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Amazon should be nationalized. All these 3rd party companies want is a "farmers market", a stall to sell their wares. Give them the municipal software infrastr

Amazon should be nationalized. All these 3rd party companies want is a "farmers market", a stall to sell their wares. Give them the municipal software infrastructure they need to do so and maintain it as a public good.

LightG 5y ago
It's a catch-22 ... would Amazon be this innovative had it been nationalised? At what point do you nationalise? Is there a next technology which will be stifled if it was nationalise? Does nationalisation sttifle innovation? I've been wrestling with these questions as I actually don't like Amazon for all the reasons that have been well publicised ... but their customer service is excellent. Which sets me against a string of recent bad experiences with local suppliers, getting stung, and thinking ... well, if Amazon treat me better, why shouldn't I move away from local suppliers and stick with the monopoly? Which goes against a lot I believe in. I guess the problem is it's putting a lot of trust in Amazon. Which is itself an argument for nationalisation. I don't know.
- suprfsat 5y ago
  Jeff Bezos will testify in front of congress that he will cease to be innovative if required to pay taxes.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
    Sounds like extortion to me.
    - batch12 5y ago
      How so? Whether or not amazon innovates should have no bearing on a decision by congress to levy additional taxes against them. If amazon decides to become shittier as a result, someone else can fill that void.
    - missedthecue 5y ago
      not sure which party you're talking about here
  - tremon 5y ago
    Does this imply he sees his ability to evade taxes as his only worthwhile innovation?
    - 8note 5y ago
      I think it implies that amazon can't both spend everything that would be profit on innovation while also paying the same money on taxes
  - sneak 5y ago
    Amazon pays mountains of payroll taxes, as they are one of the largest employers in the world. The "Amazon pays no taxes" meme is a false one.
    - spaceribs 5y ago
      I think the meme is "Amazon pays no federal taxes on it's profits", and that is a correct statement.
      - sneak 5y ago
        If that were the meme, I wouldn't be trying to dispel it.
      - dahfizz 5y ago
        Even that is not really true. They paid no federal income tax in 2017 and 2018, but have before and since. I'm no fan of Amazon, but you have to admit there is a pretty large distance between "Amazon pays no tax" and "Amazon pays billions in tax, but they didn't pay this one specific kind of tax a couple years ago". https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/amazon-had-to-pay-federal-income-taxes-for-the-first-time-since-2016.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/amazon-had-to-pay-federal-in...
        spaceribs 5y ago
        I think income tax is the most impactful and expensive tax we have in the US, it's the one everyone thinks of when someone says "doing your taxes". The fact that Amazon just this year after not paying for 2 years had to pay a measly 1.6% in taxes does not really negate the argument. Edit: 4 years -> 2 years
        dahfizz 5y ago
        It really feels like you're twisting reality. Amazon went 2 years without paying _income_ tax, not 4. Amazon paid $3.5 billion in taxes in 2019 (some of which was differed, but still owed). That is over 25% of their income that year. Their federal income tax rate came out to 1.6%, but its borderline lying to say "they paid a measly 1.6% in taxes". Amazon is an awful company. There is no reason to bend the truth to try and show how awful they are. Being disingenuous only makes your argument weaker.
- nerbert 5y ago
  Amazon the marketplace isn’t terribly innovative. It’s a marketplace supported by fantastic logistics, and most of it is backed by USPS anyways. There’s only so much you can do to remove the pains from buyers, sounds like we’re there.
  - smhost 5y ago
    "Innovation" refers to practices like staying in the red for a decade and bypassing antitrust laws by owning (rather than monopolizing) markets. It has little to do with technological innovation.
    - andrepd 5y ago
      Precisely. Much of the "innovations" and "efficiencies" touted (by Amazon and by many other players) are actually not any material/physical/technical improvements, but financial games, buying competitors, operating at a loss, regulatory evasion, monopolisation, etc.
      - smhost 5y ago
        I mean, business/financial innovation is a legitimate kind of innovation. I'm not harping on Amazon for that. I just think that discussions about "loss of innovation" smuggle in some irrational fears about loss of technology when there are no real reasons to.
    - choward 5y ago
      Right. I wonder how much competition Amazon has eliminated over the years with their shady business practices. That competition may have driven innovation even further.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > It’s a marketplace supported by fantastic logistics, and most of it is backed by USPS anyways. Not any more, USPS was only used for shipping anyway. Amazon has shifted to vertical integration wherever they can - they run everything they can, from air freight (with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Air https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Air) over their infamous warehouses to last-mile delivery with either in-house staff or "contractor" schemes set up to avoid labor regulations.
