8 ms·

FTC reportedly plans major antitrust lawsuit against Amazon

184 points by mikece 3y ago

treis 3y ago
This doesn't seem to be the right tack. There's legitimate reasons to favor sellers that use your own logistics. Hard to see that as anti-competitive. Even harder to see why they picked this issue when there's seemingly many more blatant ones going on.
- TheCaptain4815 3y ago
  Not only that, I'm sure most customers PREFER sellers that use Amazon's logistics. I sure do. It's more trustworthy, you know the product exists at an amazon warehouse, faster shipping, etc.
  - sergiotapia 3y ago
    I'm the total opposite. How can I trust Amazon if they aren't the ones selling me the merchandise? 3rd party sellers killed that website entirely for me. I needed to buy creatine and the last place I would buy it would be Amazon because there are too many chinese counterfeits, and worse Amazon seems to wash their hands of any responsibility. I ultimately bought creatine from nootropicsdepot. I buy things directly from the manufacturer now or physically from Target.
    - Projectiboga 3y ago
      Yep and their mixing sku-s has created a whole sub industry where everything that fails quality control ends up here too. They should be required to track what came from who, so if counterfeits are discovered the rest of the stock can be pulled. I don't see how much effort it would take to add a sticker barcode.
- Eji1700 3y ago
  The cynic in me says it's because this way they can say "we tried" and not actually do anything. Antitrust lawsuits died the day MS got a slap on the wrist, and we've been paying for it as a society ever since. I really doubt the authenticity of this effort, but I also lack the expertise to judge properly so maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic.
  - likpok 3y ago
    I don't think it's the cynical take, the current FTC chair seriously believes that the FTC should be doing more antitrust enforcement and the paper that got her noticed specifically called out Amazon (IIRC the amazon/diapers.com conflict). She runs into challenges because she has a somewhat novel theory of antitrust. This causes conflict between the long-standing staffers (who both want to win cases and seem to dislike the new direction) and with judges (who don't seem to be buying her theories).
    - CPLX 3y ago
      Her theory of antitrust goes back 100+ years. It’s that there should be robust competition and when firms get too large and powerful they should be broken up. The alternate theory is the novel one. That theory basically sums up to “no we shouldn’t” and also “after a few years in public service I am happy to announce I have taken a role at a large monopolistic company and can now afford a summer home.” For more info read this book: https://mattstoller.com/ https://mattstoller.com/
      - grogenaut 3y ago
        Are using novel as in newer or novel as in different than widely considered at current?
      - kuchenbecker 3y ago
        The current standard is "consumer harm" with lower prices considered per-se evidence to the contrary. The issue here is monopsony rather than monopoly because Amazon is fantastic for consumers but Terrible for sellers because there is effectively a single online market to sell in owned by Amazon. My worry would be a feedback loop giving Amazon increasing dominance due to this effect, and would like to see both vertical integration and Monopsony more heavily scrutinized, but this lawsuit seems to target a feature with an objective benefit to consumers given Amazon's amazing shipping and return policy.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > Even harder to see why they picked this issue when there's seemingly many more blatant ones going on. I know nothing about their thinking here, but very often when you see enforcement agencies focusing on something that seems like a lesser problem in the basket of problems, it's because they're selecting the specific point they feel they can win in court on. What wins in court is related to what you can prove, not necessarily related to what the worst offense is.
- tootie 3y ago
  I think her strategy is pretty plausible. They're abusing their position. I won't say it's slam dunk monopolism, but we've been on a decades-long trend of looser and looser regulation and I think it's high time the FTC takes a stand to actually tighten a bit. I'm not familiar enough with legal statute to say how strong their case will be, but it certainly feels like the kind of the thing they should be doing and I trust Lina Khan to have her ducks in a row. She wouldn't be teeing up a high profile case that doesn't have a high chance of success.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > There’s legitimate reasons to favor sellers that use your own logistics. Hard to see that as anti-competitive. Whether or not there are also “legitimate reasons”, its not hard at all to see favoritism on a platform with market dominance conditioned on use of another service as leveraging dominance in one market to gain control of another.
  - treis 3y ago
