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Do customers gain from Amazon's increased footprint? They are like a super organism growing and controlling distribution paths. Have there been other companies
by fumar 6y ago
Do customers gain from Amazon's increased footprint? They are like a super organism growing and controlling distribution paths. Have there been other companies like Amazon in capitalist history? Google?
- jfim 6y agoProbably this one, over four hundred years ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company
- thepace 6y agoIf Amazon turns out to be similar to Dutch East India Company, we are looking at Amazon growing 200 years old with dozens of settlements and colonies all over the world.
- daveslash 6y agoRe>> "all over the world" You're forgetting about Blue Origin. Their website has a picture of a rocket standing on the moon that literally says "This Time To Stay"
- phobosanomaly 6y agoSuper interesting comparison. From the Wikipedia article: "...the company traded with Indianised Southeast Asian countries when the Dutch government granted it a 21-year monopoly on the Dutch spice trade." It's a dumb comparison, I know, but it strikes me as similar to how Amazon wound up with a pseudo-monopoly on many goods during the pandemic as brick-and-mortars were shuttered. And a quote in a quote from the article: "The Dutch, it seems, more than anyone in the West since the palmy days of ancient Rome, had more money than they knew what to do with. They discovered, unlike the Romans, that the best use of money was to make more money." Weirdly apropos.
- alanbernstein 6y agoSears
- jerrysievert 6y agohad sears embraced the internet like amazon did, they'd likely still be a powerhouse. between their ubiquitous catalogs, trusted brands, huge retail footprint, and huge variety of products (there are tons of craftsman houses in Portland), they had a very large market. it was sad to see what happened to them.