6 ms·

Amazon is not a court of law and need not be bound by this technicality.

by jprete 3y ago

oblio 3y ago
More than that... there's probably no real recourse. For the same reason you mentioned.
- EGreg 3y ago
  The real solution is an open source Amazon. What happened to Magento? Does it have any traction? Why sell on Amazon instead of your own site? Can’t competitors to FBA spring up that have great logistics? Are there any? Can anyone link me to them?
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    Sellers want Amazon’s audience
    - throwaway14356 3y ago
      which is easy to compete with for a government platform. in a lot of countries it would save a lot of money if the tax office had direct access to the product and purchase database. Thousands of people could move to more useful jobs.
    - EGreg 3y ago
      That's the same trap that TikTok influencers and others fall into. You are sold "the dream" by showing top sellers / influencers / etc. and told you can be like them. Kevin O'Leary became a meme for promoting this bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuqemytQ5QA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuqemytQ5QA In fact, even the top influencers can be deplatformed in an instant, and their speech is controlled. And same with Amazon. But the thing is that the people you never hear about, the "middle class", are far more controlled and the "long tail" produces all that free content that basically gets almost new views / buys but all that free sharecropper content is then used to train AI models or provide proof of large available inventory / product / content BY THE PLATFORM that pits them all against each other in a zero-sum game. https://www.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/117oh1m/the_upper_class_keeps_all_of_the_money_pays_none/ https://www.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/117oh1m/the_upper_c...
      - throw0101a 3y ago
        > Kevin O'Leary became a meme for promoting this bullshit: The women is Amanda Lang,[1] and the two were a 'duo' for many years with a business/finance reporting show. I'm not sure how she managed to put up with him for so long. :) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lang
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    You don’t just “spring” up to owning a nationwide network of distribution centers and 1M+ employees. It takes decades of work.
    - EGreg 3y ago
      That's the thing people don't get about making competitors to Facebook, Twitter, and other centralized platforms as well. You don't need to boil the ocean in order to serve a single community. For example, Facebook started in Harvard and its value to everyone in Harvard was based on how many people in Harvard used it, not how many people in the world used it. Similarly, if a single product vendor and their customers form a community, then a free market of fulfillment companies can spring up to stock that specific product, and then partner with the delivery companies (who have their own networks) to deliver the package. You might say that the delivery infrastructure is a cartel, but they're open to everyone and Amazon has been relying on them until finally spinning out their own. Same goes for CPU chips that Apple relies on etc. Look at IPFS for example, competing with AWS for storage. It is growing every year and now powers 1% of all storage worldwide! And there is a free market. Whereas these platforms are all centrally controlled by some billionaire (Zuck, Musk, Bezos) and his crew. You don't need to have their scale because you don't need to serve ALL COMMUNITIES IN THE WORLD on day one. If you have an open source software like Wordpress or Magento, you can serve your customers with web hosting instead of Shopify or Amazon. Now the only question is, who would do fulfilment.
      - iudqnolq 3y ago
        When Facebook was founded there was no Facebook. Now there is a Facebook. When there's a better alternative customers are less likely to try out your new, less good idea. Can you give an example of someone serious using IPFS instead of S3? I don't really get what "all storage worldwide" means.
        megaman821 3y ago
        Except there was a Facebook and it was called MySpace. Facebook won because people enjoyed using it better.
  - justinator 3y ago
    Magento was badly designed- infinite levels of directories. Good luck on upgrade. There’s plenty of self hosted online stores. That’s hardly the problem.
    - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
      I did a single contract for a Magento site and decided never again. It was like a group of Java developers decided to write PHP code and it was horrific. I would estimate 80% of the classes in that codebase didn't have any implementing code in them. Literally the only thing I liked about Magento was it's ability to outline everything that was being rendered to make it easier for you to identify the changes to templates you needed to make.
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    This is a classic programmer response. The problem is not Amazon's software, it's their marketing, distribution network, huge audience that searches for products exclusively via Amazon, "free" and very fast Prime deliveries, etc. That doesn't all happen via simply open sourcing some code.
    - EGreg 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - kimbernator 3y ago
        It's trivial to create a website (frontend and backend) that offers similar functionality to Amazon. There's nothing special about their software platform. You can't open-source marketing and the insane delivery network Amazon has. Those, among other things, are the reason they are successful. They could release all of their software completely open source and literally nothing would change.
        boredpeter 3y ago
        You can’t open source it but the government could nationalize it and make it a benefit to small businesses everywhere without the anti competitive profit seeking motives of a private business controlling it.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        slowmovintarget 3y ago
        Expropriation is the first step to destroying the thing. There no reason for unbelievably good customer service if you get paid by taxpayers regardless of outcome.
        lapphi 3y ago
  - jen20 3y ago
    What does "open source Amazon" even mean?
    - belter 3y ago
      Every Prime member gets commit access...
lazide 3y ago
Courts also are not bound by technicalities like this typically!
Zigurd 3y ago
While it may not be as simple as changing a SKU, Amazon is chock full of products made in the same factory, many with identical product images, sold under different brands at different prices, and many of the "brands" are the output of name-generators. That actually adds to the problem: If you put effort and money into brand recognition you need to provide best prices on amazon, but Amazon is easier to game if your brand is xyxxy12345.
pjc50 3y ago
Ought to be bound by an actual court, though.

