5 ms·

Companies as big as Amazon should not be allowed to buy other companies.

by smcleod 4y ago

kekkidy 4y ago
[dead]
dotBen 4y ago
Should companies as big as Google not be allowed to buy startups? That's going to go down well here... /s
- smcleod 4y ago
  I don't think they should be allowed to, they're already too big, too powerful and not regulated enough.
thfuran 4y ago
Companies 10% as big as Amazon probably shouldn't generally be allowed to buy other companies.
- smcleod 4y ago
  Absolutely. Just like we need no billionaires - we need no privately owned, for-profit mega-corps. People need to get out of this very American idea that this aggressive style of capitalistic corporate monopolisation has worked well for the world.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    This makes sense to me based on my reading of how things have fared since 1917.
dnissley 4y ago
I disagree, companies should all have the same rights regardless of their size.
- dsr_ 4y ago
  That's consistent, but what it's consistent with is monopolies.
  - smcleod 4y ago
    Exactly.
- thfuran 4y ago
  A sole proprietorship with no employees has nearly nothing in common with Amazon. Why should they have the same rules?
  - Asdrubalini 4y ago
    Because they are the same thing, a company. Like you and Jeff Bezos are the same thing, a person.
    - thfuran 4y ago
      No, they're the same thing like my hamster and a blue whale are the same thing: an animal.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      Then anything is the same thing. All things are things. Logic doesn’t work.
      - Asdrubalini 4y ago
        Mmh no, a company isn't the same thing as a physical person (seen as a human being, not as a single person business), for example. As such, they are threated differently.
- munificent 4y ago
  Providing equal rights to organizations with wildly different levels of power is not a path to fairness or market efficiency.
James_Henry 4y ago
What exactly about "big" is it that makes you say this? Is it the amount of money they can throw around? Is it the ability to integrate these bought companies in with the rest of their companies? Is it that there aren't enough people at the top of the company?
- swyx 4y ago
  i mean i support you saying that about almost any company to promote more precise discussion but amazon literally employs like 1.5 million people and dominates both internet commerce and cloud computing, there are easier targets to argue that they aren’t “big”
  - radlad 4y ago
    The second largest employee count in the world, behind only Walmart: https://companiesmarketcap.com/largest-companies-by-number-of-employees/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/largest-companies-by-number-o...
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    I think you misunderstand. They are asking why big is bad, not arguing that Amazon isn't big
    - James_Henry 4y ago
      And I'm wondering what aspect of their bigness is causing the badness. Is it profits? revenues? Is it the number of employees? Is it percent of the market share in the business that they are active in? Or is it some measure of their political power?
- ProAm 4y ago
  They capture markets by loss leading, killing competition, at the same time hamstringing their suppliers/sellers with demands that are unreasonable. Only to either raise prices later or default to selling counterfeit goods, or change agreements but the market has been decimated so there is largely only a single place to source or sell goods. Then they take their war chest and do it to another industry. American medical is both extremely profitable and also extremely not profitable depending on where you sit. I do not see Amazon being a good faith participant in this field given their other business lines.
silisili 4y ago
Strongly agreed. There have been plenty of people banned for life for returning too many items, or sometimes just one large item. Fine, no more shopping at Amazon. Now, there goes your healthcare provider(s) too. Google was scary enough with so many digital properties tied together, but now a bohemoth expanding into the 'real' world should give everyone pause.
- somethoughts 4y ago
  Also better keep your AWS accounts current so you can access your doctor and your pharmacy! Also need to make sure your startup employers AWS bill is always current in case your work AWS account is linked to your personal Amazon Prime account behind the scenes somehow.
goostavos 4y ago
Eh.. I'm open to see what happens. I'm currently being ground to a bloody pulp through the US medical machine. It has been one of the most stressful experiences of my life. It can't possibly get worse if Amazon gets its fingers into a small part. If they can squeeze even a few percentage points of improvement out of the process it'd be a huge win in my book. The current system makes one want to give up.
- stainforth 4y ago
  Lol why do you think these moves are about improvement of the process? Like its said they have a fiduciary duty to squeeze profit out of their moves. Improvement of the experience for the customer is at least orthogonal to that.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- femiagbabiaka 4y ago