- 49531 5y ago
  > Does nationalisation stifle innovation? I would argue that it does not. We have a lot of innovations from the last 100 years that have come from state-run projects / endeavors. The more I think about it the more it looks as though private ownership stifles innovation if there isn't a direct profit motive for it.
  - pydry 5y ago
    Being a monopoly of any kind stifles innovation. It's often better for the state to react to private monopolies/oligopolies by entering the space and competing with a bare bones service. This has worked in banking, telecoms, land development, housing, etc. It often works better than taking over the monopoly directly. It's one of the reasons (IMHO) Singapore has such an effective private market. Often private companies lobby for laws restricting the level that they can compete - this is a signal that it's an effective tactic. If USPS were given a mandate and the cash it could absolutely build a marketplace that could compete and it would probably kick start Amazon into being a better and cheaper retailer. Unfortunately it's being whittled down to a husk of its former self.
ceejayoz 5y ago
An apt comparison - most of the farmers’ markets around here have been ruined by resellers, too. No, those Driscoll strawberries in March didn’t come from upstate New York farms.
- Loughla 5y ago
  Seriously, though. Between reselling and 'owner/operator businesses' (read: pyramid schemes selling oils, scents, candles, and makeup), the local farmer's market is just an absolute train wreck anymore. Local farmers who used to sell at the farmer's market have moved to subscription boxes, from what I can tell.
syshum 5y ago
Yea I am going to go ahead and say No to that.... Amazon has issues, but "nationalizing" it would not ease those issues in fact in most ways it would make them worse.
- spaceribs 5y ago
  > Amazon has issues, but "nationalizing" it would not ease those issues in fact in most ways it would make them worse. Change my mind then? What would be worse in that situation?
  - jpxw 5y ago
    When was the last time you used government-run software? Was it a good experience?
    - jononomo 5y ago
      Amtrak is great. I generally like government-run services. Have you tried dealing with your local cable monopoly? It's a nightmare -- why not get the government involved so things work more smoothly and there is more competition?
    - amalcon 5y ago
      Less than a month ago, to sign up for my COVID vaccine. Yes, it was a good experience.
    - spaceribs 5y ago
      Yes actually, I recently signed up for my vaccination online via the GoVAX system, was flawless and painless: https://massvax.maryland.gov/ https://massvax.maryland.gov/ I've used plenty of for-profit software that did essentially the same thing but which fell flat on it's face in terms of UI/UX.
    - jfrunyon 5y ago
      All the time. Yes. I've also had bad experiences with plenty of private companies.
wolfretcrap 5y ago
Amazon is far from only being software atleast in India. They've such a volume here in India that since Amazon has got here, traditional LTL logistics soared in price wayyy higher Amazon has completely revolutionised logistics here in India, you'll have hard time sending a box from point A to point B cheaper than what Amazon offers. We are at a point where Amazon sells things much cheaper shipped to your door than a shop near you. (If you don't live in a metro city highly likely, the price which Amazon offers, local shops simply can't beat them) And in India something like 60-70% people live in small towns and villages, traditional family owned distribution networks are failing to compete with Amazon, yes the ones which power most of the shops in the town. I maintain, the traditional family owned distribution networks were even more exploitative (screwing over both customers and their workers) in India atleast compared to what Amazon offers. Amazon delivery agent here are guys from low economic class and often from villages nearby. I am glad my purchases are helping these people survive than the "several property owning shopkeeper near me" competing with me in the real estate market while simultaneously ripping me off on the price on various tools. Few years ago I was working for such family owned distribution networks and I never seen such miseries in life, truckers were often not paid at time, often driving trucks which hardly get any service (dangerously), the axel could become rocket anytime while on road. Amazon has only brought best practises to us, they've regular vehicle maintenance schedule, drivers get paid on time. Amazon delivery agents are some of the happiest people I've met despite working so hard, they are always smiling while delivering stuff to me. The distribution agents were regularly fired without payment (it's not completely organized sector so lots of labor operate in grey area, where if they don't