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This has been discussed in threads below, but the jist of the issue is that Amazon is pretty much a monopoly as an online product discovery service. If they put

This has been discussed in threads below, but the jist of the issue is that Amazon is pretty much a monopoly as an online product discovery service. If they put their own products at the top, people will end up with no way of discovering other companies. It would be using its monopoly position as a product discovery service to profit its own manufacturing subsidy. > Every retailer can compete with Amazon on any axis they want to, whether it's selection, price or service. Walmart does, IKEA does, and Ebay and Etsy and FreshDirect and Target and Powells. I buy online from all of these companies. That's the crux of the debate IMO - whether or not Amazon is a monopoly. You say that other retailers can compete effectively as a product discovery service. I am not sure. I think the vast majority just searches on Amazon at this point, so it is sort of a monopoly.

malandrew 6y ago
It's absolutely laughable when people say that Amazon operates as "a monopoly as an online product discovery service". There are so so so many options out there. I use plenty of online retailers all the time. Complaining about them being a monopoly in this way is like going to the same brick and mortar retailer and complaining they are a monopoly because you're too lazy to see what other retailers are available. If anything it's even more absurd because the closest brick and mortar competition might be miles away while online the competition is mere keystrokes away. Every single search engine is also a product discovery service too: Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo.
- raz32dust 6y ago
  I suspect you are an outlier. Amazon takes ~50% of online shopping market share [1]. Admittedly it is lower than I thought. I expected it to be closer to 70%. Google for search is actually at 71% [2]. Either way, I think 50% is enough market power to be treated as a monopoly, not sure about the legal definition. That said, I am not particularly worried about Amazon basics as these are commodity products, as long as they are being transparent about it. Monopoly is a problem only if they use tactics that prevent competitors from emerging - example could be incentivizing vendors to sell only on Amazon. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/788109/amazon-retail-market-share-usa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/788109/amazon-retail-mar... [2] https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.as...
  - malandrew 6y ago
    Taking 50% of online shopping share because your product is that much better than the competition is totally different than there are no other options. Imagine you have 1000 stores all on the same street and one is so much better than the other stores that 50% of sales happen in that one store and there are no shenanigans where that one store is disadvantaging the other 999 stores. How can you argue that that is a monopoly?

malandrew 6y ago

It's absolutely laughable when people say that Amazon operates as "a monopoly as an online product discovery service". There are so so so many options out there. I use plenty of online retailers all the time. Complaining about them being a monopoly in this way is like going to the same brick and mortar retailer and complaining they are a monopoly because you're too lazy to see what other retailers are available. If anything it's even more absurd because the closest brick and mortar competition might be miles away while online the competition is mere keystrokes away. Every single search engine is also a product discovery service too: Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo.

raz32dust 6y ago
I suspect you are an outlier. Amazon takes ~50% of online shopping market share [1]. Admittedly it is lower than I thought. I expected it to be closer to 70%. Google for search is actually at 71% [2]. Either way, I think 50% is enough market power to be treated as a monopoly, not sure about the legal definition. That said, I am not particularly worried about Amazon basics as these are commodity products, as long as they are being transparent about it. Monopoly is a problem only if they use tactics that prevent competitors from emerging - example could be incentivizing vendors to sell only on Amazon. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/788109/amazon-retail-market-share-usa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/788109/amazon-retail-mar... [2] https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.as...
- malandrew 6y ago
  Taking 50% of online shopping share because your product is that much better than the competition is totally different than there are no other options. Imagine you have 1000 stores all on the same street and one is so much better than the other stores that 50% of sales happen in that one store and there are no shenanigans where that one store is disadvantaging the other 999 stores. How can you argue that that is a monopoly?