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Comment by endisneigh | Hacker News Reader

I don't see the problem with this. They don't have to sell on Amazon to begin with. Amazon obviously wants their customers to have the best price available. Sellers can just go off Amazon if they don't like it. If sellers end up raising the price on other platforms as a result of this rule, then that says more about them than Amazon.

Demanding the lowest price does not harm consumers. Overstock, Wayfair, Walmart and others do the same thing. The result is the lowest price for a given product on all sites. This is unquestionably good for consumers.

If the price is higher then the fault is simply that of the seller for raising it. All e-commerce sites want the lowest price for their customers. Of course, people don't see nuance and just see BigCompany bad.

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I'll take the charitable interpretation and assume you just don't understand the mechanics of the policy.

Amazon is saying that sellers cannot offer a fair low price to customers on other platforms if the seller can't also offer it on Amazon. This is 1) anticompetitive, 2) anticonsumer, and 3) insane.

Consider this test:

- Seller buys a crappy LED bulb from China for $0.80

- Seller is happy to list the bulb on Walmart, Target, etc, for $2.00. Net of fees and shipping and stuff they make enough money

- Amazon charges $3 in fees. Obviously the seller can't afford to sell for $2 on Amazon. They sell for $5 instead.

- However, now the seller also can't sell for $2 on competing sites. Amazon, leveraging its market share, has dictated that the seller must price Amazon's fees into pricing on non-Amazon sites, so consumers pay $5 to Target for something the seller would have been happy getting $2 for.

This is insane.

I disagree.

Let's use your example. The sellers should stop selling that item on Amazon, and sell their light bulb on Walmart, or where-ever. Customers who really need that will go find it at Walmart, or where-ever. This strengthens the competitors to Amazon, which is bad for Amazon and good for the consumer. The consumer also find the lower price that they wanted. Alternatively, they buy the alternate product on Amazon which would be cheaper than the inflated price (per your example). Again, good for the customer. Everyone wins in every scenario except for the seller, which is how Amazon and every wholesaler operates.

Suppose the FTC wins this case and sellers can put whatever price on whatever site. Amazon, like any store wants the lowest price. Not to mention there are only some many items you can show on the first page of results. They will find some other reason to remove these sellers and/or their items.

Now maybe there's another case to stop that behavior too. The result is that companies are not obligated to let sellers on their site. That is insane.

In summary, there will never be a scenario where Amazon allows sellers to sell the exact same item for more than Amazon's competitors, unless the government forces Amazon to let sellers sell whatever on their site.

You’re just wrong, Amazon controls around 35% of all US e-commerce. Not being able to sell on Amazon instantly removes most of your available customers. The second largest is Walmart and it’s closer to 7%. Walmart, target, whatever, don’t add up to Amazons market.

> Amazon controls around 35% of all US e-commerce. Not being able to sell on Amazon instantly removes most of your available customers

Math doesn't check out. Not to mention that if sellers stopped selling on Amazon they wouldn't control so much. How exactly is making everyone sell on Amazon going to solve anythin?

Sellers should stop using Amazon if they don't like their policies, and the issues will correct themselves.

Or, hear me out here, The Federal Trade Commission orders a study done and the study corroborates the general sentiment here that Amazon is abusing their power in the marketplace. So, the FTC then sues Amazon.

Your 'feelings' about how this works only matters to you. The US branch of oversight for trade has declared (with a lawsuit) that this behavior is unconscionable and either is or will be illegal by the time this suit is finished.

You're welcome to dispute the FTC and the crowd here on HN, but you need to provide some sort of data to back up your claim of: Sellers should just stop using Amazon...the issues will correct themselves.

The FTC's suit alleges the exact opposite of what you allege. The FTC states that there is harm to the entire economy if Amazon is allowed to continue this practice.

Please cite the studies, data, or metrics you used to claim '...will correct themselves."

Thanks @endisneigh.

> The Federal Trade Commission orders a study done

> the study corroborates the general sentiment

Seems fishy ... Good thing that even corporations like Amazon get a day in court.

