My claim is that if these companies weren't useful than they wouldn't exist. People hate Bezos but they spend their money at Amazon. Methinks they doth protest too much!
Amazon is immensely useful, but perhaps they are no longer a net positive to society. The goods and services they provide are certainly useful. But their status as a monopoly prevents a flourishing, competitive market that could address their failings. Amazon as a product is arguably poorer in quality than it used to be: just look at the state of their spammed-out reviews, scam products sold on their platform, etc. Their logistics offerings (built on poor working conditions) and AWS have certainly improved compared to the past. But other aspects have fallen short.
Maybe we shouldn't speak of companies as being "net positive" or "net negative", but rather speak of what could be improved if there was more competition, more companies, more market. Less monopolies.
So what if their product is arguably poorer in quality than it used to be, so what if there are spammed-out reviews or whatever? You're not showing that any of their competitors are better in the eyes of most consumers, and they definitely have competitors, very large ones in fact (eg Walmart, AliExpress, eBay).
If you think Amazon is unfairly using their monopoly to keep others out and capture the market, state your claim. If you think competitors could do better, prove it with consumer choice.
Walmart or Shopify or eBay or wherever you want to shop are just a click away. If consumers think they can do better, then they will. I have already ditched Amazon for all those reasons. But you cannot speak for others.
Consumer choice is binary, but it's not always tied to quality. There are factors like information asymmetry. Superior competitors may not be able to get a word in edgewise when the dominant player is able to blanket the airwaves with its brand. A disproportionately dominant position becomes a kind of monopoly of its own when its reach and resources are so much greater than the next set of competitors.
The competitors you list also aren't head-on in competition with Amazon. Aliexpress predominantly serves non-American markets. eBay, like it, is an auction site. Shopify does not have one central market, it's completely decentralized. Walmart is the most similar to Amazon, and perhaps with its acquisition of Jet.com and its growing investments in ecommerce, it may yet prove to be a lasting competitor. Stay tuned.
No it's not always tied to quality, it's just tied to what they want. If consumers don't prioritize quality, that's their rightful choice in the market, it's no one else's place to tell them what they should prioritize.
Greater reach and resources is part & parcel of being the top consumer choice. If they blanket the airwaves, if there is some asymmetry, still who cares? You're going to have to show how consumers do not have a choice or how it doesn't help consumers.
Because regardless of how intense Amazon's marketing and reach get, their competitors are still one click away. Finding out about competitors is one search query away, one media article away, or one advertisement away. Frankly, if a consumer is unable to expend the minimal effort to find & choose an Amazon competitor to buy a product, they're basically not trying at all. And not trying is their choice.
Consumers don't have a choice if there is information asymmetry and they are unaware of better offerings. And as I have illustrated, there is no single "Amazon competitor" as they are all online retailers in different spaces. Even Walmart's e-commerce initiatives are relatively new. A cursory search of competitors yields this list (https://www.shopify.com/blog/amazon-competitors) which has eBay (auction house, not in same class), Walmart (relatively new entrant to online space), Flipkart (India), Target (brick-and-mortar, smaller footprint than Walmart), Alibaba (China and APAC), Otto (Europe), JD (China), Netflix (only a competitor in streaming), and Rakuten (Japan and APAC).
As far as anti-competitive behavior, I will defer to luminaries more informed than I
Yes they do have a choice. Information asymmetry does not remove choice, it's just an asymmetry. Are you really telling me you don't have a choice to shop beyond Amazon? Consumers can't know enough to find other ways to shop besides Amazon? Do you know a single person who thinks Amazon is the only possible shopping option, either online or in-person?
It doesn't matter if there isn't a direct Amazon competitor. All large companies compete on multiple fronts. It does not mean there is no competition in shopping.
I don't respond to essay dumps like this. If you want to say something, you're going to have to say it or quote it.
Most people do consider Amazon as the default and online shopping retailer for general goods, as opposed to specialized needs such as secondhand products (eBay, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace) or specialized products (Wayfair for furniture, boutique retailers).
If you refuse to engage further in this conversation, that is your prerogative and it is noted. We can consider this matter closed.