  It can always get worse. :)
- smcleod 4y ago
  I think it's better to look at what works well in countries other than America - A solid public health system and more regulation on private industry. The improvisation of human health has a long history of negative consequences and it's very hard to go back on.
  - yibg 4y ago
    While I agree, it seems like the probability of this happening in the US any time soon is almost nil. Where as the probability of One Medical making at least some improvement is non zero.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      I don't know. I don't see any good reason to think that on the whole, One Medical will have a positive effect on the health care system. I guess we shall see.
RC_ITR 4y ago
Easy to say until a bunch of small and midsize companies go out of business. From their 2022 filings: * Loss from Operations was $419.7 million, or 40% of Net Revenue; Net Loss was $397.8 million, or 38% of Net Revenue. *2022 Ending Cash and Marketable Securities of $262.4 Million It had less than one year of runway.
- smcleod 4y ago
  This is a bit of a straw man. Companies go out of business for a number of reasons including but not limited to -) The inability to compete with or defend against mega-corps such as Amazon, Google, Facebook etc..., -) Being poorly managed, -) Having a product that people don't want/need. It's actually quite rare that smaller companies go out of business competing with their peers. At the end of the day - what matters more - the success and profits of private companies - or the health and happiness of humans? They're not always diametrically opposed - but they're often not conducive to one another.
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    It’s not a straw man. I understand we’ve have been in low interest rate environments for a long time, but access to capital is no longer free and likely won’t be for a while. Companies now do (and will continue) to go under due to lack of access to capital markets. One Medical is actually probably one of the top examples of that kind of company. It would be very hard for them to issue new shares or raise debt to fund their operations. And to the health and happiness of humans point, a bunch of people losing their primary care doctors is again, one of the top examples of bad social outcomes from a company going out of business.
crazygringo 4y ago
Why? What moral or economic principle determines why one company shouldn't be allowed to buy another, as long as it's not reducing competition (e.g. Amazon buying Barnes and Noble, or Amazon buying Wal-Mart)? If Amazon simply built its own One Medical that grew to the same size, should that similarly be prohibited? And how are you going to determine the dollar value valuation of a company where it's not allowed to buy companies anymore? Because conglomerates -- corporations that have products in lots of different industries -- have been around for a long time. They grow when they think they can generate economies of scale and synergies, which is good for consumers.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > They grow when they think they can generate economies of scale and synergies, which is good for consumers. I've only very rarely seen these sorts of things result in anything good for the general population.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  Socialism, communism, anarchism, some Democratic Socialism, and some progressivism all believe there’s moral and economic principles to not let an Amazon or CVS keep buying up companies. There’s lots of anti-capitalist resources available online. It’s sometimes hard to find them because of the Red Scare and capitalist’s wildly violent suppression winning the Cold War. Cheers!
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    Also, lots of neoliberal and other broadly pro-corporate-capitalist viewpoints outside of the Austrian/Chicago camp; unrestrained corporate monopoly is only seen as not a problem in a very small slice of the economic ideological space.
dangus 4y ago
I agree. I think there should be a size and value threshold where it is determined that your company can reasonably just spend to build using your own R&D for literally anything, and that performing an acquisition at all (whether or not it makes you a monopoly) is harmful for the overall market. Take Apple for example. It bought most of Intel's modem business to build its own product. Does anyone seriously believe that Apple couldn't have built that kind of technology from scratch? How many modem businesses could they build before running out of cash? Wouldn't it have been better for Intel's modem business to go to someone else who might make the product available outside of Apple's closed product ecosystem? I'm pretty sure Apple would have no problem bootstrapping an oil company or an industrial container ship manufacturing business, that's just how much money they have.