The math absolutely does check out, lets say, for an addressable market of 100k purchasers:

(and I'll be generous and I'll pretend Walmart has zero fees)

Amazon: ($5 selling price - $3 fees - 0.80 COGS) * (100k * 35%) = $42,000

Walmart: ($2 selling price - $0 fees - 0.80 COGS) * (100k * 7%) = $8,400

And even if they price the same on Walmart as they would on Amazon: ($5 selling price - $0 fees - 0.80 COGS) * (100k * 7%) = $29,400

See the issue? The problem is that one seller on Amazon moving to another platform won't change the fact that Amazon has the majority market share. That's how market momentum works and it's why we have antitrust laws.

Even with exorbitant fees, they are still where sellers need to be. And they are using this market share to force sellers into overpricing on other platforms so that they maintain this unfair position.

Walmart is not all-non amazon customers.

If Amazon's market share is 35%, then the non-amazon customers comprise the other 65% (which, being greater than 50%, constitutes "most").

Amazon: ($5 selling price - $3 fees - 0.80 COGS) * (100k * 35%) = $42,000

Not-Amazon: ($2 selling price - $0 fees - 0.80 COGS) * (100k * 65%) = $78,000

If a seller raises prices to match Amazon, they can be undercut elsewhere by those willing to forgo Amazon for the larger overall market share.

Amazon is convenient to small sellers in that they offer more customers on a single site than any other, and with limited bandwidth sellers logically want to minimize how many different sites they need to interact with, but charging for convenience is not inherently anticompetitive behavior. Amazon may have abused it's position in the particulars of its MFN implementation, but MFNs in general are fine.

There are two reasons why that 65% number is wildly unrealistic:

1. We're ignoring fixed costs associated with onboarding with an ecommerce platform. Selling on one website has significantly lower fixed costs than it is to sell on every ecommerce site on the internet minus one. We're talking thousands upon thousands of retailers, not a handful. If what you were thinking is that they could sell across the next 5 to 10 most popular ecommerce marketplaces, you're somewhere between 15% and 20% marketshare.

A more realistic number for that strategy is:

Not-Amazon: ($2 selling price - $0 fees - 0.80 COGS) * (100k * 17%) = $20,400

https://www.statista.com/statistics/274255/market-share-of-t...

2. Not all ecommerce sites represented in that 65% permit third party sellers. You can't just sign up and sell your stuff. You may have to convince their buyers to stock your product. This is not easy or cheap.

> Not to mention that if sellers stopped selling on Amazon they wouldn't control so much.

This is a problem in terms of organisation. If lots of people stop selling on Amazon this would be true. The problem is individually each seller is motivated to deal with Amazon so long as lots of other sellers are. A mass exodus from Amazon would in short order make the Amazon store far less relevant, but nobody wants to leave before everyone else is doing it because until then it costs them

And if lots of items became available on other sites, but not Amazon (as per the theory being propounded), then Amazon would no longer control 35% of all US e-commerce.

This is a classic coordination problem: you need all the sellers to leave together so that individual merchants don't take a loss. And coordination problems like this are one of the main areas government action can help!

Also, I'd imagine that coordination would probably leave them vulnerable to their own set of anticompetitive allegations (i.e., some variant of cartel behavior/price-fixing). To the extent anyone acts, it would probably have to be government.

There are companies that do not sell on Amazon. I seek them out. They will tell you that if their product appears on Amazon, it's counterfeit.

It's probably an impossiblity if your business model is selling cheap imported Chinese garbage at a profit, but that's the businesess you chose. Others have chosen to sell quality items on their own terms. Those are the businesses I want to reward.

And how much of the stuff that these sellers are just cheap Chinese crap that they wouldn’t be able to sell at all if Amazon didn’t exist?

> They will find some other reason to remove these sellers.

That's be much harder work, though, so regulation might well still have the intended effect.

Either their reason will need to be through their seller terms and conditions, or it'll have to be done on an individual seller basis.

Amazon relies on scale, and therefore standard terms and conditions for all sellers that can be scrutinized by regulators.

