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> At what point does Amazon get broken up? They'd have to violate the law. As it stands, they're not engaging in anti-competitive activity. Simply being bett

by JackFr 7y ago

> At what point does Amazon get broken up? They'd have to violate the law. As it stands, they're not engaging in anti-competitive activity. Simply being better at something than your competition isn't anti-competitive. > Seems like we're heading to a dystopian future where megacorps own you in every sense. Literally every business that Amazon has entered has improved my life. Books are cheaper with an enormously larger selection available. Prime Video offers alternative to Netflix. AWS has revolutionized the software industry. Don't get me wrong -- Amazon is in it for Amazon, and I think Jeff Bezo's can be an asshole. But the reason they get my money year after year is that they do such a great job.

swoongoonz 7y ago
it's improve your life because you're probably a highly paid software developer or engineer (guessing because here you are on hacker news). I would like to hear more from the people who work for amazon (not the devs reaping all of the rewards of stock shares) and the retailers selling their goods on amazon to see if the company has "improved" their lives. https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-warehouse-jobs-worker-conditions-bathroom-breaks https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-warehouse...
- Reedx 7y ago
  Engineers are not the majority of Amazon's customers. Nor are they the ones that benefit most from buying there. For example, consider single mothers working two jobs, ordering from Amazon.com to save time & money. And depending on where they live, they might even get the order within a couple hours. That's a new kind of efficiency that many benefit from.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    Consider why that person has to work two jobs, and the contribution Amazon made towards that. Low prices aren't free. Some of it came from efficiency, the rest comes from simply paying labor less.
    - Reedx 7y ago
      That's a different discussion and it's hard to untangle and weigh all of the effects. But it's worth noting that the % of people working multiple jobs has actually decreased with the rise of Amazon. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/4-point-9-percent-of-workers-held-more-than-one-job-at-the-same-time-in-2017.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/4-point-9-percent-of-worke... That's not to say it's casual. Maybe it would've decreased more sans Amazon. Who knows. Anyway, the point was simply that it's not only/mostly engineers who derive value from their existence. It includes every Amazon customer who saves time & money - especially those who have too little of both.
      - twoandfifteen 7y ago
        It also includes every person who lives in a city whose tax base has been eroded by Amazon, so those "hard working single moms" send their kids to shitty schools that will perpetuate the cycle of poverty. For tens of millions of working poor who live in apartment complexes, Amazon provides absolutely zero benefit since they cannot order anything bigger than a kumquat without risk of it being stolen off of their porch. The office? The office doesnt exist or is closed during the hours they are working - and UPS wont deliver there anyways a lot of the time.
        comex 7y ago
        In theory that’s what Amazon Locker is for, though it’s less convenient.
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
  Those people aren't the customers, though.
jorblumesea 7y ago
Just because your life is better isn't a strong argument for or against anti-trust actions. The current framework in antitrust, the consumer welfare framework, really fails to capture forms of market power and forms of dominance that should be relevant to antitrust and do raise competition concerns. We should really question the existing anti trust laws and whether they are suitable for the 21st century. Companies, without monopolies, are starting to exert serious soft power, often bending governments, crushing competition and engaging in anti-competitive behavior without a pure monopoly.
loco5niner 7y ago
> As it stands, they're not engaging in anti-competitive activity. Try telling that to diapers.com > Simply being better at something than your competition isn't anti-competitive. Couldn't agree more on this part.
mabbo 7y ago
You should look up the history of Boeing and the Air Mail act of 1934. Boeing airplanes, United airlines and United technologies all used to be the same company. But all the arguments people use about Amazon today were put to Boeing then. Too much synergy allowing for less competition, too large of a company, etc. It was good for the consumer on the short term, but not the long term. They were broken up by an act of Congress. All three companies have done just fine. And there's lots of competition in all three industries. And as a guy working for Amazon, I thing if Amazon got split up, all the child companies would do just fine. The secret to success is the culture. I doubt it will ever happen though.
- TheOperator 7y ago
  I would be very surprised if AWS does not get spun off at some point.
  - masfrost 7y ago
    Then all the other companies would mostly halt in growth. Most of the other subsidiaries' growth are, well, subsidized by AWS
et2o 7y ago
"Amazon has made MY life better" (in the short term) is a remarkably unsophisticated argument.
- emiliobumachar 7y ago
  Well, the obvious generalization is that Amazon makes many lives better.
  - somatic 7y ago
    Amazon is just one facet of a larger phenomenon of social and economic centralization and the ever-intensifying tournament by which the resources are distributed as a natural and necessary consequence.

