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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 be

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.
  - taeric 3y ago
    That "they aren't punishing" is what they would have to show. And, I don't know it, obviously, but that doesn't seem to unlikely to me. For this case, they have to have a command of "we want you to push these sellers to page 2." For defense, they only need to show that "we were instead pulling to page 1." That is why this feels weak to me. The defense feels too easily likely. If they aren't reducing sales/income in the long term, then that is also a defense to "not fostering competition." If they are literally selling more, this is easy to frame in a way that shows more competition. And again makes the case a bit weaker to prove that they were hurting what has been growing on their platform. If you think they will be able to prove this, great. The plausible defenses here are just overwhelmingly against it. The criticism of Amazon going to crap is that Amazon is turning into a Dollar store, as far as quality goes. And, yeah, it is. Is why you don't have people making a killing as suppliers to Dollar stores...

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.
- taeric 3y ago
  That "they aren't punishing" is what they would have to show. And, I don't know it, obviously, but that doesn't seem to unlikely to me. For this case, they have to have a command of "we want you to push these sellers to page 2." For defense, they only need to show that "we were instead pulling to page 1." That is why this feels weak to me. The defense feels too easily likely. If they aren't reducing sales/income in the long term, then that is also a defense to "not fostering competition." If they are literally selling more, this is easy to frame in a way that shows more competition. And again makes the case a bit weaker to prove that they were hurting what has been growing on their platform. If you think they will be able to prove this, great. The plausible defenses here are just overwhelmingly against it. The criticism of Amazon going to crap is that Amazon is turning into a Dollar store, as far as quality goes. And, yeah, it is. Is why you don't have people making a killing as suppliers to Dollar stores...