If it's done on an individual seller basis, I don't think they'll be able to do it while having the same effect in practice.

> Customers who really need that will go find it at Walmart, or where-ever.

So here's a weird externality. As a decently well off tech-worker, I don't care if I'm paying 5$ or 2$ for lightbulbs, even if I'm re-lighting my whole house. The seller will sell on Amazon, because it is the largest market and will set their prices on other markets to match Amazon. I'll buy on Amazon, because it isn't worth my time to check multiple websites to get the best price (especially when SKUs differ and I have multiple other items I'm buying, etc). And now people who do need to save money, can't also find this lightbulb at a cheaper price on competing marketplaces, even if this lightbulb is actually the best quality.

> And now people who do need to save money, can't also find this lightbulb at a cheaper price on competing marketplaces, even if this lightbulb is actually the best quality

It's the opposite of what you're saying. Sellers not selling particular items on Amazon is good for consumers who are price conscious, because if they need that particular item they will search for it and find it cheaper on another store, strengthening that one and hurting Amazon.

And if they don't care they will find cheaper items on Amazon. Everyone wins except for the seller, which is Amazon's MO.

> It's the opposite of what you're saying. Sellers not selling particular items on Amazon is good for consumers who are price conscious,

Sellers don't just 'not sell this item on Amazon', because it is the largest single market. This is like, the whole issue in question.

> because if they need that particular item they will search for it and find it cheaper on another store, strengthening that one and hurting Amazon.

This is the exact thing that isn't happening, because Amazon is abusing its market position.

But, even if this was the case and the seller chose to sell on a different marketplace and take the Amazon ban, then it still wouldn't be as good as having just having the item listed on both marketplaces at two different prices. Because then I wouldn't be able to buy the best lightbulbs in one convenient location.

So you understand your effect in participating in this system, but life's too good for you to do anything differently. Nice.

A company makes a product - it costs $10 per unit to make. To list and sell with Amazon, they are charged $12 per unit. To make a profit the company adds and additional $1 per unit. They sell the product on Amazon for $23 per unit.

Online retailer Foo also has a store, and provide the same services that Amazon for their online shop at $5 per unit. The online retailer adds a profit of $2 per unit. Total price $17 per unit. Retailer Foo is more $ efficient for those services as a result customers price compare. Foo is rewarded for their effi with higher volume, manufacturer is rewarded with higher profit and consumer is rewarded with lower prices. Enforcing market competition led to all 3 parties involved being rewarded. Retailer Foo over time grows a larger customer base as people learn to price compare with them and forces Amazon to stop rent seeking.

But the above doesn't happen in the real world. Amazon enforces that the retailer lower their price on Amazon to $17, while still collecting $12 per unit. The company now can sell on foo, but only by selling on Amazon at a loss. They can't afford that amount of loss from Amazon and stay in business. So Amazon avoids competition. They can't pull their product from Amazon because not enough customers vist Foo retailer yet to make up the volume.

So in the end Foo retailer is more dollar efficient, but is prevented from growing and benefiting the marketplace. Amazon leverages its outside market size to avoid competition. Market participants preventing competition is against the benefits of capitalism and harms the consumer. So, it benefits the consumer to ensure Amazon has to actually compete with the more efficient competitor and stop rent selling behavior.

> They will find some other reason to remove these sellers.

I think this speaks to the nut of the problem. Unless there is an incentive upstream of the misalignment of parties, then any number of lawsuits after the fact will have a "war on drugs" level of futility.

What to do then? In an alternative universe perhaps the FTC was implemented to improve trade by promoting standards, ontologies and authenticity verification that lead to greater freedom of trade and less gatekeeping.

If a monopoly can't help but follow its incentives to abuse its market power, then you break up the monopoly.

It is none of Amazons business what prices they put when they list their wares on other services, the only reason they care is that they want to crush the competition.

Dictating how retailers can interact with your competitors is anti-competitive. Dictating what prices they can offer when they put up listings is a part of that, it is anti-competitive.