Ok, a lot of people see them as the default retailer, but they still have a choice where to shop. They can and do still shop elsewhere. A default perception does not remove their choice. Still not a single example where consumers actually lack a choice.
Essay dumping is not conversation. Although it is also your prerogative to avoid conversation as well.
> If Amazon detected lower prices on other sites, it would bury their products in Amazon search results, where they got most of their sales. Some of the merchants were eager to grow their sales on other sites, but Amazon’s policies prevented them from offering lower prices elsewhere to draw shoppers away.
> Amazon constantly scans rivals’ prices to see if they’re lower. When it discovers a product is cheaper on, say, Walmart.com, Amazon alerts the company selling the item and then makes the product harder to find and buy on its own marketplace -- effectively penalizing the merchant. In many cases, the merchant opts to raise the price on the rival site rather than risk losing sales on Amazon.
> Merchants have long complained that Amazon wields outsize influence over their businesses. Besides paying higher fees, many now have to buy advertising to stand out on the increasingly cluttered site. Some report giving Amazon 40% or more of each transaction, up from 20% a few years ago.
> Some merchants are keen to increase their sales on Walmart, which charges less to sell products on its marketplace. But sellers say the price alerts are forcing them to maintain allegiance to Amazon and making it harder to diversify their businesses. Walmart routinely fields requests from merchants to raise prices on its marketplace because they worry a lower price on Walmart will jeopardize their sales on Amazon, says a Walmart manager, who requested anonymity to speak freely about an internal matter.
That's a stretch, Amazon's policies are entirely optional, you don't have to sell on Amazon. It was the seller's self-interested choice to prioritize Amazon placement because consumers love Amazon.
The fact is that consumers continually choose to entrust Amazon the power to pick on their behalf, making it their consumer choice. If sellers leave, consumers often choose Amazon over the seller. Amazon can only "bury" merchants in their search results because consumers continue to be satisfied with what Amazon finds for them. If consumers found Amazon's search results lacking, they can find the missing sellers on other websites. Practically every consumer knows how to buy things online outside of Amazon, a lot of them do it all the time.
Personally, I choose to buy many better and cheaper things outside Amazon. I do not choose Amazon to find any of my stuff. That choice has always been extremely easily available to any consumer, but they don't choose it. Consumers aren't being denied a choice, they have chosen: they chose Amazon's higher fee marketplace.
Be that as it may, it's best to table this conversation until there is more clarity from the DOJ. Without empirical findings, this is just value judgment after value judgment. Let the courts decide. Since that article from last year, Congress has even sought an additional probe for Amazon allegedly obstructing investigations.
There were a lot many years from the time of Amazon's inception till they became a monopoly. It seems like your "what could be" experiment has already been done. There was plenty of opportunity, but nobody managed to build a better competitor to them.
It is a separate argument, but 'more competition' isn't a magical fix to everything. This sort of gating mechanism relies on the end user/consumer having good knowledge, sound judgement, etc. Also what is best for the consumer isn't best for the society. A wild example - For me, as the consumer I'm happy to get an iPhone for $200, but that might mean that Apple pays their employees below US minimum wage.
People spend money on Amazon because it is convenient? However, I don't consider it to be net positive in current society. In many countries like India, many mom & pop stores are closed due to Amazon. They are destroyed thousands of business. Amazon is funneling money into its company which would have been distributed to multiple people. Seeing this drastic implications even CCP tried to clamp services like Amazon, Alibaba in China so they won't be too powerful.
So, I think you need to prove how Amazon is net positive in society?
You could argue the same for the likes of Philip Morris or the Sackler families business. Just that people are very willing to buy a product doesn’t imply that it’s good. So I wouldn’t raise the fact that folks buying Amazon or Tesla products as a pointer that their products are any good perse.
I think so. Cigarettes are enjoyable and Oxycodone is on the World Health Organization's Essential Medicine list.[1] You can also drive your Tesla off a cliff, or attack someone with a knife you bought from Amazon. The possibility of risky behavior doesn't necessarily make a thing useless.
In the interest of full disclosure I enjoy the occasional cigar.
