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>How does Amazon harm consumers? I mean precisely, how? but burying alternatives, they basically drive smaller product competitors away, reducing their sales a
by Renaud 6y ago
>How does Amazon harm consumers? I mean precisely, how?
but burying alternatives, they basically drive smaller product competitors away, reducing their sales and their ability to grow and innovate.
Amazon has been blatantly copying products that other brand sold, and made them cheaper.
Great for consumers if the only thing you care about it price.
Because the game is getting rigged and Amazon products will always be more prominent, no-one can compete with Amazon on these products.
You end up with less competition and less choice.
Amazon can just undercut you, push you down in their listings and get the lion's share of any product type they find lucrative.
Certainly not all that bad but where do you imagine this is going if no-one else is able to compete with Amazon?
Amazon is already king and has power of life and death on countless businesses that rely on it being an impartial party so they have a chance to sell their ware.
- insert_coin 6y agoThe same things were said against Walmart, the exact same arguments word for word. And yet we saw the rise of independent stores, gentrification, Whole Foods, the rise of e-commerce, the rise of etsy, amazon, ali, ebay, the rise of the Apple Store, the rise of... And then we saw an explosion of "third party" brands. Millions and millions of alternatives flooded the market despite Walmart "undercutting everyone of their suppliers". From soda to nailclippers, to phone cases to chairs, to spoons, to...everything. Despite all the fear mongering, today there is not a single product category where only one brand exists, there is not a single product category where only the Walmart brand exists. Competition cannot be stopped, the business cycle cannot be stopped. Birth, growth, death, repeat. Amazon is huge today because Walmart was so huge before it; people actively went out of their way to avoid it just out of spite. Competition cannot be stopped, except by regulations. Give amazon by law a pen to play in and you are making sure they'll never let anyone else in. Things never stay as they are, and retail has never been so competitive. Amazon won't be top dog forever, just as Sears wasn't, just as Walmart wasn't. Just as the mighty GE wasn't, or the even mightier East India Co. wasn't.
- pydry 6y ago>The same things were said against Walmart, the exact same arguments word for word. And? >And yet we saw the rise of independent stores, gentrification, Whole Foods, the rise of e-commerce, the rise of etsy, amazon, ali, ebay, the rise of the Apple Store So... Walmart was outcompeted by the Apple Store?