My claim is that if these companies weren't useful than they wouldn't exist. People hate Bezos but they spend their money at Amazon. Methinks they doth protest too much!
Maybe we shouldn't speak of companies as being "net positive" or "net negative", but rather speak of what could be improved if there was more competition, more companies, more market. Less monopolies.
If you think Amazon is unfairly using their monopoly to keep others out and capture the market, state your claim. If you think competitors could do better, prove it with consumer choice.
Walmart or Shopify or eBay or wherever you want to shop are just a click away. If consumers think they can do better, then they will. I have already ditched Amazon for all those reasons. But you cannot speak for others.
The competitors you list also aren't head-on in competition with Amazon. Aliexpress predominantly serves non-American markets. eBay, like it, is an auction site. Shopify does not have one central market, it's completely decentralized. Walmart is the most similar to Amazon, and perhaps with its acquisition of Jet.com and its growing investments in ecommerce, it may yet prove to be a lasting competitor. Stay tuned.
Greater reach and resources is part & parcel of being the top consumer choice. If they blanket the airwaves, if there is some asymmetry, still who cares? You're going to have to show how consumers do not have a choice or how it doesn't help consumers.
Because regardless of how intense Amazon's marketing and reach get, their competitors are still one click away. Finding out about competitors is one search query away, one media article away, or one advertisement away. Frankly, if a consumer is unable to expend the minimal effort to find & choose an Amazon competitor to buy a product, they're basically not trying at all. And not trying is their choice.
As far as anti-competitive behavior, I will defer to luminaries more informed than I
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/amazon-wins-ruling-resu...
It doesn't matter if there isn't a direct Amazon competitor. All large companies compete on multiple fronts. It does not mean there is no competition in shopping.
I don't respond to essay dumps like this. If you want to say something, you're going to have to say it or quote it.
If you refuse to engage further in this conversation, that is your prerogative and it is noted. We can consider this matter closed.
Essay dumping is not conversation. Although it is also your prerogative to avoid conversation as well.
> If Amazon detected lower prices on other sites, it would bury their products in Amazon search results, where they got most of their sales. Some of the merchants were eager to grow their sales on other sites, but Amazon’s policies prevented them from offering lower prices elsewhere to draw shoppers away.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-05/amazon-is...
> Amazon constantly scans rivals’ prices to see if they’re lower. When it discovers a product is cheaper on, say, Walmart.com, Amazon alerts the company selling the item and then makes the product harder to find and buy on its own marketplace -- effectively penalizing the merchant. In many cases, the merchant opts to raise the price on the rival site rather than risk losing sales on Amazon.
> Merchants have long complained that Amazon wields outsize influence over their businesses. Besides paying higher fees, many now have to buy advertising to stand out on the increasingly cluttered site. Some report giving Amazon 40% or more of each transaction, up from 20% a few years ago.
> Some merchants are keen to increase their sales on Walmart, which charges less to sell products on its marketplace. But sellers say the price alerts are forcing them to maintain allegiance to Amazon and making it harder to diversify their businesses. Walmart routinely fields requests from merchants to raise prices on its marketplace because they worry a lower price on Walmart will jeopardize their sales on Amazon, says a Walmart manager, who requested anonymity to speak freely about an internal matter.
The fact is that consumers continually choose to entrust Amazon the power to pick on their behalf, making it their consumer choice. If sellers leave, consumers often choose Amazon over the seller. Amazon can only "bury" merchants in their search results because consumers continue to be satisfied with what Amazon finds for them. If consumers found Amazon's search results lacking, they can find the missing sellers on other websites. Practically every consumer knows how to buy things online outside of Amazon, a lot of them do it all the time.
Personally, I choose to buy many better and cheaper things outside Amazon. I do not choose Amazon to find any of my stuff. That choice has always been extremely easily available to any consumer, but they don't choose it. Consumers aren't being denied a choice, they have chosen: they chose Amazon's higher fee marketplace.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/9/22968927/congress-justice-...
It is a separate argument, but 'more competition' isn't a magical fix to everything. This sort of gating mechanism relies on the end user/consumer having good knowledge, sound judgement, etc. Also what is best for the consumer isn't best for the society. A wild example - For me, as the consumer I'm happy to get an iPhone for $200, but that might mean that Apple pays their employees below US minimum wage.
So, I think you need to prove how Amazon is net positive in society?
In the interest of full disclosure I enjoy the occasional cigar.