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We'll see. I don't know how to agree with search ever being good. I remember back in 1999 (literally) getting the wrong book on searches. And back then, it w

by taeric 3y ago

We'll see. I don't know how to agree with search ever being good. I remember back in 1999 (literally) getting the wrong book on searches. And back then, it was only searching on books. Today, there is more that you are searching through, such that it is almost expected that results will be worse. And it will only get worse. And note that I am making no real defense of Amazon here. It is frustrating to me that searching "PS5 controller" is largely results that I would not at all feel comfortable buying, at this point. What searches do you remember, "back in the early days" that were good? And, really any search will reveal the actual "difficulty" here is that there is just too many hits. But can you really call out any of those as bad as long as you allow outside vendors? I'm not convinced. I don't want to buy from UPPERCASE vendor anymore than many folks do, but I see my purchase history has a ton of them. So, again, this is a criticism of the case. They do pick apart many things that seem to have gotten worse. They rest a lot of their case on observations that Amazon themselves were chasing. Largely that the buybox is a huge driver of purchases. What they leave off is all of the behind the scenes that goes into that buybox. Most of it, unsurprisingly, is going to be based on costs to Amazon. This case is looking for twirling mustache villains looking to rob small vendors. But it is against a backdrop of an unusually large number of vendors that are all continuing to make money. In a field where Amazon is trying to optimize shipping and warehousing costs. Is it getting harder for people to do so there? Almost certainly. Is Amazon specifically retaliating against sellers? Maybe, but my gut is not likely. I do appreciate the counter view that this is, in fact, a strong case. I have not seen evidence that convinces me of that. You keep saying it is "in the case," but that is our disagreement. The case is largely discussing the difficulties of being an FBA seller. One that many successful FBA sellers would be more than happy to tell you about. They have basically no evidence of Amazon intentionally mistreating any particular seller. They have a lot of redacted comments about Amazon's analysis of their platform. But no hints that Amazon intentionally pushes sellers down. They have tons of details that having enticing offers at the top and in the buybox would be good for Amazon. Nothing hinting that they are trying to make it harder for any particular seller. Even the anecdotes you will find online is that managing FBA is a full time job. Try managing a booth at your local farmers market. Just managing the booth is itself a job that you should probably look into getting specialized help for. This is no different.

ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
I'm sorry, I couldn't find anything in your post convincingly explaining how each of the behaviors I listed fostered competition, vs stifling it, or that the behaviors described in the suit were entirely fabricated by the FTC, and so I haven't seen any evidence that this is, in fact, a weak case. I guess we will see if Amazon manages to put forth any convincing defense of their actions, like penalizing sellers for selling cheaper elsewhere. That just doesn't seem to me like it fosters competition. And the idea that this conveniently happens totally by accident to the sellers who do so, seems ridiculously unconvincing. If your "bad search" conveniently happens to have the same effects as an anticompetitive business practice, I don't see that pretext standing up in court.
- taeric 3y ago
  None of the things are shown to be purposely done to hurt sellers. Specifically, most of the quotes from Amazon seemed to be analysis they were doing about the same points. X% of purchases happen in the buybox. Y% of purchasers don't make it to page 2. In both of these, it is easy to imagine that Amazon was doing what they can to increase those numbers. They would not be doing things to reduce purchases, which is largely implied by the malicious implications. (Indeed, most of that is the internet learning about "below the fold" which has been well known in retail for a long time.) Stated differently, to counter your point, Amazon only needs to show that it is selling more from more sellers to claim that they are driving more competition and fostering competition. That is almost certainly going to be an easy thing for them to prove. They aren't punishing sellers by pushing them to page 2. They are increasing sales by getting more likely purchases onto page 1. Do I think this is healthy? Not really. That more low quality things make page 1 is frustrating to me and feels unhealthy. Is it frustrating that Amazon can probably increase sales of a low quality thing by putting the Amazon Basics label on it? Yeah, it is. Question is if that is stealing more sales from sellers than the other low quality items are already stealing. (It also begs the question that the Basics label is low quality.)
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    > They aren't punishing sellers by pushing them to page 2. They are increasing sales by getting more likely purchases onto page 1. are they, though? I'm not convinced that it's a total coincidence that sellers who sell for cheaper elsewhere are being penalized in search results, especially if the excuse is that a multi billion dollar company which relies upon search can't do search. And honestly, that seems anticompetitive to me, thus wrong and illegal, thus the suit. > They would not be doing things to reduce purchases I haven't seen any evidence the anticompetitive behavior in question would reduce total income in the long term. They would be doing things to punish sellers for selling cheaper elsewhere though, and seems like they are. That doesn't necessarily mean reducing purchases though, especially if Amazon has already copied the product and started selling their copy themselves. And whether it reduced some purchases (but not others) for Amazon is irrelevant, as they could easily be willing to threaten taking a tiny hit to punish competitors. You keep coming up with pretexts for the anticompetitive behavior, but they simply aren't a more convincing explanation than anticompetitive behavior. It's like saying you didn't stab a guy, he just ran into your knife 100 times. Maybe technically possible, but not convincing, and definitely not more likely than maliciousness. If it walks like a duck, etc.