> It is none of Amazons business what prices they put when they list their wares on other services…

It is literally Amazon’s business to offer pricing at equal to or better than their competitors.

> …the only reason they care is that they want to crush the competition.

Every company wants to beat their competition, and many (most?) want to “crush” their competition. Don’t you think Target wants to crush Amazon? Don’t you think Google wants to crush Apple in smartphone sales? Don’t you think a local retailer would love to crush Amazon for products in their niche?

The only question here is whether Amazon is doing this in an abusive way and/or a way that negatively impacts consumers.

We’ll find out in the trial…

> It is literally Amazon’s business to offer pricing at equal to or better than their competitors.

For their own products they can.

For third-party items, Amazon is free to lower their margin.

Overstock & Wayfair scan + compare identical & similar listings at Amazon and other sites, and will message sellers if their price is not the better price.

It's annoyingly a pretty standard practice. And they will see through the "different SKU" trick simply by comparing the product images.

Isn’t the solution to just ban all of the companies from doing it? More companies than just Amazon can be anti-competitive.

I think that's a good solution in this case (ban it for everyone), but remember that there are different rules for companies who are found to have monopolies in a specific market. Something a monopolist does could be illegal while being completely legal for their competitors (who don't have a monopoly).

To be fair, every single wholesaler operates this way.

I have personalky spoken to wholesalers who sell widgets X (lighters etc) to retail stores.

If the retail stores undercut everyone else and drop the price below MSRP, they will exclude them in the future. There is centralized price control even though the retailers are free to do what they want.

That is done by auto dealers and anyone else who does MSRP. The difference is that they are still competing in that product category. Amazon on the other hand is a platform that stands BEHIND them. This leads to an emergent price cartel, just like in the propu lica piece on NYC real estate:

https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=385

To shine a little more light, what you're referring to is called a minimum advertised price policy, or MAPP.

And as you've stated, it's done by anyone who publishes a MSRP.

https://www.deltafaucet.com/for-professionals/product-resour...

https://assets.ctfassets.net/zlhl2y58oyef/3wENIXr7qvqyOoVD6R...

https://www.pricespider.com/Blog/map-policy-faqs/

It's exactly their business. Amazon is going to use the limited "shelf space" to promote and highlight those products which are most likely to sell (and to generate best margins). If a product is for sale for less elsewhere, it's less likely to do so, so why should Amazon waste the "shelf space"?

This is no different than what non-e-commerce stores (such as Walmart) have been doing for years.

Amazon doesn’t need to promote every single item they sell and it would be meaningless for them to do so. They have a long tail of items which rarely sell and only show up on very specific queries disproving any kind of limited shelf space argument.

As a simple practical manner a small manufacturer can more cheaply sell products at their factory than the overhead of selling through Amazon or anywhere else. You often see this where mid sized brewery offers beer kegs more cheaply on location.

Amazon’s policy simply increases prices without any benefit to consumers or the overall economy.

From what I understand, it’s not that simple. Sellers need the sheer volume of Amazon to compete. There is also the risk of Amazon duplicating their product and continuing to sell it on their platform… or their competitors filling the void.

So what? That's how e-commerce works. Why should Amazon be obligated to fill their store with higher priced items compared to their competitors? No one is going to visit a store where every item could be purchased cheaper somewhere else. This is exactly why price match is a thing, because they don't want their costumers soliciting different stores to begin with.

The move that Amazon's price be no higher than offered elsewhere is the most pro-consumer move possible. Hilarious people are complaining about it. Any second-order effects of this are on the actual seller, not Amazon.

The market should decide. That’s commerce.

Yes, exactly. These sellers should and can just leave Amazon if they have a problem with it.

No, they should be able to set their own pricing as they see fit.

They are able to do so, but Amazon is not obligated to have them on their platform if they aren't providing the best price to their customers.

Amazon is a product search engine and should be treated as such. Vendors must have the freedom to set pricing on any platform as they see fit. If all product search engines and ecommerce platforms behaved in this anticompetitive behaviour then what would we have? A weird commercial landscape that lacks flexibility… in the end the consumer looses because free market forces are not in play.

