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They aren't a near monopoly though. They have about 49% of the eCommerce market. https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-commerce-market-is
by Grimm1 6y ago
They aren't a near monopoly though. They have about 49% of the eCommerce market.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-commerce-market-is-now-49-or-5-of-all-retail-spend/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-...
It's gone up since I last checked, but that's not a monopoly. They're just the most consolidated block.
You can downvote but 5% of the entire retail market and 49% of ecomm is not anywhere close to a classical monopoly.
- Lammy 6y agoWhy focus so much on the word? People reach for one of the few common words we have for “badly-behaved corporation” to express their criticism of Amazon practices, not by hawkishly watching market share graphs until one line gets too high. Maybe there is a better word, but the problems people experience are still there and are still real.
- tedunangst 6y agoThe premise of the comment is that monopolies can ignore negative reputation because there's no alternative. But that's not true for badly behaved corporations in general.
- ByteJockey 6y ago> Why focus so much on the word? The word in particular has special connotations in US law. The people that like the service amazon provides probably don't want that designation applied to amazon, since there's a chance the company could be broken up at that point.
- Grimm1 6y agoI don't like it because calling a non monopoly a monopoly has potentially broader implications for other companies not just Amazon, I don't like the dominoes the shift to this thinking implies.
- ByteJockey 6y agoFair, I didn't cover it because dragging in the rest of the amazon scale companies seems like it would have cluttered the point I was trying to make. But your point is relevant, this has implications for many companies outside of just amazon.
- Grimm1 6y agoWords have power and you should try to be precise with them, monopoly doesn't mean badly behaved corporation and you'll find I disagree with the thought that Amazon is a badly behaving corporation in any case. Monopoly implies you being forced to use their services with no such alternative and having negative consequences from that as a consumer. I order from many alternatives on the regular. Monopolies have consequences under US law, not liking a companies practices is A. A matter of personal interpretation and B. Not nearly enough to trigger the consequences from the US's actual laws.