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I’m from a rural county in Illinois and our largest city has Lowes, HD, Menards, Ace, Farm and Home Supply and a number of specialty stores. There’s considerabl

I’m from a rural county in Illinois and our largest city has Lowes, HD, Menards, Ace, Farm and Home Supply and a number of specialty stores. There’s considerably more competition in Home Depot’s field.

deleted 6y ago
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lotsofpulp 6y ago
I forgot about Ace, but searching on Maps shows there’s still a few around! I wonder if they are franchised. I only recall seeing HD and Lowes on the coasts though.
- sgerenser 6y ago
  Most Ace Hardware stores are franchises. There’s 5000 of them in the US.
ericmay 6y ago
How is it more competition? You’ll visit at most what 2 of those stores looking for a product? I can use plugins in a web browser to effectively visit 100 stores to shop for the best price on an item. Amazon is just another vendor. -edit- To add to this. If you want to compare to Amazon then you have to look at the market share and revenue of those stores too. Not simply their existence. It doesn't matter if an ACE hardware is in the area if it is 3% of the market.
- capableweb 6y ago
  > I can use plugins in a web browser to effectively visit 100 stores to shop for the best price on an item. Amazon is just another vendor. Sure you could, but is that how most users use the web? According to Statista (2019 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/955796/global-amazon-e-commerce-market-share/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/955796/global-amazon-e-c...) [same link I put before], over 50% of the market is just Amazon, even though it's soooo easy to chose another one. Since they now have a grip of the majority of the market, they should be having lots of eyes on them, as they can easily abuse their position, which most of us don't want to them to do.
  - ericmay 6y ago
    I can’t view the link without paying unless you are simply showing that Amazon has 13% of the global e-commerce market and 50%~ of the U.S. market. To answer your question - it doesn’t matter. We don’t determine monopolies simply because of market share. If we did, why aren’t we filing another anti-trust investigation against Microsoft and Windows? The point anyway is that people have no switching cost. Amazon faces stiff competition not just in America but globally. I remain unconvinced that they have a monopoly on e-commerce. Sure they may have take some monopolistic actions which could be addressed, but that’s not enough for me to demonstrate that they are a monopoly. Frankly, I think Amazon has really been struggling. Prime sucks. 2-day shipping is slipping not just in service but as new competitors enter the market. It’s a fierce competition. Google and Facebook on the other hand are monopolies. That’s a no-brainer. Apple I’m not sure how they’ve even been in the discussion.
    - simion314 6y ago
      >Apple I’m not sure how they’ve even been in the discussion Remember that Apple and Google pulled a legal app from their stores, regular Apple users (like 50% of US) can't install stuff on their device without Apple parental approval and the "make it a website argument also fails because Apple is does not let you install a better browser". 50% still affects a lot of people, though Apple fanboys will attempt to say is not a big enough number (remember you could install other browsers and whatever application you wanted on Windows without a Microsoft approval or tax).
      - ericmay 6y ago
        Depends on how you look at it. Are we comparing operating systems? Then we have a duopoly and should regulated Android as well. Are we comparing phone manufacturers? Well, there's a ton of them, Apple just competes and does the best. > Apple and Google pulled a legal app from their stores I can't sell anything I want at Wal-Mart. Doesn't PayPal not allow porn sites to do business? I don't see how this is different. > Windows without a Microsoft approval or tax So is it market share or what? What exactly is the monopoly? Microsoft doesn't allow me to play PlayStation games on Xbox. Most computers are sold with Windows operating systems. I don't know what the monopoly is supposed to be with Apple.

deleted 6y ago

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lotsofpulp 6y ago

I forgot about Ace, but searching on Maps shows there’s still a few around! I wonder if they are franchised. I only recall seeing HD and Lowes on the coasts though.

sgerenser 6y ago
Most Ace Hardware stores are franchises. There’s 5000 of them in the US.

ericmay 6y ago

How is it more competition? You’ll visit at most what 2 of those stores looking for a product? I can use plugins in a web browser to effectively visit 100 stores to shop for the best price on an item. Amazon is just another vendor. -edit- To add to this. If you want to compare to Amazon then you have to look at the market share and revenue of those stores too. Not simply their existence. It doesn't matter if an ACE hardware is in the area if it is 3% of the market.

capableweb 6y ago
> I can use plugins in a web browser to effectively visit 100 stores to shop for the best price on an item. Amazon is just another vendor. Sure you could, but is that how most users use the web? According to Statista (2019 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/955796/global-amazon-e-commerce-market-share/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/955796/global-amazon-e-c...) [same link I put before], over 50% of the market is just Amazon, even though it's soooo easy to chose another one. Since they now have a grip of the majority of the market, they should be having lots of eyes on them, as they can easily abuse their position, which most of us don't want to them to do.
- ericmay 6y ago
  I can’t view the link without paying unless you are simply showing that Amazon has 13% of the global e-commerce market and 50%~ of the U.S. market. To answer your question - it doesn’t matter. We don’t determine monopolies simply because of market share. If we did, why aren’t we filing another anti-trust investigation against Microsoft and Windows? The point anyway is that people have no switching cost. Amazon faces stiff competition not just in America but globally. I remain unconvinced that they have a monopoly on e-commerce. Sure they may have take some monopolistic actions which could be addressed, but that’s not enough for me to demonstrate that they are a monopoly. Frankly, I think Amazon has really been struggling. Prime sucks. 2-day shipping is slipping not just in service but as new competitors enter the market. It’s a fierce competition. Google and Facebook on the other hand are monopolies. That’s a no-brainer. Apple I’m not sure how they’ve even been in the discussion.
  - simion314 6y ago
    >Apple I’m not sure how they’ve even been in the discussion Remember that Apple and Google pulled a legal app from their stores, regular Apple users (like 50% of US) can't install stuff on their device without Apple parental approval and the "make it a website argument also fails because Apple is does not let you install a better browser". 50% still affects a lot of people, though Apple fanboys will attempt to say is not a big enough number (remember you could install other browsers and whatever application you wanted on Windows without a Microsoft approval or tax).
    - ericmay 6y ago
      Depends on how you look at it. Are we comparing operating systems? Then we have a duopoly and should regulated Android as well. Are we comparing phone manufacturers? Well, there's a ton of them, Apple just competes and does the best. > Apple and Google pulled a legal app from their stores I can't sell anything I want at Wal-Mart. Doesn't PayPal not allow porn sites to do business? I don't see how this is different. > Windows without a Microsoft approval or tax So is it market share or what? What exactly is the monopoly? Microsoft doesn't allow me to play PlayStation games on Xbox. Most computers are sold with Windows operating systems. I don't know what the monopoly is supposed to be with Apple.