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> why shouldn't Amazon be allowed Antitrust law used to address this. Monopolies are not allowed to do things that non-monopolies are allowed to do, because th
by __jal 7y ago
> why shouldn't Amazon be allowed
Antitrust law used to address this. Monopolies are not allowed to do things that non-monopolies are allowed to do, because the effects of monopolies doing them are different than the effects of non-monopolies doing it.
Of course, Bork rewrote monopoly policy in a way that opens the door to exactly the sort of monopolies we now have. But it isn't as if this is some new notion invented because people hate Amazon; it used to be the rule.
- kevinsundar 7y agoMonopolies weren't allowed to do things that non-monopolies are allowed to do because they would have an outsized ability to harm consumers as a monopoly. But Amazon has repeatedly shown that it isn't harming consumers. In fact, it's pushed other retailers to better the customer experience or go out of business. Should a company be split up just because it's doing its customers good and got too big because... they're doing their customers good and people like that and want to give them their money?
- shard972 7y ago> But Amazon has repeatedly shown that it isn't harming consumers. Oh so that whole dash buttoon thing where they doubled the price of your items without telling you, that wasn't harming the consumer, it just knew they wanted to spend double on those amazon basics batteries.
- __jal 7y agoThat is a reasonable restatement of parts of the Bork doctrine, yes. Suffice to say this is a recent legal innovation, and many, many people believe ignoring other monopoly effects is myopic.
- kevinsundar 7y agoAgreed. It basically comes down to if you agree with his viewpoints on M&A and monopolies. Looks like thats where we differ :)