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Is Amazon Unstoppable?
- joeblow9999 7y agogood to see betteridge's law going strong
- m463 7y agoIt will be stopped by a company that either doesn't exist or is a startup now. IBM > Microsoft > Google > Duck Duck Go
- monitorman 7y agoDuck Duck Go? Really?
- m463 7y ago(tongue in cheek) The point was that large unstoppable incumbents have always been replaced with something nobody expected. (that said, monsanto and debeers are still around)
- jjeaff 7y agoDebeers is on its way out. They may come up with something to stay relevant, but they are getting desperate to come up with ever more sophisticated machines to detect man made diamonds from their mined blood diamonds.
- isostatic 7y agoIBM is still around. So is Microsoft. So is Google.
- m463 7y agoIBM was unstoppable, then Microsoft came from nowhere. Microsoft was unstoppable, then nonexistent Google appeared. (yeah, microsoft/google/apple have vied for "current top money vaccum")
- nickv 7y agoAs a reminder, Microsoft is the largest company in the world and has a 25% larger marketcap than Google. I find it funny that so many people think Microsoft was "stopped" by Google. They adapted and they are stronger now than in the 90s as a business.
- notyourwork 7y agoIBM is basically on life support milking their consulting business and pretending Watson does stuff it doesn’t to further their consulting business.
- Gigablah 7y agoIBM and Microsoft are still around, too. I don’t get your example.
- PostOnce 7y agoMicrosoft not only is still around, it has a 25% higher market cap than Google.
- mda 7y agoSeriously? Also, I think you mean Microsoft > Google > Bing (Microsoft) ?
- shardinator 7y agoIt will be stopped by millions of smaller stores being on a single platform with the ability to get a product in 1hr to overnight within the same metro area. The challenge is to categorise the inventory at those millions - can start with thousands - of local stores. Once that happens, watch out amazon.
- paulpauper 7y agoppl said the same thing about google in 2005. Same thing about Microsoft in the 80's and 90's. Both companies are doing better than ever. IBM is still around and is still huge.
- jdkee 7y agoIt is only unstoppable to the extent that there is no political will to regulate or break it up.
- throwawaysea 7y agoThe overall bias of this article is apparent from the very beginning. This is probably a good time to refer to https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings, which lists The New Yorker as having a far-left bias. The caption below the image next to the headline: > Bezos, reportedly worth a hundred and fourteen billion dollars, has donated less than three per cent of his wealth to charity. Why is this caption relevant to the topic that the article purports to speak to in the title? And why is the opening paragraph just an unsubstantiated rumor about Jeff Bezos snubbing Bill Gates in an apparent act of vanity? Why mention something without evidence, except to influence the reader in bad faith? And again, why is it relevant to the title? A significant portion of this article is based on the opinion of one former employee, Ian Freed. Other quotes are similarly anecdotal, without representation of opposing perspectives. And the focus shifts from topic to topic abruptly, without pausing to critically question the points that are hastily presented. For example, Biden's comparison of Amazon's corporate taxes to tax rates for firefighters/teachers is nonsensical. It would make more sense to compare the personal tax rates of Amazon employees to firefighters/teachers. I will note the article isn't all bad. I thought the story about Birkenstock was fair - counterfeits do threaten the value of brands. The bit about the positive side of warehouse jobs for workers left behind in other industries was also surprising. And I think anti-trust concerns were presented well. But a lot of this very lengthy article seems to be an unfocused spray of information that presents one side of the story on many different facets, without much of a cohesive narrative.
- skinnymuch 7y agoNot your main point at all. But saying they have far-left bias. Then bringing up them bringing up Biden. Biden is so far from being far left. Barely qualifies as left.
- thundergolfer 7y agoThe fact that the site you linked puts The New York Times in the furthest left category is completely invalidating. It’s actually laughable. Anarchism, Syndicalism, Communism. Those are far-left ideologies. The New York Times is centrist. It’s editorial section is _explicitly_ pro-capitalism.
