4 ms·

What is amazon a near-monopoly in?

by x220 7y ago

throwaway87378 7y ago
Amazon is a trust, not yet a monopoly. There is an inherent conflict of interest, and lack of recourse (forced arbitration), between Amazon marketplace sellers and Amazon the e-commerce store. Likewise between AWS customers and Amazon the e-commerce store and advertising network. By any reasonable consumer standards, AWS should be split off into a separate company. The pervasive surveillance and continual scandals surrounding Ring's handling of user data, when taken in context of Amazon's collection of user data from the e-commerce store, advertising network, Alexa, other Amazon business units, and purchased third party data, mean that Amazon should never have been allowed to acquire Ring in the first place. If the Department of Justice Antitrust Division had not been completely captured by corporate interests, they would be in the process of litigating to undo this acquisition right now.
- smegma2 7y ago
  Have we seen companies get split off in similar circumstances in the past?
  - tombert 7y ago
    Not exactly the same, but in the 90's we almost split up Microsoft to two separate divisions: a company that builds the operating system, and a company that builds user-space applications. This was because, during the browser wars of the 90s, Microsoft was purposefully gimping competing browsers at the OS level like Netscape Navigator so as to encourage people to use Internet Explorer.
  - akiselev 7y ago
    The textbook case studies would be the break up of Bell Telephone Company [1] or Standard Oil [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil_Co._of_New_Jersey_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil_Co._of_New_Jersey...
sp332 7y ago
They're buying competing booksellers, which is by definition anti-competitive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Amazon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...

What is amazon a near-monopoly in?

by x220 7y ago

What is amazon a near-monopoly in?

Amazon is a trust, not yet a monopoly. There is an inherent conflict of interest, and lack of recourse (forced arbitration), between Amazon marketplace sellers and Amazon the e-commerce store. Likewise between AWS customers and Amazon the e-commerce store and advertising network. By any reasonable consumer standards, AWS should be split off into a separate company. The pervasive surveillance and continual scandals surrounding Ring's handling of user data, when taken in context of Amazon's collection of user data from the e-commerce store, advertising network, Alexa, other Amazon business units, and purchased third party data, mean that Amazon should never have been allowed to acquire Ring in the first place. If the Department of Justice Antitrust Division had not been completely captured by corporate interests, they would be in the process of litigating to undo this acquisition right now.

smegma2 7y ago
Have we seen companies get split off in similar circumstances in the past?
- tombert 7y ago
  Not exactly the same, but in the 90's we almost split up Microsoft to two separate divisions: a company that builds the operating system, and a company that builds user-space applications. This was because, during the browser wars of the 90s, Microsoft was purposefully gimping competing browsers at the OS level like Netscape Navigator so as to encourage people to use Internet Explorer.
- akiselev 7y ago
  The textbook case studies would be the break up of Bell Telephone Company [1] or Standard Oil [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil_Co._of_New_Jersey_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil_Co._of_New_Jersey...

sp332 7y ago

They're buying competing booksellers, which is by definition anti-competitive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Amazon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...