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Upvoted, but I disagree that it's backfiring. Backfiring would imply things are changing or getting worse for them. And I'm certain that we're not at "peak Ama

Upvoted, but I disagree that it's backfiring. Backfiring would imply things are changing or getting worse for them. And I'm certain that we're not at "peak Amazon." Worse, Americans especially are becoming numb to top down abuses. Not only am I worrying that this is not backfiring, but I'm also worried about the precedent we're setting by being so tolerant to it.

sharklazer 5y ago
“Money talks and BS walks” Consumers may not be fed up with Amazon, but if this is SOP then the sellers WILL leave and a competitor with better SOP will come in. Getting f’ed in the arse as a consumer is one thing. Getting f’ed in the arse by Jeffy B as a business is another. It is trust which makes this world go ‘round.
- an_opabinia 5y ago
  If sellers want their sales information to be private, they should make a compelling retail experience they control. That is where they obtain real competitive advantage. Changing from Amazon to another online retailer - that retailer will still analyze third party sales data. It still isn’t clear if it matters. You have little perspective or experience on selling easily cloned $10-100 items (Amazon Basics) anywhere. Most of the margin is made at the point of manufacturing, by taking $1 overseas labor and selling it for $5. AmazonBasics and the other product are both made by the same labor, the same process, so the economics of what’s really going on are still in equilibrium. But I understand (though not really sympathize with) the aspiring middleman trying to buy that $5 product and sell on Amazon being mad about doing, essentially, product discovery for Amazon. On the other hand nobody is forcing them to be middlemen. You don’t have to launder cheap overseas labor at all. If the EU commission focused on the economics that mattered - the labor arb - the impact will be as large as you’re anticipating. It’s my opinion that the injustice of the offshore labor system is of far greater importance than some bullshit Amazon versus Some Aspiring EU Tech Company battle.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    The issues with Amazon go further than this : https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/lawsuit-amazon-sold-eclipse-glasses-that-cause-permanent-blindness/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/lawsuit-amazon-s... IMHO these websites should be disallowed to sell their own brands. (I wouldn't mind if physical retailers wouldn't be allowed to sell their own brands either.)
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Great argument, could be used to rebut anything: If someone wants their mobile phone data and photos to be private, they should make a compelling mobile os they control. If someone wants a water supply that is not polluted with toxic runoff they should start their own waterworks, lay their own pipes, and potentially buy their own lake because some pollution is unremovable. If someone wants not to be discriminated against they should start their own country.
    - unishark 5y ago
      Meanwhile your reduction tactic can be used to claim entitlement to anything. You have to give me whatever I want or modify your behavior in whatever ways I insist upon, because the only alternative for me to get my demands met is by creating the product from scratch and/or starting my own country, which is of course absurd.
      - optimiz3 5y ago
        > starting my own country Technically this worked pretty well when we had unexplored continents. If Elon has his way, maybe we'll soon-ish have Mars.
  - salawat 5y ago
    Mmmm. Nice logic there. Examine the following and see if you can detect where things get... off. >Ya know what? I'm gonna make a thing that lets third party sellers sell their products and avail themselves of my burgeoning logistics network! It'll be so cash. I'll charge 'em pennies, they get to sell to a wide audience, I get use out of my logistics network, win-win. Sounds like the start of some good ole fashion enterprise right? >Hey, now that I got everyone on here, and since I'vegot all this seller data just lying around, we should do something with it. Charts, graphs, the whole shebang. Can charge extra or piecemeal to help people do more business, thereby enabling them to get more regular product flow, possibly even getting them to sign up and pay me for use of my logistics network to cache their stuff. I can turn around and offer supply reliability to end consumers, I can offer revenue stability and insight into invemtory profitability for my merchants, and I'm still making bank off my logistics network! Win-win-win for everyone around. Still good, right? >Hey, we got all this sales data laying around right? Why don't we aggregate it to see what's moving in the market overall so we can diversify into becoming a merchant competing in our own marketplace without any of the risk anyone else has to take because we have the ability to front-run commodity movement using info no one else has available to them at that level of abstraction oroverall visibility. Oh... Also, don't say 'Front-Run' because it'llmake the compliance and legal people upset, but it's totally what we're doing. Bonus point: with our scale, if we do find a winner, we can get in at rock bottom deals from the manufacturer, meaning we can ectract the value potential better than anyone else out there.. Sure, some of the merchants may lose out, but it's our platform, and their data is on our stuff right? Admin's priveleges. Besides, it isn't their sales data, we can just generate some anonymized non-vendor specifiic metadata to search using the web services we implement! Then it's our data not theirs!* If you don't see where one of those three starts getting anti-competitive and abusive, you are waaaaaay too far down the slippery slope of the monopolist slip-n-slide. The last one may be somewhat ham-fisted, but it's not far from some of the more... Fraught... conversations on the virtues and prickly points of business models with coworkers in the break room. I assure you it does happen. Check out the GooglePay and ApplePay branding guides for similar examples of things that you read that make you go "Huh, is that why that's confidential? Because it tells you to do anti-competitiive things?" Good luck finding a copy of course. You'll just need to find a poorly packed truck or something.

