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The Amazon Empire Strikes Back
- einpoklum 5y agoIt's already been a few years since I heard that adage: If you don't think Amazon is threatening your industry, this is only because you haven't checked up on what they're doing lately.
- fearthetelomere 5y agoMost people I talk to don't know AWS has a managed blockchain product, quantum computing service, or an analytics suite for financial analysts and traders. They seem to have their fingers in every pie, and people don't seem to really notice or care until it's already big or too late.
- codeulike 5y agoSome of those are just 'us too!' offerings rather than serious attempts. Like wtf would anyone use a managed blockchain for anyway? But yeah Amazon are big and dangerous in general, both to commerce and society, I'll give you that. Twenty years ago I trusted them above any other online retailer, those were the days when people still felt iffy about typing their card details into a web page. But these days Amazon is full of bullshit 5-star reviews for cookie cutter chinese consumer tech, twelve different manufacturer names and the items are variations of the same two or three models, probably from the same factory ... and then it arrives and is crap quality and badly translated instructions. And all the dark patterns to try and trick me to sign up to goddam prime. Had enough of this predatory bs.
- dannyw 5y agoIt's like Infura, an API for querying blockchains. It is useful. It's not a "me too". Something like 1/4 of all Ethereum requests run on AWS.
- makeitdouble 5y agoTBF the only people who could do anything about that are gov. regulators. Imagining a financial analytics company, I wonder what they could preemptively do in expectation of Amazon’s rise in their activity sector.
- hoppyhoppy2 5y agoRelated discussion about the original Amazon supply-chain article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29450420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29450420
- jjtheblunt 5y agoDid I read correctly that 53 foot shipping containers cost about $2000 before 2020? That seems a huge amount of steel.
- gostsamo 5y agoNo, the 20/40 feet containers were costing that. Amazon are creating a new category of containers to match their trucks.
- virtuallynathan 5y agoI’m not sure where he got the idea that these don’t exist… I see them all the time: https://containertech.com/container-sales/53ft-high-cube-storage-container https://containertech.com/container-sales/53ft-high-cube-sto...
- gostsamo 5y ago> Unlike 20ft and 40ft shipping containers | storage containers, 53ft shipping containers | storage containers are not utilized for international shipping.
- AlgorithmicTime 5y agoYep. I once had a whole bunch of stainless steel tanks fabbed in China, loaded into a container, and shipped to us on the East Coast. Shipping was ~2.5k for this giant container.
- jjtheblunt 5y agothat seems amazingly cheap. wow
- wongarsu 5y agoQuick googling would suggest that steel used be be ~$550/tonne pre-pandemic. An empty 20' container weights 2.3 tonnes, a 40' container 3.9 tonnes. So raw steel cost would be $1300 for a 20' container and $2100 for a 40' container (completely ignoring that I might be looking at the wrong grade of steel, or other ingredients like the antifouling paint).
- JKCalhoun 5y agoIt reminds me of the strategy A&P used 100 years ago to dominate the grocery business. But Amazon is taking it further, now owning the means to transport their goods as well. It was a bit of a head-scratcher watching the Amazon trucks on the streets of the city slowly replace the UPS/Fed-Ex trucks that use to carry their ubiquitous boxes. I wondered what the other carriers thought about that move.... Seems that was only the opening salvo. When they also own the container ships and factories in China are other retailers going to disappear — leaving as alternatives only antique stores, used book stores and craft festivals?
- hef19898 5y agoCompanies owning their transport assets was the norm for a long time. Until they figured out that subcobtracting that two dedicated carriers, in Amazons case FedEx or DHL among others, was better. Read morw profitable. Amazon simply reached a point where they would have had to co invest woth their carriers. So investing in oen assets made a lot more sense. And Amazon has the scale, and means to control their sypply chain, to maximize utilization of their transpirt assets. Worth noting so, that Amazon is using a lot of third party drivers, same as DHL and others are doing.
- deepsun 5y agoI remember Supreme Court ruled that FedEx must employ all their delivery drivers (they were all contractors before). How are Amazon delivery drivers better?