- joefourier 7y agoI never understood this obsession with Amazon. Their online store does not offer particularly good value apart from fast shipping for commodity items. It’s convenient, but there’s plenty of competition: you can get many of the same goods on AliExpress or eBay for a lot cheaper. And when you need something more specific like audio equipment, electronics components or even a Raspberry Pi, you’ll need to go to a specialised online store as it’s unlikely to be available on Amazon, and if it is it won’t be Prime and will have a massive mark-up. Their cloud offering are the real money-maker, although I’m not personally a fan due to their high price and non-intuitive interface.
- hakfoo 7y agoAmazon hit a sweet spot of "good enough, so why bother looking elsewhere." If you wanted a widget, they'd have it, it would be roughly what you expected, at the right price, shipped quickly. That's what got them where they were. Once you're committed to that philosophy, stuff like paying for Prime or using their automatic-services (Dash buttons before they were deprecated) is a feasible leap and encourages their stickiness. The moment you lose that perception, things fall apart rapidly. People go back to comparison shopping and I'm not convinced Amazon wins that battle. They lost "They'd have it" with terrible search and attempts to salvage a cross-sell out of anything. Their search might still be able to work for "I want a FooCorp model 37ABC34567 television" but a simple browsing-focused request like "PCI-E 802.11ac cards" is going to be a nightmare of miscategorized items and terrible filters. They're losing "It would be roughly what you expected" with the combined-inventory scandal, but also the product line so broad that there's going to be room for inherently dodgy crap. Specialist retailers provide value in curation-- they won't sell the absolute worst junk that sneaks into essentially unpoliced AliExpress/eBay/Amazon listings. "At the right price" is surprisingly spotty. They often aren't the cheapest, and some items are locked behind a $120-per-annum paywall. They also put their pricing reputation on the line with third-party sellers on board-- for the last month, they'd have been happy to sell you a Ryzen 3900X, but at 50% over MSRP. Even now, they're still $60 over sticker. Retailers: It is not a sign of weakness to say you're out of stock, rather than hand off the sale to a bottom-feeder reseller who's treating their wares like Cabbage Patch Kids in 1982. "Shipped quickly" has become a joke. Maybe if you buy Prime it's different, but I never know what to expect for paid shipping. They'll quote a range 5-10 days from now, and sometimes it will take 1 day and sometimes the full 10. I hesitate to buy time-sensitive gifts with them and would fear to trust it for business-critical timing. You've built one of the most sophisticated logistics networks on Earth, cutting out USPS/UPS/etc. and you can't get me a more accurate delivery estimate than a mail-in offer from the back of a cereal box?
- kbos87 7y agoAmazon is only unstoppable if we let them be. The world would be a much more interesting place for founders and employees if amazon were limited to being 1/100th its size.
- jjeaff 7y agoI don't disagree. But I find it interesting that Amazon is thought of as this juggernaut when Walmart has literally double the revenue they do. Sure, they may be going in the right direction, but the amount of product they are moving and their bargaining power as a buyer pales in comparison to wmt. Especially considering that a large chunk of their revenue is from non retail services and fees from 3rd party sellers, the products of which they may never touch.
- coldtea 7y ago>But I find it interesting that Amazon is thought of as this juggernaut when Walmart has literally double the revenue they do. It's the momentum not the revenue. It's also the domains it affects.
