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Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

The pattern is quite simple.

Build infrastructure to serve internal operations at a scale no rational external buyer would justify. Optimize it to a level that drives marginal cost below the buyer’s internal alternative. When the surplus capacity is too large to write off, open the API and sell it.

Forgot the last part: when you have eliminated all the competition and have all your customers locked in with no other options, raise the price.

We need to get back to preventing (or breaking up) monopolies.

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> Forgot the last part: when you have eliminated all the competition and have all your customers locked in with no other options, raise the price.

AND don't forget to degrade services as well

The 10-K makes this concrete. AWS is 17% of Amazon revenue but ~60% of operating income (FY2024). The retail arm runs on thin margins — the infrastructure arm subsidizes everything.

Isn't that already illegal in many countries (dumping)?

The issue is that AWS is embedded in many governments and there is no appetite to do anything about it.

If a country started proceedings against AWS they'd risk their country infrastructure going down, so it is a no go.

I wonder why this has not been considered as national security risk and frankly negligence.

Dumping is selling at a loss. The quote clearly describes selling for a profit.

Aws marginal cost is below the internal production price of the buyer

Amazon "operated at a loss" for years, avoiding income taxes, as they dumped all their profit into building their infrastructure, which they are now selling for less than anyone else can because the taxpayers effectively subsidized it.

That isnt dumping. There is a big difference between running a company at a loss and selling a good at a loss.

This is exactly what we want our tax structure to incentivise. Investing in the future for growth and cheaper goods.

Yes, I should not have used the word dumping there as it's not in the same context as its usage upthread. I just meant they plowed all their profits into R&D and infrastructure growth, and as a result had very little or even negative taxable income. They operated at a loss, but it was contrived. They had revenue pouring in.

While I agree we want to incentivize investing in future capacity, I don't think we intend that incentive to be used to create monopolies. As with many things, what's good at small scales can be bad at huge scales.

The tax situation isnt what created monopolies. It was and is available to all.

It is unclear what is bad about it, as long as they provide a better or cheaper product than the competitor.

If they are ilegally preventing competition, then regulatory action should be swift. Otherwise, it is a win-win and the consumer is getting a better product than others could provide. This is the classic walmart scenario.

It is win-win until there's no competition left and they can now raise prices and enshitify their products with impunity.

I don’t think it will ever happen. The corruption is so widespread and now openly practiced. The powers that be all have their hands in those cookie jars. Their sweet tooth is insatiable, and they will never relinquish those treats until they get severe spankings.

Also worth pointing out the "Optimize it to a level that drives marginal cost below the buyer’s internal alternative" includes reducing labor costs by underpaying and overworking workers.

break. up. Amazon.

break up Apple, Meta, MSFT, etc... while we're at it.

Or, keep it simpler - if a company passes a market cap of 1 trillion dollars, they must forgo lobbying and "government relations". if you're worth a trillion dollars or more, you don't need the government to hold your hand.

A trillion? Why wouldn’t we set the bar at $0 - companies are not people, and allowing them to influence politics, at any size, corrupts democracy

I like the way you think. But most wouldn't agree, they believe a company should have the right to influence government.

Idk, i think this is incorrect. I think the majority oppose unlimited spending by corporations and individuals. 76% by one poll:

https://issueone.org/press/new-polling-citizens-united-money...

The law and the majority don’t agree way more often than one would expect in a democratic society.

Unproven, really. I don't think I'd argue that most people think that the individuals in a company (even its CEO) have the right to influence government. But the question is whether the corporation ("are people too, my friend) itself has this right. I'm not clear that most agree with that.

The corporation is the primary structure for individuals to organize - from soul crushing businesses to chess clubs, environmental non-profits, or labor unition.

Government influence primarily consistes of sharing information with votes passing flyers on the street or running adds.

When framed this way, I dont think most people would agree that groups should be prevented from getting their message out.

Are there actually chess clubs that are incorporated?

Coops, unions, guilds, non-profit societies, knitting circles, meetups, etc. are all non-corporations.

> Government influence primarily consistes of sharing information with votes passing flyers on the street or running adds.

Lobbying, and superpacs are not about getting a message out - they are about spending money on ads to buy votes. That’s different from advocating for your hobby or interest.