- bluedino 5y agoWalmart comes in, forces hundreds of other stores out of business, decimates mom and pop businesses, creates a massive workforce of underpaid employees, and then Amazon comes in, does the exact same thing, except 'online', and then starts getting into every other business they can think of, and the US Government (and people) just sit there and watch?
- josephd79 5y agoYou forgot Microsoft, but at least they eventually tried with them. oh and google too. I'm 100% agreeing with you though.
- hammock 5y agoWhat did the federal government do to impede Walmart?
- jmeister 5y agoConsumers love Amazon. Everybody loves Amazon. “A new survey says Americans have more confidence in Amazon than they do the government or the press.” https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/25/18022956/amazon-trust-survey-american-institutions-ranked-georgetown https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/25/18022956/amazon-tru...
- wongarsu 5y agoFor the most part, Amazon does what they say they do. Sure, they have their problems with fraud, counterfeits and reviews, but at least they don't start a marketing campaign "we have the most honest reviews of all web shops". That doesn't necessarily mean everyone loves them, being trustworthy is only one aspect of likability. You can like the results and communication without approving of the means.
- snowwrestler 5y agoThe missing link here is that the U.S. government policymaking process is very much tied to citizen sentiment. Politicians who attack popular things can find themselves out of power. As long as most people are OK with Amazon, there will not be much public demand for government to make new policy to constrain them. Policymaking is the key process because it’s not illegal in the U.S. to outcompete other companies, regardless of how big or small they are.
- chiefalchemist 5y ago> The intended takeaway of this article — which originated as a digital special report — is clear: Amazon is better and smarter and richer than any other retailers, and isn’t suffering the same sort of supply chain challenges that everyone else is this Christmas. And it's only going to get more better, more smarter, and more richer. And so on.
- hef19898 5y agoIt started, and is based on, better and smarter. Richet is just a function of that. Heck, sometimes less stupid and less bad is enough.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- api 5y agoSo Amazon is becoming the CHOAM Company from Dune?
- mherdeg 5y agoA couple decades ago the version of this was -- "Someday you will drive your Sony to the sony to pick up some more Sony" ( https://everything2.com/title/Someday+you+will+drive+your+Sony+to+the+sony+to+pick+up+some+more+Sony https://everything2.com/title/Someday+you+will+drive+your+So... ).
- api 5y agoYeah the consolidation vs de-consolidation a.k.a. bundling vs unbundling pendulum appears to be a cycle in the economy. At the height of each cycle there's a sense that it's permanent. I remember in the late 1990s to early 2000s everyone was saying large conglomerates were dead.
- lifeisstillgood 5y agoThere is a clear de-marcation line between the retailer part and the ... global post-office (?) part that I would be amazed if the whole thing is not broken in two pretty soon.. I mean its a perfect target, gives political kudos and will barely affect the end result.
- dannyw 5y agoWashington Post is Bezo's insurance policy against antitrust.
- b112 5y agoThis is the second amazon. paid cnbc article today.
- jollybean 5y agoAmazon was a founder-driven company since inception which means he had the opportunity to turn things upside down, demand accountability, competence, shut down divisions etc.. Regular CEO's have no such power, they are political beings who manage the gears already in place, placate unions, investors, their own executives etc.. It will be really interesting to see how long they continue with dynamic innovation after Bezos. Some companies do keep it up, Apple has being doing reasonably well without jobs, Walmart was able to continue to expand a long a vector for a long time.
- jrochkind1 5y agoThe original article that this one discusses, was discussed extensively yesterday on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29450420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29450420 (I don't think anyone there pointed out that 53 feet is not a container that can go on a container ship! But people were very suspicious of the original reporting along similar lines to the OP here)
- ZetaZero 5y agoBut it can go on container ships. And Amazon, running their own ships, could make it happen more than any other company. That said, the article probably confuses the land-based usage by Amazon. https://www.gatewaycontainersales.com.au/all-about-53ft-containers/ https://www.gatewaycontainersales.com.au/all-about-53ft-cont... However in 2007, the container shipping line APL started using 53ft containers for the Asia Pacific route between China and the US. These were built to handle the same conditions as their 40ft equivalents, and if converting them you can expect the same long life as you would the 40ft containers used today. Unlike the 40ft equivalents there aren’t that many sitting about, as in 2013 APL stopped taking the 53ft containers.