get paid don't have any legal recourse and most likely no one will believe if they ever worked for the person they are claiming to have rendered their service to. I am glad, the nepotistic and exploitative power nexus of family owned distribution networks is dying. Easy return was never available in India, and you risked getting "death stares" from the shopkeeper if you ever returned anything to him because of quality issues of the product. Other than this, most of the times I had seen "young girls" walking into market and getting "40% discount" by some thristy shopkeeper and they wouldn't do same for a guy ever, atleast this form of descrimination is dying with Amazon. And honestly speaking, if a lot of Amazon executives in Bangalore and Gurgaon are getting rich, it's well deserved for what they've done for the nation. I forgot to mention, we've many Amazon competitors but primarily Flipkart - well, getting them to replace/return anything has been tough for me, maybe because I live in a small town, I don't say but I get all my packages in 2 days from Amazon (without prime), while Flipkart takes 5 days here minimum. What would I like to see Amazon change? 1. Make it possible to sell low value items which cost less than 200 and aggregate it before it's shipped to customer and charge customer shipping on aggregate weight shipped for these small combines. Sometimes it's very difficult when you've to order small items and pay 150-200 shipping on each item. These can be "no return combine", I will not bother returning such low value item, so Amazon saves overhead and additional costs. 2. Please revolutionze hardware space for retail buyers, stuff like "steel sheets, MDF, nail, bolts, nuts" - we don't have any Homedepot or Lowe's, we really need it and my hope is only on Amazon. Other countries like US has Homedepot where u can get most of the hardware fittings while this space is seriously lagging in India, everyone uses different naming for a spare part, etc...we don't even have anything like "McMasterCarr".
amelius 5y ago
Stallman said it too: https://stallman.org/amazon.html https://stallman.org/amazon.html > We should not allow a company to have a share over around 10% of any market. If in a certain field a single dominant company is beneficial for society, that means it is a natural monopoly, and should be served by a regulated utility.
- rualca 5y ago
  > We should not allow a company to have a share over around 10% of any market. If a company was already at said 10% limit and you wanted to buy something out of them because to you their offer is by far so much better than any of the alternatives, in your opinion what should happen?
  - alfonsodev 5y ago
    The price would regulate itself by offer/demand balance and you would still be able to buy it if you can afford it. With no limits, they can actually create artificial lower prices that competition can’t match, and they become exponentially more powerful and dominating. And sometimes you end up as a customer having less options and lower quality.
    - pc86 5y ago
      Price dumping is already illegal.
      - andrepd 5y ago
        Explain Uber then :^)
    - rualca 5y ago
      > The price would regulate itself by offer/demand balance and you would still be able to buy it if you can afford it. No, not really. I shopped around. I picked the best for me. I want to buy from that company but it is already at your 10% limit. What then? Can I actually buy what I want?
jpxw 5y ago
For one, large government software projects are almost always disastrous, even in developed countries. Secondly, that isn’t what sellers want. Many sellers use Amazon to fulfill their orders. Amazon is far more than just a “market stall”.
- rualca 5y ago
  > Secondly, that isn’t what sellers want. Many sellers use Amazon to fulfill their orders. Amazon is far more than just a “market stall”. This. Amazon is basically a huge logistics network. Their business is not selling you products, whether from their own generic brands, from high-end Veblen goods companies like Apple or from cheap chinese dropship artists. Their business is to process payment, and get that package delivered to your front door. To Amazon, their products is just a way to generate output through their logistics network.
  - spaceribs 5y ago
    Based on the article, the verticality of their business seems to indicate they are not merely in logistics...
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > For one, large government software projects are almost always disastrous, even in developed countries. The same tends to be true for large corporate software projects. As a fairly recent example: https://www.theregister.com/2019/04/23/hertz_accenture_lawsuit/ https://www.theregister.com/2019/04/23/hertz_accenture_lawsu...
  - logicchains 5y ago
    >The same tends to be true for large corporate software projects. Yes, but it's not true for Amazon, the topic of conversation.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      Isn't the topic of conversation that Amazon's successful software projects have had potentially disastrous side-effects?
n0us 5y ago
It would be really interesting to see the USPS in the USA open a market like this
mk89 5y ago