Not to mention the asymmetry. If 20,000 grain farmers want to lobby about wheat by spending $10 each, that’s different from one man spending the same $200,000k on getting a candidate in. Or millions - e.g. elon, etc last election.

Interesting.i was wrong about unions. You are wrong about co-ops and non-profits, both of which are almost universally Incorporated. So much so that I've never seen a non Incorporated Co-op.

That said, we could also ban informal groups from political speech.

How are these things different, getting the message out versus buying votes? Also where do I go to collect my vote payments? Getting the message out usually cost money. If you like some but not others, is it the content of the messaage you find disagreeable?

> That said, we could also ban informal groups from political speech.

Money is not speech. Speech is free, everybody can speak. Money lets some people amplify their speech proportional to how rich they are. Thus the rich get richer and democracy goes hungry.

> How are these things different, getting the message out versus buying votes

“Grain is good” getting your message out.

“Vote for jeff, a message from big grain” buying votes

So no paid speech? It would be interesting. It would give a lot of leverage to those who already own megaphones.

You could talk to your neighbor but not donate or collaborate.

Are you playing dense on purpose here? There are lots of ways forward.

E.g. Spending limits. Each person can spend up to $2000 on political speech. Individually or as part of a group, company, whatever. After that, all you’ve got is your time - go knock on doors.

Sure, $2000 is nothing to a jeff bezos, and too much to someone making $18k/year - but it levels the field so that jeffy, or the nra, or aipac, or oil and gas can’t throw their weight around in the way they do now.

There are other ways, that’d just be a return to how things were pre-citizens united

That seems to contradict you position above where speech is free and money isn't speech.

That said, I think it's a position that someone could take that they'll political speech should be limited when it involves money, provided they are honest about it.

I do think it would give more power to those who owned the megaphones, but maybe that's worth it.

That said, I don't think that pac spending are that big of a problem. The bigger problem is lobbying, aka the sharing of thoughts and ideas with politicians to educate them and inform their positions.

What’s the contradiction?

Speech is free, as in part of freedom, so speech should not be regulated by the government.

Spending money to amplify speech is not a right or a freedom, it should be heavily regulated.

> That said, I don't think that pac spending are that big of a problem

Look at aipac, there are only a handful of politicians who don’t take their money (or how every you want to phrase pac money being spent on you “independently”). And yet something like 60% of americans have an unfavorable view of israel. If those politicans taking aipac money take the wrong position on israel, that money disappears, and goes to an opponent of theirs. That’s just lobbying. Pac money is lobbying.

The failure to differentiate different categories of corporation is at the heart of the error that is Citizens United.

Sure, most people would agree that the various kinds of corporations formed for the purpose of doing something other than making money should be able to play a political role.

But I do not believe that most people would agree that corporations formed for the explicit and (generally) sole purpose of making money should have this ability.

Unfortunately for this project, the First Amendment puts the right to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances” alongside freedoms of speech, the press, and religious exercise.

Citizens can absolutely do that.

Corporations might be "people" but they aren't citizens. Especially if they participate in shenanigans designed to "minimize" their tax exposure that involve shell corporations in other countries.

As the bumper sticker/fridge magnet says, "I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one of them".

Almost certianly manufactured by a company that could otherwise be prohiited from printing it. Interesting.

> Founder, Corporate sellout,

well at least they're not hiding it

The Constitution applies to the People of the United States. Not only citizens, and not only people who haven’t formed certain kinds of voluntary associations (another right protected up front!)

it would be a very different and interesting world if individuals lost their right of free speach if they organize as a group

This is being disingenuous. Maybe not deliberately so, but still.

There's a difference between a few people getting together and petitioning the government for redress; versus, a multitrillion dollar corporation (that pays little to no tax, and is the recipient of very generous government contracts) buying its way to the front of the line and whining until it gets its way.

I thought we were talking about free speach? If so, I dont think it is off topic at all. People literally advocate that.

In citizens united, the government’s position was that, under their interpretation of the law, the government had the authority to prohibit a corporation or a non-profit organization of any size from publishing a book or pamphlets if they had political implications.

Where would you draw the line? what does "buying its way to the front of the line and whining until it gets its way" mean in practice?

It isnt just "hand holding", but legitimate information as well. X law will have y consequences. I think people seriously missunderstand what lobbying is.

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