Companies as big as Amazon should not be allowed to buy other companies.

kekkidy 4y ago

[dead]

dotBen 4y ago

Should companies as big as Google not be allowed to buy startups? That's going to go down well here... /s

smcleod 4y ago
I don't think they should be allowed to, they're already too big, too powerful and not regulated enough.

thfuran 4y ago

Companies 10% as big as Amazon probably shouldn't generally be allowed to buy other companies.

smcleod 4y ago
Absolutely. Just like we need no billionaires - we need no privately owned, for-profit mega-corps. People need to get out of this very American idea that this aggressive style of capitalistic corporate monopolisation has worked well for the world.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  This makes sense to me based on my reading of how things have fared since 1917.

dnissley 4y ago

I disagree, companies should all have the same rights regardless of their size.

dsr_ 4y ago
That's consistent, but what it's consistent with is monopolies.
- smcleod 4y ago
  Exactly.
thfuran 4y ago
A sole proprietorship with no employees has nearly nothing in common with Amazon. Why should they have the same rules?
- Asdrubalini 4y ago
  Because they are the same thing, a company. Like you and Jeff Bezos are the same thing, a person.
  - thfuran 4y ago
    No, they're the same thing like my hamster and a blue whale are the same thing: an animal.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Then anything is the same thing. All things are things. Logic doesn’t work.
    - Asdrubalini 4y ago
      Mmh no, a company isn't the same thing as a physical person (seen as a human being, not as a single person business), for example. As such, they are threated differently.
munificent 4y ago
Providing equal rights to organizations with wildly different levels of power is not a path to fairness or market efficiency.

James_Henry 4y ago

What exactly about "big" is it that makes you say this? Is it the amount of money they can throw around? Is it the ability to integrate these bought companies in with the rest of their companies? Is it that there aren't enough people at the top of the company?

swyx 4y ago
i mean i support you saying that about almost any company to promote more precise discussion but amazon literally employs like 1.5 million people and dominates both internet commerce and cloud computing, there are easier targets to argue that they aren’t “big”
- radlad 4y ago
  The second largest employee count in the world, behind only Walmart: https://companiesmarketcap.com/largest-companies-by-number-of-employees/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/largest-companies-by-number-o...
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  I think you misunderstand. They are asking why big is bad, not arguing that Amazon isn't big
  - James_Henry 4y ago
    And I'm wondering what aspect of their bigness is causing the badness. Is it profits? revenues? Is it the number of employees? Is it percent of the market share in the business that they are active in? Or is it some measure of their political power?
ProAm 4y ago
They capture markets by loss leading, killing competition, at the same time hamstringing their suppliers/sellers with demands that are unreasonable. Only to either raise prices later or default to selling counterfeit goods, or change agreements but the market has been decimated so there is largely only a single place to source or sell goods. Then they take their war chest and do it to another industry. American medical is both extremely profitable and also extremely not profitable depending on where you sit. I do not see Amazon being a good faith participant in this field given their other business lines.

silisili 4y ago

Strongly agreed. There have been plenty of people banned for life for returning too many items, or sometimes just one large item. Fine, no more shopping at Amazon. Now, there goes your healthcare provider(s) too. Google was scary enough with so many digital properties tied together, but now a bohemoth expanding into the 'real' world should give everyone pause.

somethoughts 4y ago
Also better keep your AWS accounts current so you can access your doctor and your pharmacy! Also need to make sure your startup employers AWS bill is always current in case your work AWS account is linked to your personal Amazon Prime account behind the scenes somehow.

goostavos 4y ago

Eh.. I'm open to see what happens. I'm currently being ground to a bloody pulp through the US medical machine. It has been one of the most stressful experiences of my life. It can't possibly get worse if Amazon gets its fingers into a small part. If they can squeeze even a few percentage points of improvement out of the process it'd be a huge win in my book. The current system makes one want to give up.

