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Amazon has been great for the consumer, Amazon's your margin is my opportunity mantra has lowered costs for tons of things and added a ton of value to people's

Amazon has been great for the consumer, Amazon's your margin is my opportunity mantra has lowered costs for tons of things and added a ton of value to people's lives. Sure this hurts other businesses, but that's business and eventually someone will come for Amazon. Do I as a consumer care if some drop shipper camera tripod company got eaten by Amazon basic? Hell no I don't.

Guest42 6y ago
Over time they have been systemically raising prices. I have noticed this and it has been mentioned on HN by ex-team members.
- gscho 6y ago
  Doesn't that create an opportunity for competition?
  - nightski 6y ago
    That is the entire point of the article, how Amazon uses it's power and resources to prevent competition.
arcticbull 6y ago
The argument posited here is that Amazon has reached "escape velocity" and that the sheer amount of market share and capital and control of infrastructure they have makes it unrealistic that someone will come for Amazon. That's not an argument I've heard made before, but I do find it persuasive. They literally control large portions of the internet with AWS, are moving into air freight, ground freight and I assume sea freight is next. They control the warehouses and they control the customer experience. They have third-party sellers and then once popular they steal their ideas and drive them out of business, because they can afford to. The bigger Amazon gets the harder it gets for someone to overtake them. And while you may not care yet, the natural outcome is that once they are the only game in town, they will simply raise prices. On every purchase you're winning the battle while losing the war.
- mimikatz 6y ago
  That's what they said about Walmart 2 decades ago and it what they said about Sears 2 decades before that.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    I'm not sure that has any bearing. Clearly they hadn't reached the scale Amazon has, so I'd suggest they hadn't found escape velocity. Not that the concept of escape velocity doesn't exist. You can be wrong a million times, you only have to be right once.
    - mimikatz 6y ago
      Sure, if Amazon becomes Standard Oil or Ma Bell, have the government bust em up (for them to split logistics from sales or something like that seems likely). For now they seems to be working as capitalism intended created win/win situations where Amazon gets new margin and the customer gets lower prices/better service. I don't think they have reached a monopoly level at all.
      - arcticbull 6y ago
        They're way past Ma Bell. After all Ma Bell is back, all the Baby Bells merged back together to re-form "The New AT&T." What changed is our tolerance for monopoly.
        cornell532 6y ago
        Long distance calls cost a pittance now. Service is better. VoIP is a big innovation. Lack of competition in cellular is another story....
        arcticbull 6y ago
        Which is also AT&T after the bought back Cingular which was split off from at&t

Guest42 6y ago

Over time they have been systemically raising prices. I have noticed this and it has been mentioned on HN by ex-team members.

gscho 6y ago
Doesn't that create an opportunity for competition?
- nightski 6y ago
  That is the entire point of the article, how Amazon uses it's power and resources to prevent competition.

arcticbull 6y ago

The argument posited here is that Amazon has reached "escape velocity" and that the sheer amount of market share and capital and control of infrastructure they have makes it unrealistic that someone will come for Amazon. That's not an argument I've heard made before, but I do find it persuasive. They literally control large portions of the internet with AWS, are moving into air freight, ground freight and I assume sea freight is next. They control the warehouses and they control the customer experience. They have third-party sellers and then once popular they steal their ideas and drive them out of business, because they can afford to. The bigger Amazon gets the harder it gets for someone to overtake them. And while you may not care yet, the natural outcome is that once they are the only game in town, they will simply raise prices. On every purchase you're winning the battle while losing the war.

mimikatz 6y ago
That's what they said about Walmart 2 decades ago and it what they said about Sears 2 decades before that.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  I'm not sure that has any bearing. Clearly they hadn't reached the scale Amazon has, so I'd suggest they hadn't found escape velocity. Not that the concept of escape velocity doesn't exist. You can be wrong a million times, you only have to be right once.
  - mimikatz 6y ago
    Sure, if Amazon becomes Standard Oil or Ma Bell, have the government bust em up (for them to split logistics from sales or something like that seems likely). For now they seems to be working as capitalism intended created win/win situations where Amazon gets new margin and the customer gets lower prices/better service. I don't think they have reached a monopoly level at all.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      They're way past Ma Bell. After all Ma Bell is back, all the Baby Bells merged back together to re-form "The New AT&T." What changed is our tolerance for monopoly.
      - cornell532 6y ago
        Long distance calls cost a pittance now. Service is better. VoIP is a big innovation. Lack of competition in cellular is another story....
        arcticbull 6y ago
        Which is also AT&T after the bought back Cingular which was split off from at&t