Hacker News Reader

Comment by toasterlovin | Hacker News Reader

No, there is not a direct analogy because Amazon is not a monopoly. They aren't even the largest retailer.

That was the wonderful realization I came to a few months back. They're not even close to the only game in town. It's pretty amazing that they marketed this attitude that they were the de facto online marketplace, based on the goodwill of "free" 2 day shipping, and a highly-curated catalog (at first) for so, so long, until the problems have become more hassle than I'm willing to deal with. I've dropped Prime, and just avoid the whole thing now.

At this point, I'd literally rather drive over to a physical store than try to decipher whether I'm getting crap from them, and whether that crap is coming on a slow boat from the orient, every, single time I try to buy something. The future is CURATION. That's what the physical store does for me, by nature of the fact that their shelf space is limited. Amazon would be wise to throw 90% of the items off their platform, and stop being a storefront for every jerk with a computer and some junk lying around. Leave that crap for Ebay!

According to the article Amazon owns 35% of online retail in the US. Google isn't the only search engine, but it has a de facto monopoly on search. When does Amazon hit that same threshold?

It was actually abusing their platform to deliberately harm other companies that sparked the antitrust. That abuse created a monopoly but the monopoly was not why they got in trouble.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars

The only reason bundling IE was an issue is because Microsoft had a monopoly on PC operating systems. The monopoly is a necessary precondition for the antitrust action.

Microsoft had a monopoly, and they leveraged it to create a monopoly, but that does not mean abuse requires a monopoly. Abuse does not require emulating any particular prior instance of abuse.

But the abuse only becomes a problem when a monopoly creates a lack of alternatives for consumers or suppliers. Amazon sellers have a plethora of other retailers who they can use to reach customers if they don't like Amazon's behavior. Netscape had no such options.

I don't know why you keep using the term "abuse". There's no statute in antitrust law preventing "abuse". There isn't even a statute defining "abuse".

Antitrust laws specifically address using monopoly power to restrain competition.

> The monopoly is a necessary precondition for the antitrust action.

If it is, it shouldn't be, and we need some similarly concise term for "action to eliminate biased incentives and promote competition for the good of the individual".

> promote competition for the good of the individual

C'mon, this is ridiculous. There is no need to promote competition when competition already exists. Hence a monopoly (or cartel) being a necessary precondition of antitrust action.

Competition free of biased incentives, but I thought that would be too wordy. Or simply products and services free of biased incentives would be fine too.

Do you really think the government needs to get involved when no demonstrable consumer harm is being done? Have you actually considered how house brands might be beneficial to consumers?

Let me explain. I just did a search for "lightning cable" on Amazon. I don't want to pay $19, or whatever it would cost, to buy an Apple branded lightning cable. So I'm going to go for something cheaper. The top result is by Amazon Basics. Then we have YUNSONG, PLmuzsz, and KRISLOG. I have no idea what those are. I have no idea if I'm going to get a steaming pile of inauthentic shit. But with Amazon Basics, I can at least feel confident that they did a reasonable job of finding and vetting a factory to source the product from. And, more importantly, that they have a vested interest in me having a good experience, since Amazon Basics is Amazon.

> Do you really think the government needs to get involved when no demonstrable consumer harm is being done?

Generally no, but I don't think a monopoly is a prerequisite for biased incentives to cause consumer harm, particularly for platform companies. Consumers don't have to choose between a bunch of non-monopoly platforms that aren't acting in their best interest when they can collectively decide, via their government, to force the platforms to do as they want.

This is speaking generally - I don't actually have any problem with the specific case of Amazon promoting their AmazonBasics brands.

It’s not at all. All sorts of anti-competitive behaviour is regulated under the broad banner of “antitrust” law. The Sherman Act doesn’t even prohibit every different type of monopoly for that matter.

Yes it should be. Otherwise the government would have it's grubby hands in every deal, because power begets the desire for more power. Amazon has plenty competition

I feel there's an argument to be made for Amazon having a near-monopoly on online sales and distribution in many countries, even outside America.

They've simply nailed it and scaled it. In New Zealand a company called TradeMe got there first and successfully fended off Amazon, but that's a minority case.

There are pros (e.g. consumers love it) and cons (e.g. human toll when optimising efficiency without robots) to having Amazon dominate in whatever country, but you can't deny, they get the job done. There isn't really another company competing with them at that level, is there? And that's why I think it's an effective monopoly.

To abuse this wide-reaching power, in making your own stuff rise to the top of world sales, is absolutely a concern and we should honestly be grateful that there are laws and funded agencies giving a shit about this.

We are so early in the shift to online retailing. People using Amazon for stuff other than books, DVDs, and CDs only became a thing in the last 10 years. Walmart has barely started to get their shit together with online retailing. Same for the major supermarket chains. They have an incredible physical presence with huge transaction volume that they can leverage into their online efforts.

>I feel there's an argument to be made for Amazon having a near-monopoly on online sales and distribution in many countries.

Can you share more? This is quite a grand statement to submit based on your "feeling"...

who is it ? I thought amazon was #1 in many metrics

Walmart dwarfs Amazon in annual sales (and also plays hardball with its vendors).

ah well, what a pleasure to read

Reply on news.ycombinator.com