- Merrill 7y ago2017 to 2018 Amazon grew from $103 to $121B revenues or by $18B, while Walmart grew from $375 to $388B or by $13B. However, Amazon's revenues include some fast growing areas such as AWS, so the revenues they are taking away from other retailers are probably about the same. Amazon's impact on retail may be felt more because it sells a vast variety of products, which makes a lot of the small boutique stores in malls no longer viable. That space has to be converted to services or close. https://stores.org/stores-top-retailers-2019/ https://stores.org/stores-top-retailers-2019/ https://stores.org/stores-top-retailers-2018/ https://stores.org/stores-top-retailers-2018/
- coldtea 7y ago>2017 to 2018 Amazon grew from $103 to $121B revenues or by $18B, while Walmart grew from $375 to $388B or by $13B. However, Amazon's revenues include some fast growing areas such as AWS, so the revenues they are taking away from other retailers are probably about the same. Momentum is more about relative growth than absolute numbers (13 vs 18). And longer term than just 2017-2018. E.g. like this: https://mgmresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Amazon-vs-Walmart-Revenue-Growth-1999-2018.png https://mgmresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Amazon-vs... https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/m_LcpuimdJcrjLyGV0Ps4UI4-H8=/0x0:5001x2764/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:5001x2764):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8506691/Amazon_versus_walmart_market_value_01.png https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/m_LcpuimdJcrjLyGV0Ps4UI4-H8=... https://mgmresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Amazon-vs-Walmart-Net-Income.png https://mgmresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Amazon-vs... https://newharborllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/20171205-Amazon-Growth.png https://newharborllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/20171205...
- fouc 7y agoIs Google Unstoppable? At this point Amazon is probably the less evil corporation compared to Google.
- AllanHoustonSt 7y agoAs far as Search as a product goes, Google is basically unstoppable IMO. They’re just far and away ahead of everyone else in both the engineering and theoretical side. They have the best infra for it and will keep their lead because they also get by far the most data for search which just goes into a positive feedback loop. The gap between Google Search and any other Search competitor is way way way larger than say.. AWS and any other direct competitor. In order for Google to be challenged on the Search front, I think it’ll require a fundamental change (in medium) in the way people prefer looking things up on the Internet. Which is obviously an incredibly difficult question.
- fouc 7y agoDDG is quite good, rarely do I need to resort to Google. I wasn't really talking about Search.. Google has a lot of products now and they're all designed to further its goals of collecting information on people and otherwise controlling the internet. Chrome, DNS, AMP, Android, etc.
- rafaelvasco 7y agoNot near as good as Google unfortunately. From two sites with the same content I'm searching, google always knows the one that I prefer. Always; Power of Tracking I suppose;
- codq 7y agoWith a .41% market share, DuckDuckGo is no threat to Google. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Web_search_engine#/Market_share https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Web_search_engine#/Market_share
- AllanHoustonSt 7y ago
- libertine 7y agoAs an Amazon seller I have a growing belief that Amazon size and support approach via AI will be their compromise. AI can't offer good customer support, and won't offer good customer support for the foreseeable future (at least in my eyes). As an Amazon customer (in the EU), it still lacks a lot of choice, but prices are good for some items. Yet anything that would require a bit of customer support I wouldn't buy it on Amazon. And by customer support I don't mean: "give me a refund". A refund is the last thing I want when I buy a product - it means what I got didn't help me at all. It wasted my time, and I still have a problem. With this said, ecommerce wise, I think Amazon is a giant with a lot of flaws bound to their size, that can be tackled by other players.
- 11235813213455 7y agoI'm more concerned about the health of Amazon Forest
- cs702 7y agoI just finished reading this well-researched and well-written article, and the best way I can summarize it is with a quote from The Dark Knight: "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."[a] -- [a] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Dark_Knight_(film) https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Dark_Knight_(film)
- ohduran 7y ago"Can Anyone Catch Nokia" - Forbes magazine, 2007
- paulpauper 7y agothere is no comparison though. this time is really different. there is nothing that can compete and compare to amazon's distribution network and marketshare in the same way that Apple was able to upset the smartphone market.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ohduran 7y agoOh, but it is. Can Amazon live up to the unbounded expectations place upon it? No. Anything short of "complete world domination" is not doing it. There are markets where the situation is quite worse than those where Amazon is. One is, for instance, search. You don't even search anything: you google it.
- AtlasBarfed 7y agoWalmart certainly has the infrastructure and logistics. Doesn't Amazon makes almost all its profits in AWS? And that they also seem invincible, but they are pretty expensive.
