8 ms·

so the consumer loses here

by option 5y ago

hulitu 5y ago
No, amazon loses here. They cannot dump the market with prime anymore.
makeitdouble 5y ago
Depends on what you mean by that, but if it's about getting lower prices, the consumer probably "lost" more than a decade ago. I don't have an opinion on how freshly published best-sellers should be sold, to me it's the same as new movies going into theaters...I personally don't care and will wait for the home/digital version. It's not like it will rot in place. Amazon can still lower price on old books if they really want to. All in all it's about dirty plays between (big) dirty players, and regulators are mostly running around closing loopholes.
manmal 5y ago
I wonder whether the customer really wins, if, eventually, one or two companies control handle all book sales. Global vs local optimum situation.
flexie 5y ago
No, Jeff Bezos loses. Everyone else wins. Yes, the consumer pays more for a book but he also lives in an economy with better paid jobs, free healthcare, free education, and more competing bookstores. Amazon's low costs is only possible because they externalize their costs to society.
- csee 5y ago
  No, Amazon's low costs are because of scale economies and physical network effects. Exxon's low costs are because they externalize the costs to society. Let's be accurate. They may have some externalities but it's not a big part of their business. Also price fixing the books doesn't imply better paid anything, there's no large causal connection there. Overall this is a win for pirates, inefficient booksellers and Amazon's margins. The anti-dumping perspective is a farfetched narrative given it isn't actual dumping, it's just very low margin selling, and moreover bookselling isn't a natural monopoly and has low barriers to entry so dumping incentives don't really exist.
  - unity1001 5y ago
    Amazon also pays its workers dimes and lets the social programs make up for it - like how workers in US use foodstamps etc. There is more than one way to dump the cost onto the society.
    - missedthecue 5y ago
      It's not actually possible to work at Amazon and qualify for food stamps, unless you are a single parent with multiple children. Amazon simply pays too much.
    - csee 5y ago
      For this argument to make sense, you would first have to show that in the absence of Amazon, low-skilled labor on aggregate (including the people currently working there) would be making more than they currently are making. If it turns out that they would be making less, then it's not a coherent argument because it means that Amazon's presence has caused welfare costs to go down. An example. Suppose someone is working at the best job they could find for $8/hour, and I decide to hire them for $15/hour. Am I "dumping the cost onto society"? Maybe you could frame it that way, but in reality my contribution has been to reduce the burden on society by $7/hour.
  - flexie 5y ago
    When you pay workers less than what they need to survive, you externalize the wage to society. When you use temps in stead of real employees, you externalize their healthcare etc. as well. When you sell books in Europe, but you don't pay taxes like European bookstores, you externalize that as well. When you use predatory pricing for more than a decade, and it kills off real bookstores, that's an externality as well. When you ship items one by one with trucks and planes, you have a large CO2 footprint. Again an externality. Amazon is not some genius new high-tech business model, winning because they are smarter than everyone else. It's just low wages, predatory pricing, tax avoidance and disregard for the environment.
    - csee 5y ago
- wyoh 5y ago
  There is no such thing as free health care or free education. You pay it through heavy taxation where France is the champion.
  - flexie 5y ago
    European healthcare and education is great, far cheaper than American, and it is indeed free for many of the patients and students.
  - unity1001 5y ago
    Compared to how US private healthcare sucks the blood out of Americans, French healthcare is pretty much 'free'.
    - fmajid 5y ago
      Half of all US healthcare is paid for my the Federal government (Medicare, Medicaid and VA). Since the US spends nearly twice as much as a proportion of GDP and more since US GDP is higher, the Federal share of US health care alone is more than the entire French spending as a proportion of GDP.

so the consumer loses here

by option 5y ago

so the consumer loses here

hulitu 5y ago

No, amazon loses here. They cannot dump the market with prime anymore.

makeitdouble 5y ago

Depends on what you mean by that, but if it's about getting lower prices, the consumer probably "lost" more than a decade ago. I don't have an opinion on how freshly published best-sellers should be sold, to me it's the same as new movies going into theaters...I personally don't care and will wait for the home/digital version. It's not like it will rot in place. Amazon can still lower price on old books if they really want to. All in all it's about dirty plays between (big) dirty players, and regulators are mostly running around closing loopholes.

manmal 5y ago

I wonder whether the customer really wins, if, eventually, one or two companies control handle all book sales. Global vs local optimum situation.

flexie 5y ago

No, Jeff Bezos loses. Everyone else wins. Yes, the consumer pays more for a book but he also lives in an economy with better paid jobs, free healthcare, free education, and more competing bookstores. Amazon's low costs is only possible because they externalize their costs to society.

csee 5y ago
No, Amazon's low costs are because of scale economies and physical network effects. Exxon's low costs are because they externalize the costs to society. Let's be accurate. They may have some externalities but it's not a big part of their business. Also price fixing the books doesn't imply better paid anything, there's no large causal connection there. Overall this is a win for pirates, inefficient booksellers and Amazon's margins. The anti-dumping perspective is a farfetched narrative given it isn't actual dumping, it's just very low margin selling, and moreover bookselling isn't a natural monopoly and has low barriers to entry so dumping incentives don't really exist.
- unity1001 5y ago
  Amazon also pays its workers dimes and lets the social programs make up for it - like how workers in US use foodstamps etc. There is more than one way to dump the cost onto the society.
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    It's not actually possible to work at Amazon and qualify for food stamps, unless you are a single parent with multiple children. Amazon simply pays too much.
  - csee 5y ago
    For this argument to make sense, you would first have to show that in the absence of Amazon, low-skilled labor on aggregate (including the people currently working there) would be making more than they currently are making. If it turns out that they would be making less, then it's not a coherent argument because it means that Amazon's presence has caused welfare costs to go down. An example. Suppose someone is working at the best job they could find for $8/hour, and I decide to hire them for $15/hour. Am I "dumping the cost onto society"? Maybe you could frame it that way, but in reality my contribution has been to reduce the burden on society by $7/hour.
- flexie 5y ago
  When you pay workers less than what they need to survive, you externalize the wage to society. When you use temps in stead of real employees, you externalize their healthcare etc. as well. When you sell books in Europe, but you don't pay taxes like European bookstores, you externalize that as well. When you use predatory pricing for more than a decade, and it kills off real bookstores, that's an externality as well. When you ship items one by one with trucks and planes, you have a large CO2 footprint. Again an externality. Amazon is not some genius new high-tech business model, winning because they are smarter than everyone else. It's just low wages, predatory pricing, tax avoidance and disregard for the environment.
  - csee 5y ago
wyoh 5y ago
There is no such thing as free health care or free education. You pay it through heavy taxation where France is the champion.
- flexie 5y ago
  European healthcare and education is great, far cheaper than American, and it is indeed free for many of the patients and students.
- unity1001 5y ago
  Compared to how US private healthcare sucks the blood out of Americans, French healthcare is pretty much 'free'.
  - fmajid 5y ago
    Half of all US healthcare is paid for my the Federal government (Medicare, Medicaid and VA). Since the US spends nearly twice as much as a proportion of GDP and more since US GDP is higher, the Federal share of US health care alone is more than the entire French spending as a proportion of GDP.