Amazon has been profitable for many years now. YCharts showing profitability by quarter: http://j.mp/13zx97Z for the last 5 years.
Also, note that Amazon's initial business plan was such that it would not turn profitable for quite a few years, instead focusing on sales-growth. IIRC, they turned profitable around 2002.
Their most profitable year, 2010, they only made $1.15-billion of profit off of $34-billion in revenue.
In 2011 they made only $631-million off $48-billion.
In 2012 they had a worldwide loss of $39-million.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/10/26/amazon_profit...
http://guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/16/amazon-tax-a...
Yeah. At the end of the day, it's all about the quarterly profit. If a company isn't chasing the short-term dollar, the shareholders must be suckers.