Retail only costs money because it's actively expanding. Or at least, that was true in like 2018 when I last read about it.

Do you have a source for that? Is that all around the world, or just in some countries? That really interest me.

Why do people keep repeating that retail costs amazon money. Look at our earning reports, that is clearly not the case.

Over half of amazon's profit comes from retail revenue.

Internally, a lot of amazon retail revenue turns into AWS profit as amazon retail is AWS's biggest customer.

Are you sure about that? Web search results indicate that the 2022 net loss was likely a one-off, and they went back to being profitable last year?

Besides, your individual purchase surely isn't costing them more money than you're spending on it?

I only had to use AWS for customers of mine, not for my own stuff.

Also, did you search for my nickname and AWS? Interesting personality trait...

Ha! I'm sure they wouldn't operate at a loss. They might be investing or having a bad year, but if they were losing money they would shut down the operations.

Good point about AWS though.

no, it's like helping them seal their worldwide monopoly by denying your business to their competition

Once a year around black Friday I start a new prime trial, order a bunch of heavily discounted stuff and cancel the membership. I'm pretty sure there aren't sufficient margins and they are losing money on my order (with the hope most people will keep buying/keep the prime membership).