by taeric 3y ago

ImPostingOnHN 3y ago

I'm sorry, I couldn't find anything in your post convincingly explaining how each of the behaviors I listed fostered competition, vs stifling it, or that the behaviors described in the suit were entirely fabricated by the FTC, and so I haven't seen any evidence that this is, in fact, a weak case. I guess we will see if Amazon manages to put forth any convincing defense of their actions, like penalizing sellers for selling cheaper elsewhere. That just doesn't seem to me like it fosters competition. And the idea that this conveniently happens totally by accident to the sellers who do so, seems ridiculously unconvincing. If your "bad search" conveniently happens to have the same effects as an anticompetitive business practice, I don't see that pretext standing up in court.

taeric 3y ago
None of the things are shown to be purposely done to hurt sellers. Specifically, most of the quotes from Amazon seemed to be analysis they were doing about the same points. X% of purchases happen in the buybox. Y% of purchasers don't make it to page 2. In both of these, it is easy to imagine that Amazon was doing what they can to increase those numbers. They would not be doing things to reduce purchases, which is largely implied by the malicious implications. (Indeed, most of that is the internet learning about "below the fold" which has been well known in retail for a long time.) Stated differently, to counter your point, Amazon only needs to show that it is selling more from more sellers to claim that they are driving more competition and fostering competition. That is almost certainly going to be an easy thing for them to prove. They aren't punishing sellers by pushing them to page 2. They are increasing sales by getting more likely purchases onto page 1. Do I think this is healthy? Not really. That more low quality things make page 1 is frustrating to me and feels unhealthy. Is it frustrating that Amazon can probably increase sales of a low quality thing by putting the Amazon Basics label on it? Yeah, it is. Question is if that is stealing more sales from sellers than the other low quality items are already stealing. (It also begs the question that the Basics label is low quality.)
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  > They aren't punishing sellers by pushing them to page 2. They are increasing sales by getting more likely purchases onto page 1. are they, though? I'm not convinced that it's a total coincidence that sellers who sell for cheaper elsewhere are being penalized in search results, especially if the excuse is that a multi billion dollar company which relies upon search can't do search. And honestly, that seems anticompetitive to me, thus wrong and illegal, thus the suit. > They would not be doing things to reduce purchases I haven't seen any evidence the anticompetitive behavior in question would reduce total income in the long term. They would be doing things to punish sellers for selling cheaper elsewhere though, and seems like they are. That doesn't necessarily mean reducing purchases though, especially if Amazon has already copied the product and started selling their copy themselves. And whether it reduced some purchases (but not others) for Amazon is irrelevant, as they could easily be willing to threaten taking a tiny hit to punish competitors. You keep coming up with pretexts for the anticompetitive behavior, but they simply aren't a more convincing explanation than anticompetitive behavior. It's like saying you didn't stab a guy, he just ran into your knife 100 times. Maybe technically possible, but not convincing, and definitely not more likely than maliciousness. If it walks like a duck, etc.