    Hard for me to buy "selling on Amazon.com" and "fulfilling orders sold on Amazon.com" as separate markets.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  There are good reasons for violating most rules. That's why we write laws; in order to make violating those rules more expensive, therefore not profitable. It's not exculpating for a burglar to claim that a burglary was a really good choice for them at the time. edit: > There's legitimate reasons to favor sellers that use your own logistics. Hard to see that as anti-competitive. These sentences bother me so much. The argument is about what is or is not legitimate, and you're not making an case, you're just giving a verdict. Why is it hard to see?
- burkaman 3y ago
  What are the legitimate reasons?
likpok 3y ago
A lot of the beef with Amazon seems to be "welcome to retail". I don't think Walmart even has third-party logistics for its stores -- or if it does it's of the "hire contractors and squeeze them hard" variety. Personally I've found the customer experience of non-FBA merchants on amazon is often pretty bad: long shipping times and weird return policies. This gets at a sort of core problem with this: where is the line between anticompetitive behavior and just "making good products". I was very happy when google did it's hotels thing, the hotel aggregators are by-and-large unpleasant. And as much as there was wailing and gnashing of teeth here about amp, when I was doing a mobile search I would preferentially click amp sites -- they tended to work much better. Of course all of this depends on what specifically the FTC is arguing, and we won't see that until they actually file.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  Amazon can have pro consumer policies (free shipping & returns. Easy return process) without predatory practices though. It would be silly for the FTC to argue that good consumer experience is anti-trust behavior. What they could argue is about the myriad of ways that Amazon uses its market power to put others out of business or force them to sell (diapers.com comes to mind on this[0]). [0]: https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-bezos-went-thermonuclear-on-diapers-com.html https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-be...
- mywittyname 3y ago
  Amazon's retail arm isn't the grounds of anti-trust action. Their ownership of AWS, Twitch, MGM, Gaming studios, windfarms, lenders are problems. If they want to be an retail giant, that's fine, but they shouldn't be producing and selling games & movies as well. They need to pick a lane and spin off unrelated entities that only exist because of Amazon's dominance in retail. Their expansion into all of these market segments make sense in isolation. Amazon builds a better service internally, then begins to offer it for sale to others. But at some point, they've crossed over into abusing their monopoly in one area to expand into another.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
BlakeSimpson 3y ago
I feel like they are up against a new lawsuit daily. First all the class actions regarding fake prime sales and hard to cancel subscriptions, now this. Although this one I believe is more of an attempted power play by the FTC, the others not so much.
YChacker100 3y ago
It was always coming...
Seattle3503 3y ago
I hope they go after KDP (Kindle) exclusivity next. Authors put their content on Kindle Unlimited, then have to live with Amazon eating into their profit share. Amazon also has no problems rolling over entire subgenres with algorithmic tweaks, destroying them.
moose_man 3y ago
Technopolies are the blood sucking vampire squids of the modern economy.
jroseattle 3y ago
Has the FTC outlined what Amazon is actually doing in "rewarding" or "penalizing" 3p merchants? I see a reference to Amazon's "algorithm". Hazarding a guess, it would have to be either category listings or search results? Is there something else? If so, this is some weak-sauce when it comes to anti-competitive behavior.
- brigade 3y ago
  Probably search results showing items with prime shipping before items without it. Which... as a consumer is exactly what I want.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  Competing with Amazon Basics products developed in response to third party sales data. Anointing certain sellers as "Amazon's Choice".
johndhi 3y ago
With Temu coming from China to compete with Amazon, and the US regulators going full anti-China recently, I'm really interested to see whether these actions against Amazon get pushback from the top of government, and ultimately get stalled.
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  I hope not. I am so tired of "but if you don't let us be evil, China will" as a justification to allow tech monopolies to operate unchecked. We should regulate Amazon, and we cannot regulate Temu, we ban it.
  - FormerBandmate 3y ago
    China’s banning our tech companies and they’re regulating the shit out of their own. They do a lot of shit we shouldn’t but they’re dead on that tech companies should serve society instead of the other way around
    - hyuuu 3y ago
