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This misses the point. A breakup would put Prime Video / Music (are those two even allowed to be in the same company? Why? Who decides?) on the same footing as
by runako 4y ago
This misses the point. A breakup would put Prime Video / Music (are those two even allowed to be in the same company? Why? Who decides?) on the same footing as Hulu or Spotify. This would create independent third-tier players in both markets.
The consumer would likely end up paying more (because Prime Video / Music can't be run at zero or negative margins as part of a bundle; ditto for other media options like Spotify). Further, I'm not sure what goal would be served by doing all of this and increasing costs to the consumer.
- vidarh 4y agoSplitting it out as a separate service would not inherently stop Amazon from paying exactly the same amount towards Prime Video as it does today, and would allow the new company to seek additional customers unwilling to pay for the full bundle, so it's not at all a given that prices wouldn't go down. But even assuming that'd not be the case, anti-trust law is in large part aimed at ensuring competitors have fair access to the markets, not minimising costs to consumers. It's presumed that over time the former will ensure the latter and/or improve service, but it's really a separate issue. That said, I don't see a compelling anti-trust case for going after Prime Video anyway - there's plenty of competition in that space. However, there is also another possible cost reduction in forcing unbundling as well for those customers who don't want Prime Video, but want the other benefits. Not at all convinced it'd be worth it. That's not the part of Amazon that's a competitive issue.