I disagree. There are more and more services providing logistics, delivery, payments, etc. And they are quite reliable. Just 2 years ago I was entirely relying on Amazon as a good ecommerce. As of 2020/2021, to be honest, there is nearly no difference with some individual retailers (which don't use a 3rd party platform to sell their goods like Amazon or Ebay). Lots of websites have improved, logistics, delivery, customer service, payments, ..etc etc. They key, in my opinion, was the logistics + delivery. That's what Amazon was exceptionally good at. Now that the infrastructure is nearly the same for everyone, why would you share your profits with Amazon and risk to be out of the business in 1-2 years?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dv_dt 5y ago
  What are the Amazon level logistics and delivery service that is available to a smaller retailer? I see some nascent choices but they really aren’t that close.
guerrilla 5y ago
I agree but there's one practical problem with this: other markets (e.g. the EU) need to nationalize or reproduce it too or else the US is getting significant geopolitical leverage.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  If the US nationalized Amazon, I think you can be pretty sure that other countries would also nationalize their local Amazon divisions (ie. Amazon FR would become property of the french government)
  - Nasrudith 5y ago
    Why would they repeat the US's mistakes immediately after watching it blow up on the US? People have agency and the response to a sudden theft by the government for being too successful would be to get the hell out of there as the US is no longer stable. The other subsidiaries wouldn't surrender ownership to a distant bandit government just like all of the other times it happened. Everybody but communists know that Nationalization is a goddamned terrible idea doomed to failure - you can see it by not being in their political platforms at all. Only those with dogmas to consider the action a goal in itself advocate for it.
    - spaceribs 5y ago
      The goal is to democratically own ostensibly public infrastructure, do you have a better way instead of whining about communists?
mellavora 5y ago
We have that in Luxembourg. Problem is finding the site. You have to know it is there.
batch12 5y ago
Why should the federal government steal Amazon? Surely, it is possible for the government to build another service. I will admit that this is a clever way to kill Amazon. I find the idea of a government running my compute infrastructure to be a terrifyingly bad idea and would seek out someone else. Edit: Replaced AWS with Amazon
FridayoLeary 5y ago
>Give them the municipal software infrastructure they need to do so and maintain it as a public good. oof. Amazons actual website is frankly horrible, but i shudder to think how terrible it would be if it was run by the government. I'm cringing at the thought. There would just be an endless stream of news about gross mismanagement, incompetence, wasting taxpayers money ad nuseaum. No. The only thing that could possibly be worse then Amazon in its current format would be if it were run as a government enterprise. And to the whataboutism; "who says Amazon doesn't have those problems etc, it's different. I don't have to be bothered so much by the internal affairs of a private company. A government company otoh, it would just be all over the news.
swiley 5y ago
No. As it is I can still go to other sellers if I want to, if Amazon were nationalized then you might not have any other choice.
whalesalad 5y ago
Every time a business gets this successful someone will inevitably come out of the woodwork and say "the government now needs to own this, there is no other option" - wat?
Black101 5y ago
should they also nationalize their cloud services?
- nielsbot 5y ago
  sure
  - Black101 5y ago
    any data backing that claim?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
jonnycomputer 5y ago
Or broken up. Its AWS and its online retail are each sufficiently large enough to be anti-competitive on their own.
niyikiza 5y ago
Whenever someone suggests that something be nationalized, I ask myself "Why not create a public version of it?". If the answer is "it cannot compete with the private ones", maybe that's why running it privately is necessary.
- josefx 5y ago
  Just look at how well this works out for every town trying to set up its own broadband when Comcast and others fail to invest. Lawsuits raining down for every possible reason, shared public resources blocked for months, misinformation campaigns to convince people that public broadband is a waste of their money and anyone involved in it should be kicked from their office. Its like competing in a five hundred meter sprint if the winner of the last twenty races had a shotgun. His time sucks, but he doesn't need to actually run as long as nobody else makes it to the finishing line.
Workaccount2 5y ago
Amazon doesn't need to be nationalized, it does need to be broken up though. The dividing lines in the organization are so clear you could practically tap it with a hammer and it will fall apart into nice individual pieces.
aliyfarah 5y ago
Agreed 100%. Should be merged with UPS. I also believe NBA should be nationalised. All teams should be owned by cities and revenues used to fund schools etc