Amazon is not a product search engine, so the rest of your post is irrelevant. They are a store and describe themselves as such. You cannot find products on Amazon that are not for sale by them or sellers who agree to their rules, an actual product search engine would allow this.

Good luck with that! Amazon is the most powerful product search engine available. I love it and use it almost every day. Amazon will spend a lot of money trying to convince the feds they are otherwise… no amount of lobbying, PR pieces, paid ops and persistent commenting on boards like this one will stop valid questions being asked in hearings. It’s only a matter of time sorry.

I don't even know where to begin with this comment. Do you know what anticompetitive behavior is? Do you know how markets are supposed to work? Amazon is leveraging their position in the market to unfairly disadvantage their competitors, thereby distorting the market, decreasing its efficiency, and increasing end prices for consumers everywhere. Market-distorting behavior like this is why antitrust regulation is necessary to keep markets functioning efficiently.

Everything you're stating is false. Amazon is trying to do right by its customers, and they are not obligated to let sellers not give their customers the best price available. Sellers are not obligated to sell on Amazon.

Your conclusion that this increases end pries for consumers has nothing to do with Amazon, but the sellers themselves.

Amazon was already told not to do this for anti-trust reasons, and they promised to oblige. Unless the government, Amazon, and the general public are all incorrect about what constitutes monopolistic behavior, you are. The idea that Amazon is openly defying pro-consumer laws to do right by its customers is absurd.

Some would say that the way commerce works is sellers can sell anywhere at any price that a buyer wants to pay.

That's not how commerce works. Commerce works by following the rules of places that you are trying to sell at. You can't sell anything anywhere.

And Amazon needs to follow the rules and laws of the place that IT'S trying to sell at.

And which law dictates a company must allow people or sellers on its platform?

I'm not GP. I didn't make that argument. I agree that Amazon is not obliged to allow just anyone on their platform. Sellers must abide by the rules that Amazon sets in place. At the same time, Amazon must abide by the laws of the locations at which it wants to sell. So if a state says that they cannot force a seller to keep their lowest price on Amazon, then that's the way it is.

> So if a state says that they cannot force a seller to keep their lowest price on Amazon, then that's the way it is.

Yes, but at the end of the day Amazon to remove the seller for any reason, so even if the FTC succeeds here, Amazon will simply purge those sellers who are not offering the best price, even if not explicitly stated.

There is no reality where Amazon allows their site to be inundated with higher priced goods compared to competitors.

Perhaps you are right, and also then again perhaps those companies find that they have cause to file a lawsuit.

with astronomic fines (for the customers to pay)

There has been a a standard of “no duty to deal” forever. No company is forced to do business with anyone.

it would be sensible to require a reason for refusing to do business with someone. Normally it wouldn't be but if you are a repeat offender it seems a sensible requirement

Unless it's a protected class you can refuse to do business with anyone for any reason. Plenty of supreme court cases on this.

certainly, you can write anything on the form. Any reason is not without? I do doubt you can refuse one foo for being fooish but not the other. Now multiply by 10 000 and pretend you are explaining it to the judge in a context where you've been convicted multiple times.

Why not? If I'm willing to pay Amazon $6 for an item I could get for $5 at Walmart, why wouldn't Amazon want to make that sale?

this might come if the shop is large enough

Sure. The rules at the place you're trying to sell.

Dictating how you sell elsewhere is a clear step beyond that.

They are not dictating how they sell elsewhere. They are saying they need to offer the best price on their site. It is easy to detect whether or not they actually are, and sellers are simply being called out.

There is no obligation to sell on Amazon, nor a requirement for them to raise prices on other platforms. They could simply offer the lowest price everywhere. The result? Lower prices for Amazon customers. If they raise the price, then that's the seller's fault, not Amazon.

You...understand how you can't have one without the other, right?

> There is no obligation to sell on Amazon

While true, this ignores the important point that Amazon is only able to do this anti-competitive practice due to their market dominance that effectively forces many sellers to sell on Amazon.

> nor a requirement for them to raise prices on other platforms.