- jrochkind1 5y agoThis is good feedback on the stratechery article we're discussing here, which makes the 53-foot point. However, your quote seems to suggest they are _not_ currently used on ships? It says APL used 53-foot containers between 2007 and 2013, no? But sure, Amazon could be creating their own custom ship configurations, as the OP points out too, OP just said standard container ships and infrastructure for loading/unloading and dealing with them (and standardization is of course the point of containers) aren't set up to take 53-foot containers.
- baybal2 5y agoI fail to understand what's so "revolutionary" in "buying cheap stuff from China for resale online," and being more cost conscious than others at that? Most 3rd party merchants on Amazon still ship by regular post, generously subsidised by US taxpayers. Some of them ship by Sunyou. Sunyou just airships everything to US, and then sends by bulk post at commercial rates from there. The few merchants using "fulfilment by Amazon" still have to get their stuff to USA on their own. Global supply chain service is only available to sellers selling to Amazon itself. That Stratechery guy barely understands about what he is writing about.
- rish1_2 5y agohealthy competition breeds innovation but an oligopoly decimates both sides of the supply and demand curve of a market. We're trying to determine if amazon has crossed that line. It is much more political then it is made out to be and concept of fairness only gets enforced when there is enough agitation in the masses in a democracy. In other words, amazon is not going anywhere any time soon.
- cblconfederate 5y agoAt this point we should be considering Amazon et al as a new kind of States that supercede the existing national states, with the latter increasingly weakening to the point of becoming completely absorbed. I 'm surprised there isn't yet a global giant Security corp that will replace armies, the last function that states still have a monopoly on.
- lolive 5y agoYou played the Cyberpunk RPG in the past, didn't you?
- AtlasBarfed 5y agoExtranational MegaCorps aren't a new idea in SciFi, heck Star Frontiers in the 80s had them, and I'm sure that was ripped off from Traveller, and the Alien movie of course had the bigbad corporation.
- cblconfederate 5y agono, what about it?
- k8sToGo 5y agoBecause in that game society is "owned" by mega corps that exceed national states, like you described.
- cblconfederate 5y agooh well, that's a game we live in, every day
- hericium 5y agoSo... something like Second Life?
- callahad 5y agoThe progression from international to multinational to transnational corporations is also a prominent theme in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy.
- hourislate 5y ago>For years, Amazon has been quietly chartering private cargo ships, making its own containers, and leasing planes to better control the complicated shipping journey of an online order. Now, as many retailers panic over supply chain chaos, Amazon’s costly early moves are helping it avoid the long wait times I hate to break it to everyone but Walmart has had it's own ships for the last 12-15 years. It was the only way they could guarantee timely delivery and stable costs, even when things were normal. For some reason the media thinks Amazon is doing something innovative? There is nothing innovative about charting your own ships and buying your own containers. Now selling stuff at a loss for over a decade and a half to hook the public and then raise prices quietly to where it's less expensive to buy from brick and mortar is the real innovation. Who would have thought a company could do that for 15 + years.
- 52bYofVKL8Pp3bW 5y agoYes, even Target does this. > ...as the second largest U.S. importer, we’ll continue to partner with our vendors to tackle supply chain challenges together this season and beyond to ensure we can deliver for our guests. We also chartered our own container ship to regularly bring Target merchandise from overseas ports to the U.S. As co-managers of the ship, we can avoid delays from additional stops and steer clear of particularly backed-up ports. https://corporate.target.com/article/2021/09/supply-chain-prep https://corporate.target.com/article/2021/09/supply-chain-pr...
- makeitdouble 5y agoThe last part on App Tracking Transparency flies over my head > This very much applies to Facebook’s ad ecosystem, where disparate e-commerce sellers effectively pool all of their conversion data in one place — Facebook — such that they all benefit from better targeting. It’s not like Amazon has a strong app presence, and all the push they do on black friday and other events to make more users go through their app makes me think it’s a big dnough problem for them to throw real money at it. In that respect, ad targeting being limited inside apps doesn’t seem like a big deal…am I missing something ?
