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But is that a good long-term strategy to make money? After being bitten by crap products (one of which literally broke in 5 minutes), I don't buy electronics i

But is that a good long-term strategy to make money? After being bitten by crap products (one of which literally broke in 5 minutes), I don't buy electronics in Amazon anymore. They would get more money from me if they hadn't turned into a flea market of bad products.

p-e-w 4y ago
Amazon is making more money than the entire economy of most countries. Their long term plan, like other tech giants, will be to become a sovereign entity. In some ways, they already are. Then they can effectively outlaw the competition, so outcompeting them won't matter anymore.
- ciphol 4y ago
  You can't become a sovereign entity without territory on which you can enforce your norms. Amazon doesn't and (for the foreseeable future) won't have sovereign territory.
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    >without territory on which you can enforce your norms They seem to be doing pretty well at enforcing their norms in the good ole United States of Amazon.
    - para_parolu 4y ago
      What is United States of Amazon?
  - fmajid 4y ago
    You don't need territory, the Sovereign Order of Malta doesn't have any either. If you are in a locale where you can use the legal system to forestall any action against you, it's pretty much the same thing.
flandish 4y ago
“Long term” is not a problem when one makes so much profit in so little time and controls so much market/labor share that they are a tacit monopoly. Bezos’s primary goal is Bezos. Amazon’s is “shareholders”. Meteoric rise in profit is great and a hedge against “long term”/eventual downfall is easily done when that rise is part of an industry so dependent on amazon’s existence. IE: before amazon “falls” there will be a lot of “community loses x thousand jobs if we don't keep amazon her discussion to serve as the hedge.
chengiz 4y ago
In the long term everyone is dead. If the term is long enough to drive competitors out, corner the market, make tons of money for stakeholders, that's good enough. It's kinda the opposite of "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent".
taskforcegemini 4y ago
do you get your money back if you send it back? (it is the case where I live, but I think it is not mandatory everywhere) if enough people send it back, the costs for amazon might get high enough to take care of the problem. although I am guilty of not sending back defective 5€ to 10€ items as the hassle was not worth the time at that moment
- Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
  Same here, time is a very scarce resource for me, so I confess that if the item is cheap I don't bother to send it back because I consider the time it takes to be more valuable than the refund.

p-e-w 4y ago

Amazon is making more money than the entire economy of most countries. Their long term plan, like other tech giants, will be to become a sovereign entity. In some ways, they already are. Then they can effectively outlaw the competition, so outcompeting them won't matter anymore.

ciphol 4y ago
You can't become a sovereign entity without territory on which you can enforce your norms. Amazon doesn't and (for the foreseeable future) won't have sovereign territory.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  >without territory on which you can enforce your norms They seem to be doing pretty well at enforcing their norms in the good ole United States of Amazon.
  - para_parolu 4y ago
    What is United States of Amazon?
- fmajid 4y ago
  You don't need territory, the Sovereign Order of Malta doesn't have any either. If you are in a locale where you can use the legal system to forestall any action against you, it's pretty much the same thing.

flandish 4y ago

“Long term” is not a problem when one makes so much profit in so little time and controls so much market/labor share that they are a tacit monopoly. Bezos’s primary goal is Bezos. Amazon’s is “shareholders”. Meteoric rise in profit is great and a hedge against “long term”/eventual downfall is easily done when that rise is part of an industry so dependent on amazon’s existence. IE: before amazon “falls” there will be a lot of “community loses x thousand jobs if we don't keep amazon her discussion to serve as the hedge.

chengiz 4y ago

In the long term everyone is dead. If the term is long enough to drive competitors out, corner the market, make tons of money for stakeholders, that's good enough. It's kinda the opposite of "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent".

taskforcegemini 4y ago

do you get your money back if you send it back? (it is the case where I live, but I think it is not mandatory everywhere) if enough people send it back, the costs for amazon might get high enough to take care of the problem. although I am guilty of not sending back defective 5€ to 10€ items as the hassle was not worth the time at that moment

Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
Same here, time is a very scarce resource for me, so I confess that if the item is cheap I don't bother to send it back because I consider the time it takes to be more valuable than the refund.