      eh, the US also bans Chinese tech companies too, i think the fear of data being used inappropriately is equally high on both parties. The US does have more international and larger corporations, so obviously in terms of number we have more banned.
      - gloryjulio 3y ago
        Not really. There are some hardware bans, but are there any bans on the software companies?
  - jimbob45 3y ago
    We should regulate Amazon, and we cannot regulate Temu, we ban it. Then we're back to the trade war. The tit-for-tat from that became ridiculous.
    - 3y ago
gjsman-1000 3y ago
I'm actually not convinced this is going to go very well. The FTC for the last few years has talked a big game, and hired people who have talked a big game; but the actual lawsuits have been pretty mediocre and occasionally even poorly thought through. An example lately is their battle with Microsoft to block the ActiVision acquisition which, the general consensus of observers seems to be, isn't going very well and the hope of the FTC getting their injunction is dwindling. Another example would be the FTC's recent failure to prevent Facebook's acquisition of Within.
- majormajor 3y ago
  The FTC shifted under Khan from a posture of "don't bring a case if it's not bulletproof" to one of "be willing to litigate even on things we might lose" to be less of a pushover. See discussion and quotes here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/technology/meta-vr-antitrust-ftc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/technology/meta-vr-antitr... I think this is probably wise even if they don't win much: 1) it'll set the boundaries of how courts interpret the current laws, which will inform if there are unpopular holes that could become part of political platforms going forward 2) it'll add that much uncertainty and "cost of doing business" legal expense to companies playing fast and loose in other novel ways because they've known they're unlikely to get challenged
  - 8note 3y ago
    3) it'll show lawmakers where the laws are good and where they need changes
- CPLX 3y ago
  Are you actually following the MS/Activision testimony? They've been getting absolutely crucified, there are multiple examples of blatantly illegal emails and discussions of anti-competitive behavior being introduced on the stand. The only real question right now is if the judge whose son quite literally works for Microsoft (!!) will decide that laws don't matter, which has been the main issue with antitrust enforcement in the recent past.
capital_guy 3y ago
I am amazed to see people defending AMZN in these threads. They are so obviously monopolistic with such a plethora of problems with the way the treat consumers, workers, businesses, and the planet. More power to the FTC -- just wish they had taken these actions sooner.
- gochi 3y ago
  I also don't really get the desire to defend them even if you were a loyal fan. Outside of AWS, none of their services are good anymore and have deteriorated. The only reason people think Prime is even valuable is because of the quantity > quality overriding people's rational. Amazon (the storefront) has turned into Aliexpress but with the shoddiest random brands ever like XYGHY selling you a product they're dropshipping for a 300% markup. They've turned into the store where it's only worth using to get AmazonBasics from.
  - dv_dt 3y ago
    Prime shipping has degraded to me to the point that 20% and rising of the orders are late, and that’s with a recent warehouse in the same city.
    - KennyBlanken 3y ago
      ...and of course our state AGs and the FTC are doing nothing about holding Amazon accountable for claiming prime = 1 day shipping.
    - bostik 3y ago
      I might well be one of the very few people in the thread who can still benefit from prime shipping. We have an Amazon prime depot about 10 minute walk from our house. The drivers can schedule their deliveries to us either to the beginning or end of their routes, and that shows: we get prime shipping for almost everything. In fact, trying to batch individual items into fewer deliveries is not necessarily even an option anymore. It's rare that I need the order in for next day, and I'd be happy to have the whole batch delivered in 2-3 days. But no, I get a small batch on next day, one item on day 2 and two more on day 3. There is no - or very rarely - option to select "all of these in one go, on day 3, please". Then again, I live in UK, in the weird place that's both in London and in Kent at the same time. That said, when we do need next-day delivery, it tends to be available for about 50% of the time.
pengaru 3y ago
Did the USA ever even get AMZN paying their income tax, or is AMZN still stowing trillions offshore? Or am I confusing AAPL with AMZN? Hell they're probably both doing it.
pacetherace 3y ago
I sometimes do find different prices for same products with amazon pushing me to buy product with prime shipping. If you use an extension like Honey, it will warn you that a product is available for lower price without Prime.
- scrum-treats 3y ago