LightG 5y ago

It's a catch-22 ... would Amazon be this innovative had it been nationalised? At what point do you nationalise? Is there a next technology which will be stifled if it was nationalise? Does nationalisation sttifle innovation? I've been wrestling with these questions as I actually don't like Amazon for all the reasons that have been well publicised ... but their customer service is excellent. Which sets me against a string of recent bad experiences with local suppliers, getting stung, and thinking ... well, if Amazon treat me better, why shouldn't I move away from local suppliers and stick with the monopoly? Which goes against a lot I believe in. I guess the problem is it's putting a lot of trust in Amazon. Which is itself an argument for nationalisation. I don't know.

suprfsat 5y ago
Jeff Bezos will testify in front of congress that he will cease to be innovative if required to pay taxes.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
  Sounds like extortion to me.
  - batch12 5y ago
    How so? Whether or not amazon innovates should have no bearing on a decision by congress to levy additional taxes against them. If amazon decides to become shittier as a result, someone else can fill that void.
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    not sure which party you're talking about here
- tremon 5y ago
  Does this imply he sees his ability to evade taxes as his only worthwhile innovation?
  - 8note 5y ago
    I think it implies that amazon can't both spend everything that would be profit on innovation while also paying the same money on taxes
- sneak 5y ago
  Amazon pays mountains of payroll taxes, as they are one of the largest employers in the world. The "Amazon pays no taxes" meme is a false one.
  - spaceribs 5y ago
    I think the meme is "Amazon pays no federal taxes on it's profits", and that is a correct statement.
    - sneak 5y ago
      If that were the meme, I wouldn't be trying to dispel it.
    - dahfizz 5y ago
      Even that is not really true. They paid no federal income tax in 2017 and 2018, but have before and since. I'm no fan of Amazon, but you have to admit there is a pretty large distance between "Amazon pays no tax" and "Amazon pays billions in tax, but they didn't pay this one specific kind of tax a couple years ago". https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/amazon-had-to-pay-federal-income-taxes-for-the-first-time-since-2016.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/amazon-had-to-pay-federal-in...
      - spaceribs 5y ago
        I think income tax is the most impactful and expensive tax we have in the US, it's the one everyone thinks of when someone says "doing your taxes". The fact that Amazon just this year after not paying for 2 years had to pay a measly 1.6% in taxes does not really negate the argument. Edit: 4 years -> 2 years
        dahfizz 5y ago
        It really feels like you're twisting reality. Amazon went 2 years without paying _income_ tax, not 4. Amazon paid $3.5 billion in taxes in 2019 (some of which was differed, but still owed). That is over 25% of their income that year. Their federal income tax rate came out to 1.6%, but its borderline lying to say "they paid a measly 1.6% in taxes". Amazon is an awful company. There is no reason to bend the truth to try and show how awful they are. Being disingenuous only makes your argument weaker.
nerbert 5y ago
Amazon the marketplace isn’t terribly innovative. It’s a marketplace supported by fantastic logistics, and most of it is backed by USPS anyways. There’s only so much you can do to remove the pains from buyers, sounds like we’re there.
- smhost 5y ago
  "Innovation" refers to practices like staying in the red for a decade and bypassing antitrust laws by owning (rather than monopolizing) markets. It has little to do with technological innovation.
  - andrepd 5y ago
    Precisely. Much of the "innovations" and "efficiencies" touted (by Amazon and by many other players) are actually not any material/physical/technical improvements, but financial games, buying competitors, operating at a loss, regulatory evasion, monopolisation, etc.
    - smhost 5y ago
      I mean, business/financial innovation is a legitimate kind of innovation. I'm not harping on Amazon for that. I just think that discussions about "loss of innovation" smuggle in some irrational fears about loss of technology when there are no real reasons to.
  - choward 5y ago
    Right. I wonder how much competition Amazon has eliminated over the years with their shady business practices. That competition may have driven innovation even further.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > It’s a marketplace supported by fantastic logistics, and most of it is backed by USPS anyways. Not any more, USPS was only used for shipping anyway. Amazon has shifted to vertical integration wherever they can - they run everything they can, from air freight (with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Air https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Air) over their infamous warehouses to last-mile delivery with either in-house staff or "contractor" schemes set up to avoid labor regulations.
49531 5y ago
> Does nationalisation stifle innovation? I would argue that it does not. We have a lot of innovations from the last 100 years that have come from state-run projects / endeavors. The more I think about it the more it looks as though private ownership stifles innovation if there isn't a direct profit motive for it.
- pydry 5y ago
  Being a monopoly of any kind stifles innovation. It's often better for the state to react to private monopolies/oligopolies by entering the space and competing with a bare bones service. This has worked in banking, telecoms, land development, housing, etc. It often works better than taking over the monopoly directly. It's one of the reasons (IMHO) Singapore has such an effective private market. Often private companies lobby for laws restricting the level that they can compete - this is a signal that it's an effective tactic. If USPS were given a mandate and the cash it could absolutely build a marketplace that could compete and it would probably kick start Amazon into being a better and cheaper retailer. Unfortunately it's being whittled down to a husk of its former self.

