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> Their net margin over the last year was 0.82%. Amazon choose to make investments which skew the profit margin. They definitely have money to improve things

• AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  But the original argument was that they're so profitable. Now you're trying to find an explanation for their lack of profit. Free cash flow isn't profit, and the way you measure whether something is worth investing in is against the opportunity cost. If they expect to invest a dollar in X and get back $1.25 and you say they have a dollar so they could invest it in Y that gets them back $1.03, the only reason for them to do that is out of charity, and the act of doing it would cost them $0.22 on the dollar. And you're still not solving the problem, you're just moving it somewhere else. You say they could spend money on this instead of investing in something else, like Amazon Basics. Now Amazon Basics doesn't make batteries, or USB cables, or what have you. There is less competition in that market, so people have to pay more for that stuff. It can't come out of what they're paying to shareholders because they never pay anything to shareholders.