stainforth 4y ago
Lol why do you think these moves are about improvement of the process? Like its said they have a fiduciary duty to squeeze profit out of their moves. Improvement of the experience for the customer is at least orthogonal to that.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
femiagbabiaka 4y ago
It can always get worse. :)
smcleod 4y ago
I think it's better to look at what works well in countries other than America - A solid public health system and more regulation on private industry. The improvisation of human health has a long history of negative consequences and it's very hard to go back on.
- yibg 4y ago
  While I agree, it seems like the probability of this happening in the US any time soon is almost nil. Where as the probability of One Medical making at least some improvement is non zero.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    I don't know. I don't see any good reason to think that on the whole, One Medical will have a positive effect on the health care system. I guess we shall see.

RC_ITR 4y ago

Easy to say until a bunch of small and midsize companies go out of business. From their 2022 filings: * Loss from Operations was $419.7 million, or 40% of Net Revenue; Net Loss was $397.8 million, or 38% of Net Revenue. *2022 Ending Cash and Marketable Securities of $262.4 Million It had less than one year of runway.

smcleod 4y ago
This is a bit of a straw man. Companies go out of business for a number of reasons including but not limited to -) The inability to compete with or defend against mega-corps such as Amazon, Google, Facebook etc..., -) Being poorly managed, -) Having a product that people don't want/need. It's actually quite rare that smaller companies go out of business competing with their peers. At the end of the day - what matters more - the success and profits of private companies - or the health and happiness of humans? They're not always diametrically opposed - but they're often not conducive to one another.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  It’s not a straw man. I understand we’ve have been in low interest rate environments for a long time, but access to capital is no longer free and likely won’t be for a while. Companies now do (and will continue) to go under due to lack of access to capital markets. One Medical is actually probably one of the top examples of that kind of company. It would be very hard for them to issue new shares or raise debt to fund their operations. And to the health and happiness of humans point, a bunch of people losing their primary care doctors is again, one of the top examples of bad social outcomes from a company going out of business.

crazygringo 4y ago

Why? What moral or economic principle determines why one company shouldn't be allowed to buy another, as long as it's not reducing competition (e.g. Amazon buying Barnes and Noble, or Amazon buying Wal-Mart)? If Amazon simply built its own One Medical that grew to the same size, should that similarly be prohibited? And how are you going to determine the dollar value valuation of a company where it's not allowed to buy companies anymore? Because conglomerates -- corporations that have products in lots of different industries -- have been around for a long time. They grow when they think they can generate economies of scale and synergies, which is good for consumers.

JohnFen 4y ago
> They grow when they think they can generate economies of scale and synergies, which is good for consumers. I've only very rarely seen these sorts of things result in anything good for the general population.
skinnymuch 4y ago
Socialism, communism, anarchism, some Democratic Socialism, and some progressivism all believe there’s moral and economic principles to not let an Amazon or CVS keep buying up companies. There’s lots of anti-capitalist resources available online. It’s sometimes hard to find them because of the Red Scare and capitalist’s wildly violent suppression winning the Cold War. Cheers!
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  Also, lots of neoliberal and other broadly pro-corporate-capitalist viewpoints outside of the Austrian/Chicago camp; unrestrained corporate monopoly is only seen as not a problem in a very small slice of the economic ideological space.

dangus 4y ago

I agree. I think there should be a size and value threshold where it is determined that your company can reasonably just spend to build using your own R&D for literally anything, and that performing an acquisition at all (whether or not it makes you a monopoly) is harmful for the overall market. Take Apple for example. It bought most of Intel's modem business to build its own product. Does anyone seriously believe that Apple couldn't have built that kind of technology from scratch? How many modem businesses could they build before running out of cash? Wouldn't it have been better for Intel's modem business to go to someone else who might make the product available outside of Apple's closed product ecosystem? I'm pretty sure Apple would have no problem bootstrapping an oil company or an industrial container ship manufacturing business, that's just how much money they have.