That is what this whole thing is about. Sellers that sell on Amazon aren't allowed to sell for lower prices on other platforms that are cheaper to sell on.

If Amazon was able to offer lower prices for its customers by offering sellers a marketplace with lower costs compared to competitors that would be great. Instead, they abuse their market dominance to prevent any competitors from offering lower prices by being more cost efficient for sellers. This is extremely nasty as it effectively prevents any competitors to Amazon from building a market share since consumers will have no price incentive to switch and sellers will not want to switch due to the smaller market share on those competitors' platforms.

It could not be more clear that this is anti-competitive behavior achieved through abuse of a dominate market position.

rules partially set by government

The move that Amazon's price be no higher than offered elsewhere is the most pro-consumer move possible.

Yet here we are with sellers WANTING to sell their items at a lower price on places other than Amazon, but if they do, they'll go out of business. That doesn't sound pro-consumer.

I'm a consumer. I'd like to be able to buy items for the lowest price the seller wants to offer me. That's not happening in some cases because if they do, Amazon will exclude them and they'll go out of business. Yeah, definitely not pro-consumer. Pro-amazon, sure.

Would Amazon be obligated to list the items regardless? Otherwise just dropping pricing conditions would only help those sellers that Amazon has enough interest to list regardless - for some products the "equilibrium" might not be great.

If your product doesn’t have any value that can be protected by copyright, patent and you haven’t built any type of affinity with customers, isn’t it by definition just another commoditized product?

Well, here's a real example. About a decade ago there was a simple video conferencing system called Nautilus. A simple LCD screen that let you call other people with the device and talk to them, not having to bother with computers or smartphones. The sort of thing that is good for talking with elderly relatives who may not be very computer or phone savvy. I bought one (from Amazon) for myself and my elderly parents. It worked well, but a few years later Amazon came out with their Echo Show products which are basically the same thing, which killed the Nautilus. I'm sure it was covered by patents and what not, but you can't protect the idea. Amazon obviously saw that it sold reasonably well and used its power as both a marketplace and a technology company to undercut their own seller.

Really? That’s your example? Everyone and their mother has a video conferencing solution and the idea has been around as something to aspire to since the 60s with the Jetsons .

Do you agree with the look and feel lawsuit that Apple had against MS? Or think that Roku, Amazon, Google , etc did something untoward because they came after Apple with set top boxes?

Well, for historical accuracy, Roku was first in regard to streaming devices you hooked up to your TV. Apple and the rest copied them. And it is pretty much obvious that Microsoft copied Apple (and yes, you can argue that Apple in turn copied PARC). But what makes Amazon copying things different is that they are a marketplace for other people's products and a maker of products themselves. That has an intrinsic conflict of interest.

The first AppleTV was released in 2007. The first Roku in 2008.

As far as Amazon copying others as a marketplace owner, ever heard of the Kirkland’s brand? Store brands have been around forever.

Fortunately or unfortunately, that is something that is easy to research. ie: Amazon Basics

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/amazon-copied-produ...

> thousands of pages of internal Amazon documents examined by Reuters – including emails, strategy papers and business plans – show the company ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoffs and manipulating search results to boost its own product lines in India, one of the company's largest growth markets.

Again have you heard of the Kirkland’s brand? Have you been to a CVS and seen the knockoffs? Literally every single major retailer has house brands that compete with third parties.

Your "What about Kirkland" -ism is irrelevant.

A big company can stall a copyright lawsuit for as long as it wants. Small companies cannot win against a large compamy like Amazon in court.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-14-fi-19337-...

Especially when they can just twist the court system however they wish.

Small victories like the chain wrench lawsuit against Sears happen. But they are rare.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-bionic-wrench-sea...

Your response shows that you did no read the article. They specifically show cases where Amazon copied sizes:

> Among the victims of the strategy: a popular shirt brand in India, John Miller, which is owned by a company whose chief executive is Kishore Biyani, known as the country's "retail king." Amazon decided to "follow the measurements of" John Miller shirts down to the neck circumference and sleeve length, the document states.