  If you have time, consider taking a picture of that and submitting it to FTC (https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/ https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/), in support of https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/06/ftc-takes-action-against-amazon-enrolling-consumers-amazon-prime-without-consent-sabotaging-their https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/06/....
jimnotgym 3y ago
A less well known area of concern with Amazon is the way it is now purchasing for its own business. It is actively cutting out local distributors in favour of direct deals with manufacturers. This is really squeezing those businesses. Edit: this seems particularly monopolistic because it is using its own global logistics to undermine the supply chain to other retailers.
- throwaway9274 3y ago
  …Why do we want local distributors? Open to changing my mind, but that sounds more like actual efficiency gain from vertical integration.
  - jimnotgym 3y ago
    Because other retailers need the local distributors. If you knock them out of the market there is no local stockholder and you need to buy directly from the manufacturer (in a third country) yourself. A smaller company probably can't afford to buy in those kind of quantities.
- dv_dt 3y ago
  In terms of direct evidence of what the FTC thinks, I don't know. But it's interesting that India had some anti-trust action against companies that both owned online meta-marketplaces and had shops selling in the same marketplace. The theory applies here in that Amazon operates logistics and online presence for a shops, but operates it's own shop with potential information from all the other sellers. Self preference, or selected partner preference may be an issue: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2020/08/26/indian-online-retailers-file-antitrust-case-against-amazon https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2020/08/26/indian-...
givemeethekeys 3y ago
If there isn't a law that bans marketplaces from competing against the vendors that operate on that marketplace, then there should be one.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- peanuty1 3y ago
  Why should that be banned when it benefits consumers?
  - givemeethekeys 3y ago
    Marketplaces serve to benefit both consumers and producers. How would one prove that the consumer benefits? The in-house brand will immediately be featured more on search results than the vendor brand.
totallywrong 3y ago
How about fake reviews? That's a whole industry deceiving people with Amazon's blessing. I can't even fathom the economic impact of the practice over the years. And another one: Amazon Basics. Free market research with the data from your paying sellers, to then enter a market with a product you know will sell, in a position of dominance. Much like they do with open source in AWS. They should get hit with billions, but one can only hope.
- hyperbovine 3y ago
  Curious that a competitor has not sprung up to address this problem head-on...
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    Probably hard with a behemoth like Amazon having so much influence on the market.
    - hyperbovine 3y ago
      Yes, that is my point.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    There are multiple online shops, usually addressing a bit of the market each. People use them IME.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > Free market research with the data from your paying sellers, to then enter a market with a product you know will sell, in a position of dominance. But these are the things that are pro-competitive. So now they make batteries. They're not putting Energizer out of business, they can still sell through Walmart or local convenience stores etc., and some customers still buy Energizer batteries on Amazon, but now customers have a new option for batteries from a well-known brand with lower prices. Obviously the competitors don't like this -- they're losing business to new competition -- but new competition is good. Where you run into problems is where companies leverage a dominant market position in one area into abusive practices in another. So for example, if Amazon had a monopoly on retail, they could demand huge margins for reselling a competitor's batteries, or just stop carrying competing batteries and charge high prices for their own because customers have no other option. But they have no such market power. If they tried to charge significantly more than competing retailers for basic commodities, customers would just buy them from whoever has the best price. Compare this to, for example, mobile app stores where customers in practice have one store provided by the phone platform and if that store charges high margins or doesn't carry something they want, they have to buy a different device for hundreds of dollars, over a $1 app. Also, there are only two platforms of note so if you dislike any practice shared by both of them you're out of luck, whereas in an ordinary retail market there are a zillion competing retailers.
p5a0u9l 3y ago
Nypost… cool cool, unbiased I’m sure