- notjustanymike 7y agoEvery company peaks. Apple is even showing signs of weakness.
- Merrill 7y agoSomeone who recently became a new first-time mom credits Amazon's same-day delivery, Target's same-day pickup, and a supermarket's online order / bring to your car service with making life a lot easier. Her sister, who had kids last decade, is jealous. I don't think consumers want to stop Amazon.
- sveme 7y agoI wonder whether there is already a law that states: "Whenever the media implies that a hegemon will be at the number one spot forever, it will mark the start of its decline".
- boldslogan 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean#Other_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean#Oth... "If a business organisation has a highly profitable quarter, despite the underlying reasons for its performance being unchanged, it is likely to do less well the next quarter." so something similar...if a buisness is featured as number one...it is likely to do less well in the future...
- hos234 7y agoThey do have a weakness - Search. There are a trillion products in a trillion categories and some meaningless small number get displayed on the first search result page. This is obviously highly abnormal and their own search teams will tell you that. It creates unmonitorable arms races, unnatural uniformity across myriad cultures and thought processes, pissed sellers, frustrated customers and just bubbling tensions of all kinds. It's like taking all the animals and plants in the world throwing them on an island and telling visitors they experience everything through a magic window, but 10 at a time. Ofcourse they cant. If you know what you want to see - great! If not its just a useless experience.
- paulpauper 7y agoIt's funny how there are two concurrent narratives: ...the media portrays Amazon as this awful company that stiffs its employees and is destroying jobs and making the world a terrible place in the name of lower price and convenience. ...and yet Amazon is hugely popular with consumers, and Amazon is the second-biggest employer in the US, and there is huge demand for Amazon jobs in spite of the media's insistence of how bad Amazon is and how bad such jobs are. All these people looking to work at Amazon apparently didn't get the media's memo
- mschuster91 7y agoThe thing is, even a shit job at Amazon is better than no job at all, which is what Amazon (and other logistics and low wage employers) exploits. The only thing to fix this power difference is job safety and conditions regulation.
- ohduran 7y agoWait, so a job at Amazon is better than anything else, and you complain about Amazon? Why not complaining about anything else?
- P_I_Staker 7y agoIt's Walmart all over again
- dredmorbius 7y agoVast size and economic power, on the one hand, and gross abuse and malevolence on the other, are hardly unheard of, and often closely related.
- spodek 7y agoAmazon.com means garbage to me. Mainly because I see how much garbage from them ends up in my building's trash. And my city's trash. The most visible is their packaging, but their ease-of-ordering leads to most of the products people buy from them being stupid shit nobody needs or wants beyond the moment someone's urge leads them to buy it now. I suggest that most of us would be happier and the world cleaner if Amazon located its warehouses next to landfills and when people bought things they simply moved the products from the warehouse to the landfill, skipping the steps of shipping them to the person for them to throw them out. For example, my city, New York's, Department of Sanitation cost would drop from 1.6 billion annually and our noise would drop with fewer trash trucks. Of course I'm overstating, but the longer you go without using them, the less you'll consider it overstatement. If you haven't, I recommend going without for six months or a year.
- paulpauper 7y agoumm...let us suppose that instead of amazon producing the garbage, it's split among dozens of smaller companies. Would it matter. Economic activity will produce waste whether it is from a single company or multiple ones. it's just that amazon is a bigger target.
- Konnstann 7y agoI think the idea is that the convenience of Amazon causes economic activity that otherwise wouldn't happen. Personally, I've never bought any knickknacks off of the site, but I definitely see enough marginally-useful garbage when I am browsing to understand the parent's point.
- spodek 7y agoExactly. Plus, at least in a city, we can buy from local places that used less packaging and shipping in total life analysis.
- mooreds 7y agoThis is a great post about a different perspective on Amazon: https://zackkanter.com/2019/03/13/what-is-amazon/ https://zackkanter.com/2019/03/13/what-is-amazon/ It also talks about the flywheels and how advertising is taking Amazon down the wrong path.