It’s not whataboutism at all. Only people that don’t know that housebrands have been a thing forever would think that the evil Amazon is doing something unique.

And CVS follows the formula of name brand OTC drugs down to the very ingrediant to make house brands. You can’t copyright a shirt measurement.

And before you call me an “Amazon shill”. I got PIPed from Amazon less than two months ago. I’m the last person who has any love for Amazon. Honestly I don’t have any feeling either way. It was just my 8th job over 25 years, they gave me a nice check and I had a comparable offer within two weeks.

The major difference here is that Amazon has major market power as an online mall.

Like with the sears example, large 'mall' like organizations do outright steal designs and stonewall the original copyright holder.

A random housebrand does not have access to Amazon's statistics, logistics or reach. Amazon is looking at stats that they hide from their providers, to choose who to copy, then out-price the original seller. (Due to inhouse logistics)

They are not even remotely the same thing.

And CVS doesn’t have major power when it comes to selling drugs and knowing which ones it should knock off with home brands? Every single store knows what to knock off based on what it sells.

And Walmart sells a lot more than Amazon.

You don’t think that every store knows how to undercut other products in its own store with house brands?

“A simple LCD screen that let you call other people with the device and talk to them” sounds like a commoditized product to me.

Yes, anyone here can go out and find an ODM from China to anufacturer them, send a custom version of AOSP to the ODM, slap their brand on it and sell it on Amazon.

So, to be clear, you have no problem with Amazon writing their own laws and collecting their own taxes? Because that is what they are effectively doing.

If sellers were obligated to sell on Amazon that would be the case, but it's not, is it? Ironically, people complaining about this are exacerbating the issue. If sellers who actually cared left Amazon it would loosen Amazon's dominance in e-commerce.

They're obligated to by the grip Amazon already has on the e-commerce market. Letting Amazon make anti-competitive moves that increase their grip will only worsen the situation.

This grip you're describing only exists because they don't leave, and nothing is stopping them. Again, no one is forcing people to sell on Amazon. They could use Shopify or sell on eBay.

People act as if you have to sell on Amazon. You don't. That assumption and expectation is why Amazon is dominant to begin with. Sellers should leave if they don't like it, and that will naturally soften Amazon dominance.

> and nothing is stopping them.

Imminent collapse and bankruptcy when they leave due to Amazon's dominant market position. That you can set up a shop anywhere does not mean anything when all of your potential customers are only going to the Amazon digital strip mall.

Listen, maybe you've never heard about antitrust law, but using one's dominant market position to maintain dominance in the market to the injury of consumers is pretty much the exact definition of an antitrust violation in the US. So write your local congressman complaining that antitrust law is restricting your ability to lick Jeff Bezo's boots, or run away to the Rockies somewhere and start a radically laissez faire community where everyone's asking about John Galt, but as the law stands in this country, it's illegal, and that's a good thing.

Just maybe some people don’t think that the government having more power and control is a good thing?

37% is not a monopoly. If you have a differentiate product, you can set up your own website through Shopify or any number of places.

And if you haven’t been paying attention, the FTC has been laughed out of court for the last five years every time it has gone after BigTech

What possible complaint could you have about government overreach that doesn't equally apply to corporations? Antitrust law is the only thing standing between us and a corpohellscape "America, an Alphabet Company".

Government has the power of the state to force their wills on people. Please tell me a scenario where an adtech company will gain the ability to take away my rights and property the way the government can?

The government has a “monopoly on the legal use of force”.

Look no further than Florida to see what an overzealous government can do when you disagree with them or the police that raided a newspaper office because they reported on police corruption.

I’m much more worried about when the police are behind me because “I don’t look like I belong” in my own neighborhood than the Google car mapping my street.

Companies can use anti-competitive behavior to curtail your rights in all sorts of ways. Look at America's storied history with company towns. Free speech doesn't get you very far when being blacklisted from the company store means you starve, or your company scrip that you've been being paid in is no longer accepted to keep you housed, or they pay the Pinkertons to beat you senseless for using the word "Union". The reason we don't have that anymore (well, except for that last one Amazon) is government regulation.

