What? they're a business like any other and they're not interested in minimizing profit, there's lot of thought that goes into their pricing and you can be sure that your opinion and trust is an outcome of their strategy to make more money.
Actually they are. Minimizing profit is sacrificing short-term gains for long-term gains. Increasing prices helps your short term profit, but you tend to lose customers to competitors. Decreasing prices means less profit right now, but you tend to convert more customers.
Companies aren't purely RIGHT NOW profit-driven. That's why many companies burn cash and take on debt. They're driven by growth (whether vertical or horizontal). Bezos is obsessed with growth. That's why they've only recently started making money. Enormous investments in AWS, FBA and a host of other products put them in the red, but in doing so, Amazon has incredibly horizontal growth.
> Minimizing profit is sacrificing short-term gains for long-term gains.
That would actually be maximizing profit...
The timeframe dictates behavior. But, you responded to a comment that said Amazon will leave money on the table, arguing that they won't. They will, and do, leave money on the short-term in order to benefit their long-term strategy.
Short-term vs Long-term profit motivations are actually MASSIVELY different sets of behaviors.
> That would actually be maximizing profit...
Yes, if you assume a company is infinite that's true. But since there's currently not a company that's existed forever, I can safely assume that such a thing doesn't exist.
You can't argue profit without arguing time. Particularly when your argument was that all companies focus on profit at the exclusion of all other things. Growth companies focus on growth over profit. And while, yes, over time that can result in more profit, it also may not. If pure profit were the only motivation, short-term MASSIVE profits would be the only goal ever, since it's vastly more real than potential profits if everything works out.
Is exactly what the parent comment said...
I think Amazon pulls this off because their prima donna is the paying customer, not the programmer who thinks talking directly to customers is the worst possible reflection of their ability to automate. Automation is great and all, but Google has a major problem when it comes to empathizing with the customers.
Also, is there any possibility of legal action against Google for this bait and switch, which seems to be quite clearly the case here?
Of course, they are a business. But they look at minimising the price, increase the scale, have a monopoly and earn money.
Charging less to make more is actually maximizing profit for the company.