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You can repeat that comment here as many times as you want but it will not make it a valid one. Amazon is practically a monopoly, and they have reached that pos

You can repeat that comment here as many times as you want but it will not make it a valid one. Amazon is practically a monopoly, and they have reached that position by often selling goods below COG prices, incurring losses but outliving the competition. Now without a competitive marketplace for quite a lot of stuff they can dictate the prices at a loss for everyone except them. If somebody was to challenge them with lower prices they can just repeat the cycle. They simply do not have proper competition for a lot of stuff and they are abusing it.

endisneigh 3y ago
Amazon isn't a monopoly by any definition. There are plenty of places to buy things. Repeating it over and over again won't change reality. Feel free to bookmark this and come back to it 10 years from now. Amazon won't be broken up, either. Customers are so lazy they want the government do everything for them. If you don't like Amazon, close the tab and go to eBay.com or Walmart.com. It's very easy, and can be done in seconds. This isn't like telecom monopolies where you can't actually switch.
- Jensson 3y ago
  For b2c monopolies matters, for b2b it is enough to be a dominant player to engage on a lot of harmful anti-competitive practices. This is a b2b situation that harms consumers, in that situation it doesn't matter that there are competitors, what matters is how much power Amazon has over vendors.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    I disagree. Demanding the lowest price does not harm consumers. Overstock, Wayfair, Walmart and others do the same thing. The result is the lowest price for a given product on all sites. This is unquestionably good for consumers.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      Most disagrees with you here, including those who makes the laws and the courts.
      - endisneigh 3y ago
        > Most disagrees with you here, including those who makes the laws and the courts. Downvotes don't mean anything. Most of the folks on here have no idea how e-commerce works. Amazon will win. It's simple to see - them losing would imply they are obligated to feature higher prices, which is clearly worse for customers and inherently at odds with what the FTC is supposedly trying to accomplish.
        BoiledCabbage 3y ago
        To be clear, you disagree because you fundamentally don't understand what's going on. I'll explain it to you. A company makes a product - it costs $10 per unit to make. To list and sell with Amazon, they are charged $12 per unit. To make a profit the company adds and additional $1 per unit. They sell the product on Amazon for $23 per unit. Online retailer Foo also has a store, and provide the same services that Amazon for their online shop at $5 per unit. The online retailer adds a profit of $2 per unit. Total price $17 per unit. Retailer Foo is more $ efficient for those services as a result customers price compare. Foo is rewarded for their effi with higher volume, manufacturer is rewarded with higher profit and consumer is rewarded with lower prices. Enforcing market competition led to all 3 parties involved being rewarded. Retailer Foo over time grows a larger customer base as people learn to price compare with them and forces Amazon to stop rent seeking. But the above doesn't happen in the real world. Amazon enforces that the retailer lower their price on Amazon to $17, while still collecting $12 per unit. The company now can sell on foo, but only by selling on Amazon at a loss. They can't afford that amount of loss from Amazon and stay in business. So Amazon avoids competition. They can't pull their product from Amazon because not enough customers vist Foo retailer yet to make up the volume. So in the end Foo retailer is more dollar efficient, but is prevented from growing and benefiting the marketplace. Amazon leverages its outside market size to avoid competition. Market participants preventing competition is against the benefits of capitalism and harms the consumer. So, it benefits the consumer to ensure Amazon has to actually compete with the more efficient competitor and stop rent selling behavior.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  I will say that I used to buy stuff from AMZN all the time and now I hardly ever do. For me the last straw was when Amazon Prime deliveries stopped arriving in two days despite being claimed to arrive in two. It made a difference because in two days it could be a hassle to drive to the store but in five days I can easily find the time. Not long after that, Prime service became officially five days at my location while Amazon was shouting to the rooftops that other people were getting one day. Around this time it seemed every other retailer was trying to impress me with fulfillment and often shipping is free if you buy $200 of camera equipment or $80 worth of games, even when it isn't it isn't very expensive but it is always faster than AMZN, I even get Ebay packages from Japan faster than AMZN gets me packages from the next state. There was also the rising problem that the quality of the listings was going down on AMZN; I'm not so concerned that the $24 product is crowding out the $17 product but rather that there are so many junk products that crowd out good products. On top of that there are many product listings that make no sense at all and it all adds up to a stressful process of sifting through a lot of junk and then not knowing if some absolute garbage is going to show up at my door. So I went from buying something on AMZN probably several times a week to now less than once a month... I canceled my Prime subscription because I couldn't have any self respect if I was paying a subscription for something that was worse than average as opposed to better than average. And boy is it annoying to shop on AMZN now. The only thing you have to click more times than to cancel AMZN Prime is to order something from AMZN without signing up for a free trial of Prime.
- eganist 3y ago
  > Amazon isn't a monopoly by any definition. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/monopoly https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/monopoly "For instance, the term monopoly may be referring to instances where: [...] There are many buyers or sellers, but one actor has enough market share to dictate prices (near monopolies)" --- I'm not replying to anything you might reply with because the rest of your comments in this thread have clearly been in bad faith. But this was one of the few smoking gun comments betraying either a biased position you hold or your lack of background on the topic, so it was easy enough to just post a link to an authoritative source + definition and just move on.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Amazon isn't a monopoly by any definition If it has “significant and durable market power” [0], it is by the only definition that matters. [0] https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
jfdbcv 3y ago
No, it's an extremely valid point. Government antitrust policy has been heavily shaped by Robert Bork's "The Antitrust Paradox" which proposes that antitrust law should only focus on consumer welfare rather than market structure or number of competitors.

endisneigh 3y ago

Amazon isn't a monopoly by any definition. There are plenty of places to buy things. Repeating it over and over again won't change reality. Feel free to bookmark this and come back to it 10 years from now. Amazon won't be broken up, either. Customers are so lazy they want the government do everything for them. If you don't like Amazon, close the tab and go to eBay.com or Walmart.com. It's very easy, and can be done in seconds. This isn't like telecom monopolies where you can't actually switch.