ceejayoz 5y ago

An apt comparison - most of the farmers’ markets around here have been ruined by resellers, too. No, those Driscoll strawberries in March didn’t come from upstate New York farms.

Loughla 5y ago
Seriously, though. Between reselling and 'owner/operator businesses' (read: pyramid schemes selling oils, scents, candles, and makeup), the local farmer's market is just an absolute train wreck anymore. Local farmers who used to sell at the farmer's market have moved to subscription boxes, from what I can tell.

syshum 5y ago

Yea I am going to go ahead and say No to that.... Amazon has issues, but "nationalizing" it would not ease those issues in fact in most ways it would make them worse.

spaceribs 5y ago
> Amazon has issues, but "nationalizing" it would not ease those issues in fact in most ways it would make them worse. Change my mind then? What would be worse in that situation?
- jpxw 5y ago
  When was the last time you used government-run software? Was it a good experience?
  - jononomo 5y ago
    Amtrak is great. I generally like government-run services. Have you tried dealing with your local cable monopoly? It's a nightmare -- why not get the government involved so things work more smoothly and there is more competition?
  - amalcon 5y ago
    Less than a month ago, to sign up for my COVID vaccine. Yes, it was a good experience.
  - spaceribs 5y ago
    Yes actually, I recently signed up for my vaccination online via the GoVAX system, was flawless and painless: https://massvax.maryland.gov/ https://massvax.maryland.gov/ I've used plenty of for-profit software that did essentially the same thing but which fell flat on it's face in terms of UI/UX.
  - jfrunyon 5y ago
    All the time. Yes. I've also had bad experiences with plenty of private companies.

