The article says 40% of online shopping goes through Amazon and 2/3 of US adults have Prime. If you don't sell there, you're giving up most of your business and leaving that opportunity for another seller. It's not optional to do business with Amazon, like it would be if Amazon only owned 10% of the market (still huge!) and there were a bunch of other 10% marketplaces to turn to instead. Instead, it's just like the railroads—what you gonna do, build your own railroad? Good luck with that.

And Amazon is using this monopoly leverage to squeeze its small shippers. Amazon makes them pay to advertise on Amazon, but Amazon's own products get top billing for free. Amazon makes them pay for shipping, but Amazon ships its own products for cheap. Amazon punishes them if they list their products anywhere else for a lower price. And when Amazon sees a seller who has found a successful niche, Amazon can put its own product at the top of the search page for cheaper and instantly shove them out of that niche. "Both a marketplace and a competitor."

You kind of have to ...

The land for your business is at least in a country that isn't ran by you if not also just owned by a landlord that isn't you.

The materials you use to run your business are almost certain sourced from not you.

The lesson isn't "Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms" it's make sure you have contingencies for your suppliers.

I wonder what level of monopolization it's going to take for people to start figuring out that this is closer to a Soviet-style state economy than actual capitalism.

Kind of difficult when they burn down your entire city