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Comment by ProAm | Hacker News Reader

For a billionaire who is slowly killing small business (because your margins are his opportunity), forcing people to earn less I find this ironic.

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>> because your margins are his opportunity

Funny that you say this in a pejorative sense on Hacker News, a bastion of venture capital.

"Margins = opportunity" is just an observation of economic reality. Not some strip mining concept that he invented.

It's like saying, that industrial revolution killed artisan makers. It did, but it also was a global good. Small businesses must adapt.

If I have this right, the moral of your story is that small businesses will die and amazon-sized corporations are for the global good.

so basically the cyberpunk future we all had imagined in the 80's..

But with Amazon you don't have to build your own storefront, or online site at all. Just make a listing, and ship to FBA. I imagine that alone creates more businesses.

Businesses originally existed and had a profit margin. Then Amazon came along and competed directly against that profit margin so businesses lost business. Then Amazon said you can sell on our site, but in order to compete there businesses had to compete at the new lower profit margin, but then ontop of that give a slice of that to Amazon, so now they are losing profit margin, but losing more giving amazon a slice of the pie. It will take a LOT of extra business to make that part up. Walmart is a town killer, Amazon is a business killer.

Without numbers it is unclear which effect is stronger.

I'm not sure "you just have to be in business with Amazon" is all that much better for the global good.

So you'd rather have him hoard his wealth and do nothing? Or somehow handicap Amazon so it doesn't compete? Your argument doesn't really hold up.

2 billion dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to what he has extracted.

You didn't really answer the question.

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