The government at least has the obligation to appear as if it's beholden to your will and rights. Corporations have no such qualms.

So please tell me a realistic scenario where Google goes from an adtech company to one that can take away my freedoms and shoot me with impunity?

Also please tell me a scenario where Amazon takes over all retail?

If you haven’t been paying attention, the justice system and political parties gerrymandering hasn’t even been trying to act like they are behaving fairly.

The governor of Florida has actively been punishing companies both big and small that have been speaking out against him.

It's not the monopoly on force, it's the monopoly on the claim to the legitimate use of violence, from Max Weber:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36317559>

There are numerous examples of private corporations or non-governmental actors engaging in violence, with or without state support or sanction. There are the 100 million souls lost, respectively, to the British East India Company's occupation and administration (as a private entity, with military powers) of India, of the transatlantic slave trade by numerous private commercial operators, and of the genocide against the indigenous populations of the Americas, again much by privately-chartered corporations (as the original British colonies were). There are extant mercenary forces such as Constellis (formerly Academi, formerly Xe, formerly Blackwater) in the US, or the Wagner Group presently transacting genocide in Ukraine. There are oil companies who have initiated coups, paramilitary actions, and assassinations throughout the world. There is the Pinkerton Agency, still extant, and with a storied role in violence against labour and civil rights movements. There are railroads, with their own (private) police forces, which are in fact registered as law enforcement despite being nongovernmental.

The truth is that there is no clean distinction between State and Private use of force, lethal or otherwise. What there is in government is, one hopes, legitimacy and accountability to the citizenry rather than to creditors and investors.

I've often seen the complaint that developers think the law is purely strategic, like a computer, and if they can find a technicality then the law must follow through.

But that's not how this works.

It's technically true that fiber has competition if another ISP is offering dialup in the same area. No one in their right mind would agree that's actually a competitor in anything but name.

And so it is here.

If not selling on Amazon is an existential risk for your company, Amazon is effectively a monopoly, and THAT is what the law cares about.

Sellers are in effect obligated to sell on Amazon, because the alternative is “go out of business”. That’s the whole goddamn point of FTC intervention.

Every company has the right to set the terms and fees to use them. A “tax” is something you are mandated to pay. I get plenty of crap advertised to me on FB that you can’t find on Amazon.

It does the opposite - it prevents the price going lower than cost plus Amazon fees.

Amazon is not exactly cheap for sellers, so the price has to go up everywhere.

I read that, on average, Amazon collects 50% of the cost in fees; from sellers.

And how much do you think traditional retail marks up prices from wholesale to retail?

Why is that relevant?

Because Amazon is a retail company and the amount that Amazon charges is not much different than the cost overhead of getting any product through the channel.

so my (theoretical) company that optimizes to keep these costs lower shouldn't be able to compete on those fees?

Sure, if all you care about is money, then you can already go on Amazon and choose alternate vendors that are available at a lower price with slower shipping.

So you don't even know what the article is discussing. Amazon is killing competition and increasing costs to consumers.

I happen to know exactly what I’m talking about - you right now can look for an item on Amazon and see “this product is available at a lower price with <slower shipping>”

You right now can set up a site on Shopify and sell your goods.

If you are selling a differentiate product instead of cheap crap imported (or drop shipped) from China, you can create demand without going through Amazon.

For instance, I was specifically looking for Samsonite zipper less luggage because I trusted that brand and it wasn’t available on Amazon. They chose not to sell on Amazon and I bought it directly

-- I happen to know exactly what I’m talking about - you right now can look for an item on Amazon and see “this product is available at a lower price with <slower shipping>” Sure, on Amazon. Not other platforms.

I'm not going to bother explaining further, but thanks for confirming you don't understand the issue. It's not my job to educate you.

> Demanding the lowest price does not harm consumers.

Amazon demands that sellers increase their prices on selling platforms with lower overhead. A demand to increase prices does harm consumers.

it is about the desire to control things that are non of your business.

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