wolfretcrap 5y ago

Amazon is far from only being software atleast in India. They've such a volume here in India that since Amazon has got here, traditional LTL logistics soared in price wayyy higher Amazon has completely revolutionised logistics here in India, you'll have hard time sending a box from point A to point B cheaper than what Amazon offers. We are at a point where Amazon sells things much cheaper shipped to your door than a shop near you. (If you don't live in a metro city highly likely, the price which Amazon offers, local shops simply can't beat them) And in India something like 60-70% people live in small towns and villages, traditional family owned distribution networks are failing to compete with Amazon, yes the ones which power most of the shops in the town. I maintain, the traditional family owned distribution networks were even more exploitative (screwing over both customers and their workers) in India atleast compared to what Amazon offers. Amazon delivery agent here are guys from low economic class and often from villages nearby. I am glad my purchases are helping these people survive than the "several property owning shopkeeper near me" competing with me in the real estate market while simultaneously ripping me off on the price on various tools. Few years ago I was working for such family owned distribution networks and I never seen such miseries in life, truckers were often not paid at time, often driving trucks which hardly get any service (dangerously), the axel could become rocket anytime while on road. Amazon has only brought best practises to us, they've regular vehicle maintenance schedule, drivers get paid on time. Amazon delivery agents are some of the happiest people I've met despite working so hard, they are always smiling while delivering stuff to me. The distribution agents were regularly fired without payment (it's not completely organized sector so lots of labor operate in grey area, where if they don't get paid don't have any legal recourse and most likely no one will believe if they ever worked for the person they are claiming to have rendered their service to. I am glad, the nepotistic and exploitative power nexus of family owned distribution networks is dying. Easy return was never available in India, and you risked getting "death stares" from the shopkeeper if you ever returned anything to him because of quality issues of the product. Other than this, most of the times I had seen "young girls" walking into market and getting "40% discount" by some thristy shopkeeper and they wouldn't do same for a guy ever, atleast this form of descrimination is dying with Amazon. And honestly speaking, if a lot of Amazon executives in Bangalore and Gurgaon are getting rich, it's well deserved for what they've done for the nation. I forgot to mention, we've many Amazon competitors but primarily Flipkart - well, getting them to replace/return anything has been tough for me, maybe because I live in a small town, I don't say but I get all my packages in 2 days from Amazon (without prime), while Flipkart takes 5 days here minimum. What would I like to see Amazon change? 1. Make it possible to sell low value items which cost less than 200 and aggregate it before it's shipped to customer and charge customer shipping on aggregate weight shipped for these small combines. Sometimes it's very difficult when you've to order small items and pay 150-200 shipping on each item. These can be "no return combine", I will not bother returning such low value item, so Amazon saves overhead and additional costs. 2. Please revolutionze hardware space for retail buyers, stuff like "steel sheets, MDF, nail, bolts, nuts" - we don't have any Homedepot or Lowe's, we really need it and my hope is only on Amazon. Other countries like US has Homedepot where u can get most of the hardware fittings while this space is seriously lagging in India, everyone uses different naming for a spare part, etc...we don't even have anything like "McMasterCarr".

amelius 5y ago

Stallman said it too: https://stallman.org/amazon.html https://stallman.org/amazon.html > We should not allow a company to have a share over around 10% of any market. If in a certain field a single dominant company is beneficial for society, that means it is a natural monopoly, and should be served by a regulated utility.

rualca 5y ago
> We should not allow a company to have a share over around 10% of any market. If a company was already at said 10% limit and you wanted to buy something out of them because to you their offer is by far so much better than any of the alternatives, in your opinion what should happen?
- alfonsodev 5y ago
  The price would regulate itself by offer/demand balance and you would still be able to buy it if you can afford it. With no limits, they can actually create artificial lower prices that competition can’t match, and they become exponentially more powerful and dominating. And sometimes you end up as a customer having less options and lower quality.
  - pc86 5y ago
    Price dumping is already illegal.
    - andrepd 5y ago
      Explain Uber then :^)
  - rualca 5y ago
    > The price would regulate itself by offer/demand balance and you would still be able to buy it if you can afford it. No, not really. I shopped around. I picked the best for me. I want to buy from that company but it is already at your 10% limit. What then? Can I actually buy what I want?

jpxw 5y ago

For one, large government software projects are almost always disastrous, even in developed countries. Secondly, that isn’t what sellers want. Many sellers use Amazon to fulfill their orders. Amazon is far more than just a “market stall”.

rualca 5y ago
> Secondly, that isn’t what sellers want. Many sellers use Amazon to fulfill their orders. Amazon is far more than just a “market stall”. This. Amazon is basically a huge logistics network. Their business is not selling you products, whether from their own generic brands, from high-end Veblen goods companies like Apple or from cheap chinese dropship artists. Their business is to process payment, and get that package delivered to your front door. To Amazon, their products is just a way to generate output through their logistics network.
- spaceribs 5y ago
  Based on the article, the verticality of their business seems to indicate they are not merely in logistics...
ceejayoz 5y ago
> For one, large government software projects are almost always disastrous, even in developed countries. The same tends to be true for large corporate software projects. As a fairly recent example: https://www.theregister.com/2019/04/23/hertz_accenture_lawsuit/ https://www.theregister.com/2019/04/23/hertz_accenture_lawsu...
- logicchains 5y ago
  >The same tends to be true for large corporate software projects. Yes, but it's not true for Amazon, the topic of conversation.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    Isn't the topic of conversation that Amazon's successful software projects have had potentially disastrous side-effects?