184 points by mikece 3y ago

This doesn't seem to be the right tack. There's legitimate reasons to favor sellers that use your own logistics. Hard to see that as anti-competitive. Even harder to see why they picked this issue when there's seemingly many more blatant ones going on.

TheCaptain4815 3y ago
Not only that, I'm sure most customers PREFER sellers that use Amazon's logistics. I sure do. It's more trustworthy, you know the product exists at an amazon warehouse, faster shipping, etc.
- sergiotapia 3y ago
  I'm the total opposite. How can I trust Amazon if they aren't the ones selling me the merchandise? 3rd party sellers killed that website entirely for me. I needed to buy creatine and the last place I would buy it would be Amazon because there are too many chinese counterfeits, and worse Amazon seems to wash their hands of any responsibility. I ultimately bought creatine from nootropicsdepot. I buy things directly from the manufacturer now or physically from Target.
  - Projectiboga 3y ago
    Yep and their mixing sku-s has created a whole sub industry where everything that fails quality control ends up here too. They should be required to track what came from who, so if counterfeits are discovered the rest of the stock can be pulled. I don't see how much effort it would take to add a sticker barcode.
Eji1700 3y ago
The cynic in me says it's because this way they can say "we tried" and not actually do anything. Antitrust lawsuits died the day MS got a slap on the wrist, and we've been paying for it as a society ever since. I really doubt the authenticity of this effort, but I also lack the expertise to judge properly so maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic.
- likpok 3y ago
  I don't think it's the cynical take, the current FTC chair seriously believes that the FTC should be doing more antitrust enforcement and the paper that got her noticed specifically called out Amazon (IIRC the amazon/diapers.com conflict). She runs into challenges because she has a somewhat novel theory of antitrust. This causes conflict between the long-standing staffers (who both want to win cases and seem to dislike the new direction) and with judges (who don't seem to be buying her theories).
  - CPLX 3y ago
    Her theory of antitrust goes back 100+ years. It’s that there should be robust competition and when firms get too large and powerful they should be broken up. The alternate theory is the novel one. That theory basically sums up to “no we shouldn’t” and also “after a few years in public service I am happy to announce I have taken a role at a large monopolistic company and can now afford a summer home.” For more info read this book: https://mattstoller.com/ https://mattstoller.com/
    - grogenaut 3y ago
      Are using novel as in newer or novel as in different than widely considered at current?
    - kuchenbecker 3y ago
      The current standard is "consumer harm" with lower prices considered per-se evidence to the contrary. The issue here is monopsony rather than monopoly because Amazon is fantastic for consumers but Terrible for sellers because there is effectively a single online market to sell in owned by Amazon. My worry would be a feedback loop giving Amazon increasing dominance due to this effect, and would like to see both vertical integration and Monopsony more heavily scrutinized, but this lawsuit seems to target a feature with an objective benefit to consumers given Amazon's amazing shipping and return policy.
JohnFen 3y ago
> Even harder to see why they picked this issue when there's seemingly many more blatant ones going on. I know nothing about their thinking here, but very often when you see enforcement agencies focusing on something that seems like a lesser problem in the basket of problems, it's because they're selecting the specific point they feel they can win in court on. What wins in court is related to what you can prove, not necessarily related to what the worst offense is.
tootie 3y ago
I think her strategy is pretty plausible. They're abusing their position. I won't say it's slam dunk monopolism, but we've been on a decades-long trend of looser and looser regulation and I think it's high time the FTC takes a stand to actually tighten a bit. I'm not familiar enough with legal statute to say how strong their case will be, but it certainly feels like the kind of the thing they should be doing and I trust Lina Khan to have her ducks in a row. She wouldn't be teeing up a high profile case that doesn't have a high chance of success.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> There’s legitimate reasons to favor sellers that use your own logistics. Hard to see that as anti-competitive. Whether or not there are also “legitimate reasons”, its not hard at all to see favoritism on a platform with market dominance conditioned on use of another service as leveraging dominance in one market to gain control of another.
- treis 3y ago
  Hard for me to buy "selling on Amazon.com" and "fulfilling orders sold on Amazon.com" as separate markets.
pessimizer 3y ago
There are good reasons for violating most rules. That's why we write laws; in order to make violating those rules more expensive, therefore not profitable. It's not exculpating for a burglar to claim that a burglary was a really good choice for them at the time. edit: > There's legitimate reasons to favor sellers that use your own logistics. Hard to see that as anti-competitive. These sentences bother me so much. The argument is about what is or is not legitimate, and you're not making an case, you're just giving a verdict. Why is it hard to see?
burkaman 3y ago
What are the legitimate reasons?

