiebound.org/spotlightamazon https://www.indiebound.org/spotlightamazon While I believe that Amazon probably would have won regardless of sales taxes, emphasizing "fairly" seems a bit strong.