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Comment by araes | Hacker News Reader

It's obvious astroturfing.

The top two posts with the most upvotes are "Ebay is just as bad" for the startoff line, and "Everybody's just as bad as Amazon. Why are you being so mean and cruel to Amazon?"

Obvious astroturfing, just like the entire Amazon review ecosystem. Surprise? No.

https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ Bezos' wealth relative to "normal" shown as 1-pixel comparisons. Be careful once you get to the $Trillion portion (you'll be scrolling for the rest of your life.)

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I LOVE that link, but I think serious accusations like that need better justification/explanation.

Are you saying that Amazon is buying upvotes for comments they like, or that that comment was written by a shill? The former is very possible but hard to prove either way, but the latter seems really unreasonable. In this example, it's a poster that's been here since 2017, talking about things like startup culture, Covid-19, and investment banking. They even say they're ex-AWS in their HN bio, which would be a very unconventional move for an Amazon-corporate-operated fake account.

Almost every claim of astroturfing is from someone who doesn't understand the basic argument opposing their position.

Unless it's Amazon reviews, where almost every glowing 5 star review is paid for.

Based on what? You’ve never given a 5 star review? I sure have and I’m sure many many other people have too.

> It's obvious astroturfing.

Are you really suggesting that Amazon is paying people to post comments on HN of all places? That sounds utterly deranged.

Found one.

I think this lawsuit is dumb and anti-consumer. I've also been active on HN since 2008. Not astroturfing :)

I still don't get how for me as a consumer it's bad that I see the full price and don't have to add the shipping on top only at the end of an order pipeline.

Doesn't showing the total price make it much easier to compare? Aren't politicians pushing on other service industries (airlines, ticket sales) to do just that with all their stupid hidden fees?

It's not astroturf. It's pointing out you've been living with this stuff for years, Amazon isn't new and special. If you want the problem solved then it shouldn't be about Amazon, it should be about entire process.

If Amazon can't sell an "Amazon Brand" that competes with other sellers on it's site, the Trader Joe's should not be able to sell wine that competes with the other branded wine in it's own stores. Nor should Target be able to see it's Good Stuff brand (or whatever it is) that directly competes with other things it stocks.

Similarly, if Amazon is going to be barred from having people pay to be the top of search results than Safeway should be barred from having companies pay to have their items placed on the end shelves.

This shouldn't be about just Amazon.

There’s no “entire process” you can target. You going to pass a law on how every company can raise prices? Impossible

No, the actual way is to go company by company and dismantle them. And by Starting with the biggest it sends a message to others that perhaps they should change before they too get broken up.

So by killing a few prominent hostages the system ends up changing “on its own.”

> No, the actual way is to go company by company and dismantle them. And by Starting with the biggest it sends a message to others that perhaps they should change before they too get broken up.

You will never finish if you go company by company, there’s just too many. Additionally no company ever stops anything until forced to. Your suggestions will not solve anything.

If they are all so interchangable, then I guess no one should care too much about them being split up either. Just need a high enough frequency of splitting to keep the market sane.

Are you suggesting free markets are a bad thing? If people think it’s bad, they can stop using the company. If you can’t convince everybody that it’s bad and they should stop using the company, then doesn’t this mean your thoughts are not the average?

Basically you just said it's hopeless

So what's the solution?

I reverse this question to you, what is the solution? I have none but asking companies to change will do nothing. Forcing them to change is a dictatorship. So you tell me what the solution is?

1. Set the example by creating or joining organizations that are not based on Capital owning the majority of the organization (cooperatives, non-stock not-for profit etc..)

2. Increase taxes on non-labor capital growth to directly fund full employment programs Eg make "profit" impossible

And i state again, setting an example will do nothing, as it hasn’t.

Banning MBAs will have more of an effect.

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