4 ms·

Considering Amazon's revenue of $443 billion (last twelve months), this fine is less than one day's worth of revenue.

ndr 5y ago
The fines are obviously not intended to bankrupt them. Amazon had $7.8 billions in profit this quarter, 10% of that should hurt badly enough to course correct, shouldn't it?
- saddlerustle 5y ago
  It's worse than that. Almost all of Amazon's profit comes from AWS and its US business, but this fine is entirely a cost due to its retail business in the EU. The operating income of Amazon's international retail business in 2020 was just $700m, it makes their entire European business last year overall unprofitable.
  - adwn 5y ago
    > It's worse than that [...] it makes their entire European business last year overall unprofitable How's that a bad thing under the assumption that they behaved in an illegal way? Fines are supposed to hurt, and this fine won't bankrupt Amazon.
    - AnssiH 5y ago
      I believe they meant the fines were worse for Amazon than their parent made it sound, not that the fines itself were a bad thing.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Ever heard of transfer pricing? [Edit] I think I was rightly downvoted for being snarky. I'll try to remember not to snark.
whitepaint 5y ago
Revenue != net profit; how on earth so many people are continuously mistaking it?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
  Not the person you're replying to? They said revenue.
  - mewpmewp2 5y ago
    The person seemed to be implying as if they were making the money back in 1 day otherwise this comparison would be meaningless, as they can have infinite revenue, but 0 profit.
    - thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
      Who's better positioned to pay a fine, an individual contractor who makes $1mil profit in a year or an unspecified company that makes no profit but has a >$1B market cap and high revenues? It feels like the person I replied to first is so eager to assume others don't understand the difference between profit and revenue that they miss the forest for the trees.
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        I think it is unclear because the top level post didn't make a conclusion, just threw out a fact. If the implied conclusion is the fine won't hurt or have an impact because revenue >> the fine, they are missing the relevance of comparing the fine to profit. I'm not sure what other conclusion they would want people to take from the fact presented
  - triactual 5y ago
    They said revenue but they don’t understand what it means. Only a few percent of that revenue is actually profit - perhaps there is no profit depending on the market. It’s an especially tiresome thing to point out since probably more than half of HN readers are paid a salary out of these kind of revenue figures.
tpmx 5y ago
Luxembourg's government revenue is approx $33 billion. This fine is about 10 days worth of Luxembourg government revenue.
- 55555 5y ago
  Holy crap, what do they even do with that money? I'd love to read more about this. They have 615,000 people living there, meaning they get 55,000 USD in gov revenue per person. For comparison, the US gov got ~8,750 USD in rev per head in 2019.
  - the_duke 5y ago
    Does that figure combine all federal AND state taxes? That seems pretty low.
    - 55555 5y ago
      I assume it was federal only. My bad.
  - jsnell 5y ago
    What matters isn't really the government revenue but the government spending. The discrepancy is a lot smaller for the latter metric. In 2020, the US government collected 10.5k/person but spent 20k/person.
  - Anthony-G 5y ago
    > Holy crap, what do they even do with that money? Free public transport for one.¹ I holidayed there a couple of years ago before they made it free and even then, it was still heavily subsidised. It cost only €4 for a ticket that covered bus, tram or train to anywhere in the country for that day. Even in rural areas, buses were travelling every half hour from early morning until late evening. It was great for long hikes (or kayak trips) and returning by bus. I loved the freedom of it all. 1. https://luxembourg.public.lu/en/living/mobility/public-transport.html https://luxembourg.public.lu/en/living/mobility/public-trans...

ndr 5y ago

The fines are obviously not intended to bankrupt them. Amazon had $7.8 billions in profit this quarter, 10% of that should hurt badly enough to course correct, shouldn't it?

saddlerustle 5y ago
It's worse than that. Almost all of Amazon's profit comes from AWS and its US business, but this fine is entirely a cost due to its retail business in the EU. The operating income of Amazon's international retail business in 2020 was just $700m, it makes their entire European business last year overall unprofitable.
- adwn 5y ago
  > It's worse than that [...] it makes their entire European business last year overall unprofitable How's that a bad thing under the assumption that they behaved in an illegal way? Fines are supposed to hurt, and this fine won't bankrupt Amazon.
  - AnssiH 5y ago
    I believe they meant the fines were worse for Amazon than their parent made it sound, not that the fines itself were a bad thing.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  Ever heard of transfer pricing? [Edit] I think I was rightly downvoted for being snarky. I'll try to remember not to snark.

whitepaint 5y ago

Revenue != net profit; how on earth so many people are continuously mistaking it?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
Not the person you're replying to? They said revenue.
- mewpmewp2 5y ago
  The person seemed to be implying as if they were making the money back in 1 day otherwise this comparison would be meaningless, as they can have infinite revenue, but 0 profit.
  - thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
    Who's better positioned to pay a fine, an individual contractor who makes $1mil profit in a year or an unspecified company that makes no profit but has a >$1B market cap and high revenues? It feels like the person I replied to first is so eager to assume others don't understand the difference between profit and revenue that they miss the forest for the trees.
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      I think it is unclear because the top level post didn't make a conclusion, just threw out a fact. If the implied conclusion is the fine won't hurt or have an impact because revenue >> the fine, they are missing the relevance of comparing the fine to profit. I'm not sure what other conclusion they would want people to take from the fact presented
- triactual 5y ago
  They said revenue but they don’t understand what it means. Only a few percent of that revenue is actually profit - perhaps there is no profit depending on the market. It’s an especially tiresome thing to point out since probably more than half of HN readers are paid a salary out of these kind of revenue figures.

tpmx 5y ago

Luxembourg's government revenue is approx $33 billion. This fine is about 10 days worth of Luxembourg government revenue.

55555 5y ago
Holy crap, what do they even do with that money? I'd love to read more about this. They have 615,000 people living there, meaning they get 55,000 USD in gov revenue per person. For comparison, the US gov got ~8,750 USD in rev per head in 2019.
- the_duke 5y ago
  Does that figure combine all federal AND state taxes? That seems pretty low.
  - 55555 5y ago
    I assume it was federal only. My bad.
- jsnell 5y ago
  What matters isn't really the government revenue but the government spending. The discrepancy is a lot smaller for the latter metric. In 2020, the US government collected 10.5k/person but spent 20k/person.
- Anthony-G 5y ago
  > Holy crap, what do they even do with that money? Free public transport for one.¹ I holidayed there a couple of years ago before they made it free and even then, it was still heavily subsidised. It cost only €4 for a ticket that covered bus, tram or train to anywhere in the country for that day. Even in rural areas, buses were travelling every half hour from early morning until late evening. It was great for long hikes (or kayak trips) and returning by bus. I loved the freedom of it all. 1. https://luxembourg.public.lu/en/living/mobility/public-transport.html https://luxembourg.public.lu/en/living/mobility/public-trans...