That link only really gets into the fact that they have a large market share. That alone does't make them a 90s era Microsoft.
- Using third party proxies to avoid accountability for sale of countfeit products, and liability for the same.
- Using its market position and sock puppet partners to replicate and promote knockoff products.
- Using its domination of book market share to bully book publishers into a accepting its terms, and capriciously raising prices and removing pre-order options to those the tow the line. (Hachette)
- Notorious for poor working conditions, for both blue collar and white collar workforces.
I could go on, at length.
Amazon doesn’t force you to use your products, it instead raises the cost of everything you buy by owning the wholesale and distribution channels. Their UPS rates are the price floor. Their predatory tactics allow them to avoid collection of sales and use taxes — pushing them to the consumer. Their wholesale pricing is a price floor in many categories, or shared with WalMart.
Amazon is a monopolist and negative force in the American economy. They exist with their current business practices because the US courts changed their interpretation of what a monopoly is, which is now strictly determined by how corporate actions impact consumer retail prices.
You can find amazon apps on Google PlayStore though.
Amazon is definitely the next Microsoft.
No wait, the next BMW! I tried to buy a Toyota and no BMW dealership would sell me one, can you believe it?
Nobody requires them to; they probably do that because it's profitable to them not because they are worried that someone will regard them as the next Microsoft in the pejorative sense.
The fact that Amazon sells their device that is similar to Google's and not Google's is perfectly sensible, if they regard that as a strategic thing which is reasonable given what it is.
It'd be more like Safeway refusing to sell Mission brand tortillas because they have Safeway brand tortilla chips and that's basically the same thing, right? It's made from flour into thin layers and you eat it.
While that is true, more importantly, they are their respective purveyors' spyware devices using which they intend to claw their way into people's lives to an even greater extent.
Amazon is more than happy to sell you other brands of USB cables or clothes, despite having their own "Amazon Basics" brand.
But they draw the line at other brands of eBook readers and media players.
- Safeway and BMW aren't known as "The Everything Store"
- You can buy Toyotas at a BMW dealership. They will be used, but they're there.
If I were to guess at what companines might rival Amazon in having the biggest selection, my top 3 would be: eBay, Alibaba, Rakuten.
To what extent would you say this eating you alive?
(BTW: that marketing claim comes from the "Everything"; a collection which is "biggest" isn't necessarily exhaustive; just bigger than others.)
I don't pretend to know what that broken user experience was.. ads blocked? No auto play next? No subscriber button? But anything along those lines would be a poor deal for YouTube. Im not a fan of either as they both engage in illegal anti-competitive behavior I just feel it isn't one sided in this case.
Were Amazon like Microsoft, as you claim, Amazon would sell competitor products that have an Amazon product built in, whether you want it or not, and it will be priced into the product.
(Disclaimer: this analogy to the 90s MS falls apart quickly. But unlike 90s MS, I am not yet forced to do business with Amazon if I don't want to.)
And is Microsoft buying a national grocery chain? Is Microsoft running a marketplace overrun with fake Chinese shit that takes 3 months to ship?
If I want a fake DVD, I can pay $3 in Chinatown, I don’t need to pay Amazon $20.
Is any thing in an analogy the same as the thing it points to? No. That's the very idea behind an analogy: that it points to something being alike between two entities, not about them being/doing same exact things (which wouldn't need an analogy) or totally unlike things (for which one wouldn't make sense).
In this case, what Cringely wants you to think/see is not that Amazon "bundles it browser" or "sues Linux a la Sco", but how it's a huge monopoly, it uses its power as leverage, and it screws the little guys.
I'd start with "huge monopoly". Unlike computing in the 90s, I can buy anything I want online without doing business with Amazon.
Whether its Chinese knock-offs or online storage, Cringley fails to make the case for "huge monopoly" just like Microsoft. Microsoft got their OS monopoly via business practices that they arguably should have been (but weren't) convicted of. Amazon is taking over the world because...oh, I'll let Robert tell you in his own words:
"Part of the reason AWS is gaining market share is because Microsoft’s Azure doesn’t boot virtual machines quite as fast."
Well, those fuckers, with their crooked business dealings...wait a minute, did you just say a VM on Amazon's product boots faster than Microsoft's? Be right back...
Of course, Cringley will proceed to tell us the awful outcome of this monopoly, just like it was back in the 90s and early 2000s with Microsoft:
"Put simply, AWS is a pain to deal with if you are a customer big enough to be in personal communication and not just a credit card number. This, too, is like the old Microsoft."
So, to recap, Amazon is taking over the world because they have a better product, but the downside is that their customer service sucks. Microsoft took over the world through questionable (some argue illegal) business practices, and the end result of that was that nearly every computer sold for 15 years had a "Microsoft tax" added. Yup, exactly the same.
As I said, I can avoid doing business with Amazon just fine, whether I'm buying fidget spinners or a place to put a VM. I had no such option with the Microsoft of old.
When Microsoft was declared abusing its monopoly status, you could buy 100 different OSes from different vendors if you cared to, too.
Monopoly (abusing or not) is not about being able to buy stuff elsewhere, it's about what percentage of a market an entity has.
Vendor lock-in is a pretty powerful tool. They may not be forcing anyone to "install" their systems into AWS, but once they're installed, they're too difficult to "uninstall." A fundamental requirement of free markets is for customers to be able to leave incumbents for new companies with fresher products that present a better value - if customers de-facto can't leave AWS, then AWS has monopoly power over those customers.
For a list of Amazon controversies, see [1]. It isn't complete. Example: it doesn't contain anything about MTurk [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com_controversies
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Mechanical_Turk#Labor_i...