- prionassembly 5y agoAmazon internalizes both the supply and demand of their behavioral data, rather than relying on external vendors. Apple transparency, GDPR, etc. are manhole covers coming from the sky on data vendors.
- makeitdouble 5y agoGDPR prevents third party sites from selling data without user consent, but it doesn’t affect much of the ad business on facebook/instagram for instance. I’d see Amazon having a decisive advantage regarding spying on vendors and applying that to Amazon Basics products (stuff they’re already under investigation) but it would that less a matter of Apple Transparency or user privacy and more sheer industrial espionage.
- ZetaZero 5y agobut there is one number that does not exist — 53 foot containers. https://www.gatewaycontainersales.com.au/all-about-53ft-containers/ https://www.gatewaycontainersales.com.au/all-about-53ft-cont...
- mediaman 5y agoThis misses the point. Of course it is possible to build 53’ containers; you cannot ship them on conventional large trans-ocean container ships. The article you link makes this point specifically, and the company is offering containers for use as shelters.
- slavoingilizov 5y agoYou should really read the article. Ben is arguing that 53 foot containers exist, but not for ocean shipping, only land. The link you've posted says the same. "The USA and Canada, however, have been using 53ft long containers for road and rail transport since 1989"
- whoknew1122 5y agoThe title is pointlessly click-baity. What precisely is Amazon striking back at? After reading the article 3 times, it seems like a large business is solving a business and logistics problem with vertical integration. What is Amazon striking at? The nebulous concept of logistics?
- akamaka 5y agoIt refers to Shopify’s “arming the rebels” slogan.
- dmalik 5y agoFor reference - https://financialpost.com/technology/shopifys-tobias-lutke https://financialpost.com/technology/shopifys-tobias-lutke
- baybal2 5y agoSince Apple started using it a decade plus ago, it became popular with businesses hiring an army of PR contractors to sneakily place articles like how amazing they are, "leaks," "insider revelations" into the mainstream press, writing about themselves from 3rd person.
- gumby 5y agoSurprisingly (for its author) this analysis misses the most remarkable part of the story. Amazon isn’t getting snarled at Long Beach (I saw some ships moored off Catalina Island the other day, which is incredible) because they aren’t shipping to Long Beach. Instead they are shipping to the Washington and even Texas. Why isn’t everybody else? Because of the rest of Long Beach’s logistics. While Amazon has its own fleet of trucks so just takes away its cargo itself, right away. Apparently they even build their own containers in China, ship them to the States full of cargo, and don’t even bother to ship them back, instead just using them domestically.
- lwneal 5y agoAmazon does build their own containers, but the article states that these 53-foot containers "are not and can not be used for shipping", implying that they are shipped empty and only used for domestic trucking. Presumably this is because they cannot be stacked as high and they do not match the standardized 40-foot size used at large ports. On the other hand, [1] suggests that newer 53-foot containers may be suitable for ocean shipping. Is it possible that Amazon is moving 53-foot containers to alternative ports in Washington and Texas, because those ports support the 53-foot standard? It would be interesting to know how difficult it is for a port to switch between different container sizes. Do ships need to be refitted? Are new cranes required? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_container#Non-standard_and_uncommon_sizes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_container#Non-stand...
- gumby 5y agoHe’s incorrect in fact, though perhaps not in practice. A decade ago my (then) company shipped some stuff in 53-foot containers, as well as some “high top” containers. You could get them as easily as any other container but they were more expensive and not everybody could handle them. You do see them every day on the freeways in the US if you know what to look for. Amazon is building standard 40’ containers and shipping them across the pacific full of goods. Note that pallet standards vary by country and industry which affects the efficiency of your container choice. My current company is trying to stay within TEU and other envelopes that are extremely common. For our (small) scale nothing else is worth it.
- belval 5y agoFrom the investor call last quarter, Amazon made it very clear that they were sacrificing their profits this quarter to make sure that the customers wouldn't see the supply chain issues. This is part of why their stock tanked so badly the day after. We'll see if the strategy pays off.
- CreateAccntAgn 5y agoWonder how China feels about Amazon growing as a vital link to markets globally or atleast to the US.