I don’t think issues should be picking sides so much as seeking the truth.
Amazon had 38% of online retail market share [0] and only 9% of total retail market share [1]. So I think it’s going to be hard to show antitrust violations without some price collusion.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/274255/market-share-of-t... [1] https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2022/amazon-and-walmart-m...
Rather, they addresses situations where companies unreasonably exert power to lessen competition.
The idea is to prevent monopolies from forming in the first place.
The unreasonable part is where the monopoly power comes in.
Companies lessening competition happens all the time, it’s the monopoly aspect that triggers antitrust.
> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power
I'd say Amazon has "significant and durable market power"
Especially because the first part of determining marketshare and market power is determining the market. New markets happen all the time, with old markets dying out. Twenty years ago, smartphones wouldn't have been a market. Fifteen years ago: streaming services.
Like going back to your "Intel with x86", what is the market? x86_64 CPUs? Sure they have monopoly power. All CPUs? Now they don't have as much because they're competing with ARM too. Mobile phone CPUs? I don't think there's been a new Intel phone since the Asus Zenfone 2 (2015).
article - https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/11/...
They are more rigorously enforcing laws against unfair practices, monopoly or not.
"Unfair methods of competition, the policy statement explains, are tactics that seek to gain an advantage while avoiding competing on the merits, and that tend to reduce competition in the market."
> See that filter that orders priority by realized value? Remove it and order by campaign contributions
"We have to been seen doing something, the election cycle is fast approaching. What if we go after Comcast?"
"They gave a important senators son a no show job so they are off limits for the time being"
"Amazon?"
"Let me check, actually they haven't done much for us lately, let's shake them down, if they give my cousin a few million for consulting we give them a small fine, if not we give them the law"
Talk to the FCC, probably.
At least with Amazon I know I'm actually getting it in 2 days or they'll give me a refund (and often times still give me the product too).
I do not want Amazon Prime because in my area (in southeastern Australia), it fails to meet its delivery promises about 95+% of the time, and when that happens, Amazon cancels the order on you half the time and sends it off to some distant pick-up point the other half. Regular Amazon just sends things by post, which is so much more reliable and convenient.
I strongly prefer using smaller online retailers. I have not found it very difficult to find ones that offer better and more honest service (not to mention lower prices) than Amazon. As far as I'm concerned, Amazon is for Kindle books, and occasionally the odd item I can't find anywhere else.
You can't argue that the FTC is unjustified by saying that the OP is wrong in saying it's monopolistic, when FTC isn't saying they're a monopoly.
Like, what even is this discussion?
Sure, but “online retail” is pretty clearly an overly broad market including separate segments between which there is no substitution effect, and there are a whole lot of segments within that where Amazon has majority (>50%) market share (safety & security, communications, home audio, portable audio, etc.)
Not that this is about retail, per se, anyway, except maybe in leveraging market position in retail as an aspect of the anticompetitive behavior regarding sellers planning on using their fulfillment services.
I am sure that for CPG, Amazon’s share is significantly higher.
We have an Amazon prime depot about 10 minute walk from our house. The drivers can schedule their deliveries to us either to the beginning or end of their routes, and that shows: we get prime shipping for almost everything. In fact, trying to batch individual items into fewer deliveries is not necessarily even an option anymore. It's rare that I need the order in for next day, and I'd be happy to have the whole batch delivered in 2-3 days. But no, I get a small batch on next day, one item on day 2 and two more on day 3. There is no - or very rarely - option to select "all of these in one go, on day 3, please".
Then again, I live in UK, in the weird place that's both in London and in Kent at the same time. That said, when we do need next-day delivery, it tends to be available for about 50% of the time.
I think we've had two deliveries after 20:00 in the past year.
Some that is because if anything does well in their marketplace, they make an AmazonBasics version and then undercut them.
Over time the experience degraded because they encouraged cheaply copying popular products, and then they even did it themselves and competed with their sellers. And of course their anticompetitive practices have made things much worse for those sellers.