likpok 3y ago

A lot of the beef with Amazon seems to be "welcome to retail". I don't think Walmart even has third-party logistics for its stores -- or if it does it's of the "hire contractors and squeeze them hard" variety. Personally I've found the customer experience of non-FBA merchants on amazon is often pretty bad: long shipping times and weird return policies. This gets at a sort of core problem with this: where is the line between anticompetitive behavior and just "making good products". I was very happy when google did it's hotels thing, the hotel aggregators are by-and-large unpleasant. And as much as there was wailing and gnashing of teeth here about amp, when I was doing a mobile search I would preferentially click amp sites -- they tended to work much better. Of course all of this depends on what specifically the FTC is arguing, and we won't see that until they actually file.

no_wizard 3y ago
Amazon can have pro consumer policies (free shipping & returns. Easy return process) without predatory practices though. It would be silly for the FTC to argue that good consumer experience is anti-trust behavior. What they could argue is about the myriad of ways that Amazon uses its market power to put others out of business or force them to sell (diapers.com comes to mind on this[0]). [0]: https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-bezos-went-thermonuclear-on-diapers-com.html https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-be...
mywittyname 3y ago
Amazon's retail arm isn't the grounds of anti-trust action. Their ownership of AWS, Twitch, MGM, Gaming studios, windfarms, lenders are problems. If they want to be an retail giant, that's fine, but they shouldn't be producing and selling games & movies as well. They need to pick a lane and spin off unrelated entities that only exist because of Amazon's dominance in retail. Their expansion into all of these market segments make sense in isolation. Amazon builds a better service internally, then begins to offer it for sale to others. But at some point, they've crossed over into abusing their monopoly in one area to expand into another.
- pessimizer 3y ago

BlakeSimpson 3y ago

I feel like they are up against a new lawsuit daily. First all the class actions regarding fake prime sales and hard to cancel subscriptions, now this. Although this one I believe is more of an attempted power play by the FTC, the others not so much.

YChacker100 3y ago

It was always coming...

Seattle3503 3y ago

I hope they go after KDP (Kindle) exclusivity next. Authors put their content on Kindle Unlimited, then have to live with Amazon eating into their profit share. Amazon also has no problems rolling over entire subgenres with algorithmic tweaks, destroying them.

moose_man 3y ago

Technopolies are the blood sucking vampire squids of the modern economy.

jroseattle 3y ago

Has the FTC outlined what Amazon is actually doing in "rewarding" or "penalizing" 3p merchants? I see a reference to Amazon's "algorithm". Hazarding a guess, it would have to be either category listings or search results? Is there something else? If so, this is some weak-sauce when it comes to anti-competitive behavior.

brigade 3y ago
Probably search results showing items with prime shipping before items without it. Which... as a consumer is exactly what I want.
kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
Competing with Amazon Basics products developed in response to third party sales data. Anointing certain sellers as "Amazon's Choice".

johndhi 3y ago

With Temu coming from China to compete with Amazon, and the US regulators going full anti-China recently, I'm really interested to see whether these actions against Amazon get pushback from the top of government, and ultimately get stalled.