Jensson 3y ago
For b2c monopolies matters, for b2b it is enough to be a dominant player to engage on a lot of harmful anti-competitive practices. This is a b2b situation that harms consumers, in that situation it doesn't matter that there are competitors, what matters is how much power Amazon has over vendors.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  I disagree. Demanding the lowest price does not harm consumers. Overstock, Wayfair, Walmart and others do the same thing. The result is the lowest price for a given product on all sites. This is unquestionably good for consumers.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    Most disagrees with you here, including those who makes the laws and the courts.
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      > Most disagrees with you here, including those who makes the laws and the courts. Downvotes don't mean anything. Most of the folks on here have no idea how e-commerce works. Amazon will win. It's simple to see - them losing would imply they are obligated to feature higher prices, which is clearly worse for customers and inherently at odds with what the FTC is supposedly trying to accomplish.
      - BoiledCabbage 3y ago
        To be clear, you disagree because you fundamentally don't understand what's going on. I'll explain it to you. A company makes a product - it costs $10 per unit to make. To list and sell with Amazon, they are charged $12 per unit. To make a profit the company adds and additional $1 per unit. They sell the product on Amazon for $23 per unit. Online retailer Foo also has a store, and provide the same services that Amazon for their online shop at $5 per unit. The online retailer adds a profit of $2 per unit. Total price $17 per unit. Retailer Foo is more $ efficient for those services as a result customers price compare. Foo is rewarded for their effi with higher volume, manufacturer is rewarded with higher profit and consumer is rewarded with lower prices. Enforcing market competition led to all 3 parties involved being rewarded. Retailer Foo over time grows a larger customer base as people learn to price compare with them and forces Amazon to stop rent seeking. But the above doesn't happen in the real world. Amazon enforces that the retailer lower their price on Amazon to $17, while still collecting $12 per unit. The company now can sell on foo, but only by selling on Amazon at a loss. They can't afford that amount of loss from Amazon and stay in business. So Amazon avoids competition. They can't pull their product from Amazon because not enough customers vist Foo retailer yet to make up the volume. So in the end Foo retailer is more dollar efficient, but is prevented from growing and benefiting the marketplace. Amazon leverages its outside market size to avoid competition. Market participants preventing competition is against the benefits of capitalism and harms the consumer. So, it benefits the consumer to ensure Amazon has to actually compete with the more efficient competitor and stop rent selling behavior.
PaulHoule 3y ago
I will say that I used to buy stuff from AMZN all the time and now I hardly ever do. For me the last straw was when Amazon Prime deliveries stopped arriving in two days despite being claimed to arrive in two. It made a difference because in two days it could be a hassle to drive to the store but in five days I can easily find the time. Not long after that, Prime service became officially five days at my location while Amazon was shouting to the rooftops that other people were getting one day. Around this time it seemed every other retailer was trying to impress me with fulfillment and often shipping is free if you buy $200 of camera equipment or $80 worth of games, even when it isn't it isn't very expensive but it is always faster than AMZN, I even get Ebay packages from Japan faster than AMZN gets me packages from the next state. There was also the rising problem that the quality of the listings was going down on AMZN; I'm not so concerned that the $24 product is crowding out the $17 product but rather that there are so many junk products that crowd out good products. On top of that there are many product listings that make no sense at all and it all adds up to a stressful process of sifting through a lot of junk and then not knowing if some absolute garbage is going to show up at my door. So I went from buying something on AMZN probably several times a week to now less than once a month... I canceled my Prime subscription because I couldn't have any self respect if I was paying a subscription for something that was worse than average as opposed to better than average. And boy is it annoying to shop on AMZN now. The only thing you have to click more times than to cancel AMZN Prime is to order something from AMZN without signing up for a free trial of Prime.
eganist 3y ago
> Amazon isn't a monopoly by any definition. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/monopoly https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/monopoly "For instance, the term monopoly may be referring to instances where: [...] There are many buyers or sellers, but one actor has enough market share to dictate prices (near monopolies)" --- I'm not replying to anything you might reply with because the rest of your comments in this thread have clearly been in bad faith. But this was one of the few smoking gun comments betraying either a biased position you hold or your lack of background on the topic, so it was easy enough to just post a link to an authoritative source + definition and just move on.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> Amazon isn't a monopoly by any definition If it has “significant and durable market power” [0], it is by the only definition that matters. [0] https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

jfdbcv 3y ago

No, it's an extremely valid point. Government antitrust policy has been heavily shaped by Robert Bork's "The Antitrust Paradox" which proposes that antitrust law should only focus on consumer welfare rather than market structure or number of competitors.