How Amazon makes everything you buy more expensive, no matter where you buy it
pluralistic.net
pluralistic.net
Maybe there's an actual main point in here somewhere, that's connected to the headline somehow, but this article is a shining example of how not to write if you want to actually convince people of a point you're trying to make.
The argument is very simple, Amazon – like other platform businesses – externalizes its costs onto its suppliers by raising suppliers costs it raises the costs consumers pay.
You can agree or disagree with that argument, but it’s not very complicated.
It’s common for small breweries for example to offer cheaper prices at the factory than anywhere else because that’s the lowest possible transaction costs. Much like how credit cards charge merchant fees and then require cash payments to be at the same rate.
I also understood the problems ahead of time reasonably well.
I can't see how #enshittification is anything other than an apt world-consuming trend broadly outlining the predominamt trends of capitalism in the world today. And for the new phase of Amazon now that it has attained market capture. To you it seems like a huge turn off, tuned you out, but you've just heaped the term onto your pile of disdain. It's unclear to me what problems you have, why you disagree or what you find inaccurate about the term in general or it's application.
> Amazon binds its sellers over to something called Most Favored Nation status. That means that sellers can't offer their goods more cheaply than they do on Amazon – even if it costs them (lots) less to sell in Target or direct from their websites. This means that every time a seller adds a dollar to their Amazon sale price, they have to add a dollar to the price of their goods everywhere else, too.
But it's an incredibly thin argument. I am a prime member and when I go to buy things online, the fact that I should choose amazon to get cheaper shipping absolutely never enters my mind.
It is possible to write about this topic clearly and concisely.
That's what I always thought investors understood about the business. What has mattered isn't profit, but rather cash flow. If you have cash flow, and you reinvest that into expansion (for more cashflow), eventually you have a monopoly. The whole point of that is one day you flip the switch, and raise prices.
[1] https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/how-dollar-stores-contribut...
Evidence (pdf warning): https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/2023-...
Sure you can. Amazon lists millions of SKUs. A huge proportion of those are sold elsewhere, often by sellers who do not also sell on Amazon.
But more fundamentally, if data can't be had, how does the author know this is actually happening? Either it is an unfalsifiable claim or its not, and there should be data. The bottom line is, the author makes an extraordinary claim and thus the onus is on them to provide commensurate evidence.
Can you expand on specifically what you meant here?
(One of my degrees is in liberal arts, so I speak from personal experience here.)
Many of the fields in liberal arts pump out ideas. Think of it as theoretical physics (less all the math) without any ability/attempt to prove the ideas via rigorous evidence or experimentation. Often ideas are heavily dressed up with pseudo-technical language in an attempt to legitimize them.
See also the works of: Foucault, Jung, Derrida, Freud, etc.
Now, in some cases, this is no big deal. For example, producing a work of art (novel, painting, etc.) does should not have any requirements of proof, evidence, falsifiability, etc.
But in other cases, where the creation of new knowledge is claimed, a lot of this stuff should be thrown on the junk heap. It does nothing to improve the plight of humanity.
So yes, very much a social science.
“you’re not allowed to sell elsewhere at a lower price”.
Both should be broken up.
PS: And if only rival World blocks enforce anti-trust laws on foreign companies, simple - the US sets straight Booking.com and the EU, Amazon.
Hotel brands prefer this because they get you into their system and they get to keep more of the room rate.
Amazon net profit was $278mm in Q4 2022. That's peanuts for a company of that size.
Amazon profits are not the same as company valuation. People can value a company highly and the company can make few profits (at least for a period of time). Bezos has made a ton of money because of the valuation, not profits.