ocdtrekkie 3y ago
I hope not. I am so tired of "but if you don't let us be evil, China will" as a justification to allow tech monopolies to operate unchecked. We should regulate Amazon, and we cannot regulate Temu, we ban it.
- FormerBandmate 3y ago
  China’s banning our tech companies and they’re regulating the shit out of their own. They do a lot of shit we shouldn’t but they’re dead on that tech companies should serve society instead of the other way around
  - hyuuu 3y ago
    eh, the US also bans Chinese tech companies too, i think the fear of data being used inappropriately is equally high on both parties. The US does have more international and larger corporations, so obviously in terms of number we have more banned.
    - gloryjulio 3y ago
      Not really. There are some hardware bans, but are there any bans on the software companies?
- jimbob45 3y ago
  We should regulate Amazon, and we cannot regulate Temu, we ban it. Then we're back to the trade war. The tit-for-tat from that became ridiculous.
  - 3y ago

gjsman-1000 3y ago

I'm actually not convinced this is going to go very well. The FTC for the last few years has talked a big game, and hired people who have talked a big game; but the actual lawsuits have been pretty mediocre and occasionally even poorly thought through. An example lately is their battle with Microsoft to block the ActiVision acquisition which, the general consensus of observers seems to be, isn't going very well and the hope of the FTC getting their injunction is dwindling. Another example would be the FTC's recent failure to prevent Facebook's acquisition of Within.

majormajor 3y ago
The FTC shifted under Khan from a posture of "don't bring a case if it's not bulletproof" to one of "be willing to litigate even on things we might lose" to be less of a pushover. See discussion and quotes here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/technology/meta-vr-antitrust-ftc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/technology/meta-vr-antitr... I think this is probably wise even if they don't win much: 1) it'll set the boundaries of how courts interpret the current laws, which will inform if there are unpopular holes that could become part of political platforms going forward 2) it'll add that much uncertainty and "cost of doing business" legal expense to companies playing fast and loose in other novel ways because they've known they're unlikely to get challenged
- 8note 3y ago
  3) it'll show lawmakers where the laws are good and where they need changes
CPLX 3y ago
Are you actually following the MS/Activision testimony? They've been getting absolutely crucified, there are multiple examples of blatantly illegal emails and discussions of anti-competitive behavior being introduced on the stand. The only real question right now is if the judge whose son quite literally works for Microsoft (!!) will decide that laws don't matter, which has been the main issue with antitrust enforcement in the recent past.

capital_guy 3y ago

I am amazed to see people defending AMZN in these threads. They are so obviously monopolistic with such a plethora of problems with the way the treat consumers, workers, businesses, and the planet. More power to the FTC -- just wish they had taken these actions sooner.

gochi 3y ago
I also don't really get the desire to defend them even if you were a loyal fan. Outside of AWS, none of their services are good anymore and have deteriorated. The only reason people think Prime is even valuable is because of the quantity > quality overriding people's rational. Amazon (the storefront) has turned into Aliexpress but with the shoddiest random brands ever like XYGHY selling you a product they're dropshipping for a 300% markup. They've turned into the store where it's only worth using to get AmazonBasics from.
- dv_dt 3y ago
  Prime shipping has degraded to me to the point that 20% and rising of the orders are late, and that’s with a recent warehouse in the same city.
  - KennyBlanken 3y ago
    ...and of course our state AGs and the FTC are doing nothing about holding Amazon accountable for claiming prime = 1 day shipping.
  - bostik 3y ago
    I might well be one of the very few people in the thread who can still benefit from prime shipping. We have an Amazon prime depot about 10 minute walk from our house. The drivers can schedule their deliveries to us either to the beginning or end of their routes, and that shows: we get prime shipping for almost everything. In fact, trying to batch individual items into fewer deliveries is not necessarily even an option anymore. It's rare that I need the order in for next day, and I'd be happy to have the whole batch delivered in 2-3 days. But no, I get a small batch on next day, one item on day 2 and two more on day 3. There is no - or very rarely - option to select "all of these in one go, on day 3, please". Then again, I live in UK, in the weird place that's both in London and in Kent at the same time. That said, when we do need next-day delivery, it tends to be available for about 50% of the time.

pengaru 3y ago

Did the USA ever even get AMZN paying their income tax, or is AMZN still stowing trillions offshore? Or am I confusing AAPL with AMZN? Hell they're probably both doing it.

