I disagree that it is futile to compete with Amazon without a "proprietary X" strategy. Their competitive strategy is well known, and there are some major weakn

I disagree that it is futile to compete with Amazon without a "proprietary X" strategy. Their competitive strategy is well known, and there are some major weaknesses to it...most notably, that it becomes a bigger and more obvious bluff as they stick their hands into more pies. They actually have a very delicate balancing act to perform: maintaining enough profit to convey to shareholders that they arent a sinking ship, but aggressivly expanding and investing in areas that require significant acquisition of expertise. They have the cash flow to survive a long protracted battle, but they would definitely take the hit in their share price...and considering they now have an army of employees that are paid a significant share of their compensation in the form of stock, there is significant cultural resistance to agressively losing money as a form of compeitition.