by JackFr 7y ago

swoongoonz 7y ago

it's improve your life because you're probably a highly paid software developer or engineer (guessing because here you are on hacker news). I would like to hear more from the people who work for amazon (not the devs reaping all of the rewards of stock shares) and the retailers selling their goods on amazon to see if the company has "improved" their lives. https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-warehouse-jobs-worker-conditions-bathroom-breaks https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-warehouse...

Reedx 7y ago
Engineers are not the majority of Amazon's customers. Nor are they the ones that benefit most from buying there. For example, consider single mothers working two jobs, ordering from Amazon.com to save time & money. And depending on where they live, they might even get the order within a couple hours. That's a new kind of efficiency that many benefit from.
- ethbro 7y ago
  Consider why that person has to work two jobs, and the contribution Amazon made towards that. Low prices aren't free. Some of it came from efficiency, the rest comes from simply paying labor less.
  - Reedx 7y ago
    That's a different discussion and it's hard to untangle and weigh all of the effects. But it's worth noting that the % of people working multiple jobs has actually decreased with the rise of Amazon. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/4-point-9-percent-of-workers-held-more-than-one-job-at-the-same-time-in-2017.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/4-point-9-percent-of-worke... That's not to say it's casual. Maybe it would've decreased more sans Amazon. Who knows. Anyway, the point was simply that it's not only/mostly engineers who derive value from their existence. It includes every Amazon customer who saves time & money - especially those who have too little of both.
    - twoandfifteen 7y ago
      It also includes every person who lives in a city whose tax base has been eroded by Amazon, so those "hard working single moms" send their kids to shitty schools that will perpetuate the cycle of poverty. For tens of millions of working poor who live in apartment complexes, Amazon provides absolutely zero benefit since they cannot order anything bigger than a kumquat without risk of it being stolen off of their porch. The office? The office doesnt exist or is closed during the hours they are working - and UPS wont deliver there anyways a lot of the time.
      - comex 7y ago
        In theory that’s what Amazon Locker is for, though it’s less convenient.
HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
Those people aren't the customers, though.

jorblumesea 7y ago

Just because your life is better isn't a strong argument for or against anti-trust actions. The current framework in antitrust, the consumer welfare framework, really fails to capture forms of market power and forms of dominance that should be relevant to antitrust and do raise competition concerns. We should really question the existing anti trust laws and whether they are suitable for the 21st century. Companies, without monopolies, are starting to exert serious soft power, often bending governments, crushing competition and engaging in anti-competitive behavior without a pure monopoly.

loco5niner 7y ago

> As it stands, they're not engaging in anti-competitive activity. Try telling that to diapers.com > Simply being better at something than your competition isn't anti-competitive. Couldn't agree more on this part.

mabbo 7y ago

You should look up the history of Boeing and the Air Mail act of 1934. Boeing airplanes, United airlines and United technologies all used to be the same company. But all the arguments people use about Amazon today were put to Boeing then. Too much synergy allowing for less competition, too large of a company, etc. It was good for the consumer on the short term, but not the long term. They were broken up by an act of Congress. All three companies have done just fine. And there's lots of competition in all three industries. And as a guy working for Amazon, I thing if Amazon got split up, all the child companies would do just fine. The secret to success is the culture. I doubt it will ever happen though.

TheOperator 7y ago
I would be very surprised if AWS does not get spun off at some point.
- masfrost 7y ago
  Then all the other companies would mostly halt in growth. Most of the other subsidiaries' growth are, well, subsidized by AWS

et2o 7y ago

"Amazon has made MY life better" (in the short term) is a remarkably unsophisticated argument.

emiliobumachar 7y ago
Well, the obvious generalization is that Amazon makes many lives better.
- somatic 7y ago
  Amazon is just one facet of a larger phenomenon of social and economic centralization and the ever-intensifying tournament by which the resources are distributed as a natural and necessary consequence.