pacetherace 3y ago

I sometimes do find different prices for same products with amazon pushing me to buy product with prime shipping. If you use an extension like Honey, it will warn you that a product is available for lower price without Prime.

scrum-treats 3y ago
If you have time, consider taking a picture of that and submitting it to FTC (https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/ https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/), in support of https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/06/ftc-takes-action-against-amazon-enrolling-consumers-amazon-prime-without-consent-sabotaging-their https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/06/....

jimnotgym 3y ago

A less well known area of concern with Amazon is the way it is now purchasing for its own business. It is actively cutting out local distributors in favour of direct deals with manufacturers. This is really squeezing those businesses. Edit: this seems particularly monopolistic because it is using its own global logistics to undermine the supply chain to other retailers.

throwaway9274 3y ago
…Why do we want local distributors? Open to changing my mind, but that sounds more like actual efficiency gain from vertical integration.
- jimnotgym 3y ago
  Because other retailers need the local distributors. If you knock them out of the market there is no local stockholder and you need to buy directly from the manufacturer (in a third country) yourself. A smaller company probably can't afford to buy in those kind of quantities.
dv_dt 3y ago
In terms of direct evidence of what the FTC thinks, I don't know. But it's interesting that India had some anti-trust action against companies that both owned online meta-marketplaces and had shops selling in the same marketplace. The theory applies here in that Amazon operates logistics and online presence for a shops, but operates it's own shop with potential information from all the other sellers. Self preference, or selected partner preference may be an issue: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2020/08/26/indian-online-retailers-file-antitrust-case-against-amazon https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2020/08/26/indian-...

givemeethekeys 3y ago

If there isn't a law that bans marketplaces from competing against the vendors that operate on that marketplace, then there should be one.

deleted 3y ago
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peanuty1 3y ago
Why should that be banned when it benefits consumers?
- givemeethekeys 3y ago
  Marketplaces serve to benefit both consumers and producers. How would one prove that the consumer benefits? The in-house brand will immediately be featured more on search results than the vendor brand.

totallywrong 3y ago

How about fake reviews? That's a whole industry deceiving people with Amazon's blessing. I can't even fathom the economic impact of the practice over the years. And another one: Amazon Basics. Free market research with the data from your paying sellers, to then enter a market with a product you know will sell, in a position of dominance. Much like they do with open source in AWS. They should get hit with billions, but one can only hope.

hyperbovine 3y ago
Curious that a competitor has not sprung up to address this problem head-on...
- barbazoo 3y ago
  Probably hard with a behemoth like Amazon having so much influence on the market.
  - hyperbovine 3y ago
    Yes, that is my point.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  There are multiple online shops, usually addressing a bit of the market each. People use them IME.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> Free market research with the data from your paying sellers, to then enter a market with a product you know will sell, in a position of dominance. But these are the things that are pro-competitive. So now they make batteries. They're not putting Energizer out of business, they can still sell through Walmart or local convenience stores etc., and some customers still buy Energizer batteries on Amazon, but now customers have a new option for batteries from a well-known brand with lower prices. Obviously the competitors don't like this -- they're losing business to new competition -- but new competition is good. Where you run into problems is where companies leverage a dominant market position in one area into abusive practices in another. So for example, if Amazon had a monopoly on retail, they could demand huge margins for reselling a competitor's batteries, or just stop carrying competing batteries and charge high prices for their own because customers have no other option. But they have no such market power. If they tried to charge significantly more than competing retailers for basic commodities, customers would just buy them from whoever has the best price. Compare this to, for example, mobile app stores where customers in practice have one store provided by the phone platform and if that store charges high margins or doesn't carry something they want, they have to buy a different device for hundreds of dollars, over a $1 app. Also, there are only two platforms of note so if you dislike any practice shared by both of them you're out of luck, whereas in an ordinary retail market there are a zillion competing retailers.

p5a0u9l 3y ago

Nypost… cool cool, unbiased I’m sure