sharklazer 5y ago

“Money talks and BS walks” Consumers may not be fed up with Amazon, but if this is SOP then the sellers WILL leave and a competitor with better SOP will come in. Getting f’ed in the arse as a consumer is one thing. Getting f’ed in the arse by Jeffy B as a business is another. It is trust which makes this world go ‘round.

an_opabinia 5y ago
If sellers want their sales information to be private, they should make a compelling retail experience they control. That is where they obtain real competitive advantage. Changing from Amazon to another online retailer - that retailer will still analyze third party sales data. It still isn’t clear if it matters. You have little perspective or experience on selling easily cloned $10-100 items (Amazon Basics) anywhere. Most of the margin is made at the point of manufacturing, by taking $1 overseas labor and selling it for $5. AmazonBasics and the other product are both made by the same labor, the same process, so the economics of what’s really going on are still in equilibrium. But I understand (though not really sympathize with) the aspiring middleman trying to buy that $5 product and sell on Amazon being mad about doing, essentially, product discovery for Amazon. On the other hand nobody is forcing them to be middlemen. You don’t have to launder cheap overseas labor at all. If the EU commission focused on the economics that mattered - the labor arb - the impact will be as large as you’re anticipating. It’s my opinion that the injustice of the offshore labor system is of far greater importance than some bullshit Amazon versus Some Aspiring EU Tech Company battle.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  The issues with Amazon go further than this : https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/lawsuit-amazon-sold-eclipse-glasses-that-cause-permanent-blindness/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/lawsuit-amazon-s... IMHO these websites should be disallowed to sell their own brands. (I wouldn't mind if physical retailers wouldn't be allowed to sell their own brands either.)
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Great argument, could be used to rebut anything: If someone wants their mobile phone data and photos to be private, they should make a compelling mobile os they control. If someone wants a water supply that is not polluted with toxic runoff they should start their own waterworks, lay their own pipes, and potentially buy their own lake because some pollution is unremovable. If someone wants not to be discriminated against they should start their own country.
  - unishark 5y ago
    Meanwhile your reduction tactic can be used to claim entitlement to anything. You have to give me whatever I want or modify your behavior in whatever ways I insist upon, because the only alternative for me to get my demands met is by creating the product from scratch and/or starting my own country, which is of course absurd.
    - optimiz3 5y ago
      > starting my own country Technically this worked pretty well when we had unexplored continents. If Elon has his way, maybe we'll soon-ish have Mars.
- salawat 5y ago
  Mmmm. Nice logic there. Examine the following and see if you can detect where things get... off. >Ya know what? I'm gonna make a thing that lets third party sellers sell their products and avail themselves of my burgeoning logistics network! It'll be so cash. I'll charge 'em pennies, they get to sell to a wide audience, I get use out of my logistics network, win-win. Sounds like the start of some good ole fashion enterprise right? >Hey, now that I got everyone on here, and since I'vegot all this seller data just lying around, we should do something with it. Charts, graphs, the whole shebang. Can charge extra or piecemeal to help people do more business, thereby enabling them to get more regular product flow, possibly even getting them to sign up and pay me for use of my logistics network to cache their stuff. I can turn around and offer supply reliability to end consumers, I can offer revenue stability and insight into invemtory profitability for my merchants, and I'm still making bank off my logistics network! Win-win-win for everyone around. Still good, right? >Hey, we got all this sales data laying around right? Why don't we aggregate it to see what's moving in the market overall so we can diversify into becoming a merchant competing in our own marketplace without any of the risk anyone else has to take because we have the ability to front-run commodity movement using info no one else has available to them at that level of abstraction oroverall visibility. Oh... Also, don't say 'Front-Run' because it'llmake the compliance and legal people upset, but it's totally what we're doing. Bonus point: with our scale, if we do find a winner, we can get in at rock bottom deals from the manufacturer, meaning we can ectract the value potential better than anyone else out there.. Sure, some of the merchants may lose out, but it's our platform, and their data is on our stuff right? Admin's priveleges. Besides, it isn't their sales data, we can just generate some anonymized non-vendor specifiic metadata to search using the web services we implement! Then it's our data not theirs!* If you don't see where one of those three starts getting anti-competitive and abusive, you are waaaaaay too far down the slippery slope of the monopolist slip-n-slide. The last one may be somewhat ham-fisted, but it's not far from some of the more... Fraught... conversations on the virtues and prickly points of business models with coworkers in the break room. I assure you it does happen. Check out the GooglePay and ApplePay branding guides for similar examples of things that you read that make you go "Huh, is that why that's confidential? Because it tells you to do anti-competitiive things?" Good luck finding a copy of course. You'll just need to find a poorly packed truck or something.