Amazon is not a court of law and need not be bound by this technicality.

by jprete 3y ago

Amazon is not a court of law and need not be bound by this technicality.

oblio 3y ago

More than that... there's probably no real recourse. For the same reason you mentioned.

EGreg 3y ago
The real solution is an open source Amazon. What happened to Magento? Does it have any traction? Why sell on Amazon instead of your own site? Can’t competitors to FBA spring up that have great logistics? Are there any? Can anyone link me to them?
- endisneigh 3y ago
  Sellers want Amazon’s audience
  - throwaway14356 3y ago
    which is easy to compete with for a government platform. in a lot of countries it would save a lot of money if the tax office had direct access to the product and purchase database. Thousands of people could move to more useful jobs.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    That's the same trap that TikTok influencers and others fall into. You are sold "the dream" by showing top sellers / influencers / etc. and told you can be like them. Kevin O'Leary became a meme for promoting this bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuqemytQ5QA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuqemytQ5QA In fact, even the top influencers can be deplatformed in an instant, and their speech is controlled. And same with Amazon. But the thing is that the people you never hear about, the "middle class", are far more controlled and the "long tail" produces all that free content that basically gets almost new views / buys but all that free sharecropper content is then used to train AI models or provide proof of large available inventory / product / content BY THE PLATFORM that pits them all against each other in a zero-sum game. https://www.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/117oh1m/the_upper_class_keeps_all_of_the_money_pays_none/ https://www.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/117oh1m/the_upper_c...
    - throw0101a 3y ago
      > Kevin O'Leary became a meme for promoting this bullshit: The women is Amanda Lang,[1] and the two were a 'duo' for many years with a business/finance reporting show. I'm not sure how she managed to put up with him for so long. :) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lang
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  You don’t just “spring” up to owning a nationwide network of distribution centers and 1M+ employees. It takes decades of work.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    That's the thing people don't get about making competitors to Facebook, Twitter, and other centralized platforms as well. You don't need to boil the ocean in order to serve a single community. For example, Facebook started in Harvard and its value to everyone in Harvard was based on how many people in Harvard used it, not how many people in the world used it. Similarly, if a single product vendor and their customers form a community, then a free market of fulfillment companies can spring up to stock that specific product, and then partner with the delivery companies (who have their own networks) to deliver the package. You might say that the delivery infrastructure is a cartel, but they're open to everyone and Amazon has been relying on them until finally spinning out their own. Same goes for CPU chips that Apple relies on etc. Look at IPFS for example, competing with AWS for storage. It is growing every year and now powers 1% of all storage worldwide! And there is a free market. Whereas these platforms are all centrally controlled by some billionaire (Zuck, Musk, Bezos) and his crew. You don't need to have their scale because you don't need to serve ALL COMMUNITIES IN THE WORLD on day one. If you have an open source software like Wordpress or Magento, you can serve your customers with web hosting instead of Shopify or Amazon. Now the only question is, who would do fulfilment.
    - iudqnolq 3y ago
      When Facebook was founded there was no Facebook. Now there is a Facebook. When there's a better alternative customers are less likely to try out your new, less good idea. Can you give an example of someone serious using IPFS instead of S3? I don't really get what "all storage worldwide" means.
      - megaman821 3y ago
        Except there was a Facebook and it was called MySpace. Facebook won because people enjoyed using it better.
- justinator 3y ago
  Magento was badly designed- infinite levels of directories. Good luck on upgrade. There’s plenty of self hosted online stores. That’s hardly the problem.
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    I did a single contract for a Magento site and decided never again. It was like a group of Java developers decided to write PHP code and it was horrific. I would estimate 80% of the classes in that codebase didn't have any implementing code in them. Literally the only thing I liked about Magento was it's ability to outline everything that was being rendered to make it easier for you to identify the changes to templates you needed to make.
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  This is a classic programmer response. The problem is not Amazon's software, it's their marketing, distribution network, huge audience that searches for products exclusively via Amazon, "free" and very fast Prime deliveries, etc. That doesn't all happen via simply open sourcing some code.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - kimbernator 3y ago
      It's trivial to create a website (frontend and backend) that offers similar functionality to Amazon. There's nothing special about their software platform. You can't open-source marketing and the insane delivery network Amazon has. Those, among other things, are the reason they are successful. They could release all of their software completely open source and literally nothing would change.
      - boredpeter 3y ago
        You can’t open source it but the government could nationalize it and make it a benefit to small businesses everywhere without the anti competitive profit seeking motives of a private business controlling it.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        slowmovintarget 3y ago
        Expropriation is the first step to destroying the thing. There no reason for unbelievably good customer service if you get paid by taxpayers regardless of outcome.
        lapphi 3y ago
- jen20 3y ago
  What does "open source Amazon" even mean?
  - belter 3y ago
    Every Prime member gets commit access...

lazide 3y ago

Courts also are not bound by technicalities like this typically!

Zigurd 3y ago

While it may not be as simple as changing a SKU, Amazon is chock full of products made in the same factory, many with identical product images, sold under different brands at different prices, and many of the "brands" are the output of name-generators. That actually adds to the problem: If you put effort and money into brand recognition you need to provide best prices on amazon, but Amazon is easier to game if your brand is xyxxy12345.

pjc50 3y ago

Ought to be bound by an actual court, though.