n0us 5y ago

It would be really interesting to see the USPS in the USA open a market like this

mk89 5y ago

I disagree. There are more and more services providing logistics, delivery, payments, etc. And they are quite reliable. Just 2 years ago I was entirely relying on Amazon as a good ecommerce. As of 2020/2021, to be honest, there is nearly no difference with some individual retailers (which don't use a 3rd party platform to sell their goods like Amazon or Ebay). Lots of websites have improved, logistics, delivery, customer service, payments, ..etc etc. They key, in my opinion, was the logistics + delivery. That's what Amazon was exceptionally good at. Now that the infrastructure is nearly the same for everyone, why would you share your profits with Amazon and risk to be out of the business in 1-2 years?

deleted 5y ago
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dv_dt 5y ago
What are the Amazon level logistics and delivery service that is available to a smaller retailer? I see some nascent choices but they really aren’t that close.

guerrilla 5y ago

I agree but there's one practical problem with this: other markets (e.g. the EU) need to nationalize or reproduce it too or else the US is getting significant geopolitical leverage.

londons_explore 5y ago
If the US nationalized Amazon, I think you can be pretty sure that other countries would also nationalize their local Amazon divisions (ie. Amazon FR would become property of the french government)
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  Why would they repeat the US's mistakes immediately after watching it blow up on the US? People have agency and the response to a sudden theft by the government for being too successful would be to get the hell out of there as the US is no longer stable. The other subsidiaries wouldn't surrender ownership to a distant bandit government just like all of the other times it happened. Everybody but communists know that Nationalization is a goddamned terrible idea doomed to failure - you can see it by not being in their political platforms at all. Only those with dogmas to consider the action a goal in itself advocate for it.
  - spaceribs 5y ago
    The goal is to democratically own ostensibly public infrastructure, do you have a better way instead of whining about communists?

mellavora 5y ago

We have that in Luxembourg. Problem is finding the site. You have to know it is there.

batch12 5y ago

Why should the federal government steal Amazon? Surely, it is possible for the government to build another service. I will admit that this is a clever way to kill Amazon. I find the idea of a government running my compute infrastructure to be a terrifyingly bad idea and would seek out someone else. Edit: Replaced AWS with Amazon

FridayoLeary 5y ago

>Give them the municipal software infrastructure they need to do so and maintain it as a public good. oof. Amazons actual website is frankly horrible, but i shudder to think how terrible it would be if it was run by the government. I'm cringing at the thought. There would just be an endless stream of news about gross mismanagement, incompetence, wasting taxpayers money ad nuseaum. No. The only thing that could possibly be worse then Amazon in its current format would be if it were run as a government enterprise. And to the whataboutism; "who says Amazon doesn't have those problems etc, it's different. I don't have to be bothered so much by the internal affairs of a private company. A government company otoh, it would just be all over the news.

swiley 5y ago

No. As it is I can still go to other sellers if I want to, if Amazon were nationalized then you might not have any other choice.

whalesalad 5y ago

Every time a business gets this successful someone will inevitably come out of the woodwork and say "the government now needs to own this, there is no other option" - wat?

Black101 5y ago

should they also nationalize their cloud services?

nielsbot 5y ago
sure
- Black101 5y ago
  any data backing that claim?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

jonnycomputer 5y ago

Or broken up. Its AWS and its online retail are each sufficiently large enough to be anti-competitive on their own.

niyikiza 5y ago

Whenever someone suggests that something be nationalized, I ask myself "Why not create a public version of it?". If the answer is "it cannot compete with the private ones", maybe that's why running it privately is necessary.

josefx 5y ago
Just look at how well this works out for every town trying to set up its own broadband when Comcast and others fail to invest. Lawsuits raining down for every possible reason, shared public resources blocked for months, misinformation campaigns to convince people that public broadband is a waste of their money and anyone involved in it should be kicked from their office. Its like competing in a five hundred meter sprint if the winner of the last twenty races had a shotgun. His time sucks, but he doesn't need to actually run as long as nobody else makes it to the finishing line.

Workaccount2 5y ago

Amazon doesn't need to be nationalized, it does need to be broken up though. The dividing lines in the organization are so clear you could practically tap it with a hammer and it will fall apart into nice individual pieces.

aliyfarah 5y ago

Agreed 100%. Should be merged with UPS. I also believe NBA should be nationalised. All teams should be owned by cities and revenues used to fund schools etc