Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/01/president-elizabeth-warren-2.html
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Someone explain to me how Amazon’s private labeling is predatory while that of Walmart, which remains twice its size, is not. Someone explain to me how Amazon, which enables hundreds of thousands of small merchants to compete against Walmart, is some threat to economic freedom while Walmart is not?
Beware calls to regulate that benefit incumbents. Whether it’s Walmart or AT&T makes no difference.
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No one saying Amazon’s private labeling is shady as fuck is complimenting Great Value, in fact it is hits the opposite. People warning about Walmart 20 years ago saw something like Amazon coming and now it is here.
Also, Amazon doesn’t allow small merchants to “compete” with Walmart. It stocks its shelves with smaller businesses than Walmart can afford to with physical stores. The one benefiting is still Amazon, and the one competing with Walmart is Amazon (thiugh it isn’t much competition).
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To be fair, conservatives are only interested in busting large companies they perceive as liberal or progressive. I’m not sure that’s something to cheer, at least I’m not sure yet.
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Conservative interest in breaking monopolies begins and ends with Amazon, and is purely an attempt to intimidate the Washington Post.
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Nothing to say about Citizen’s United? I would think that would be the big, juicy cherry that needs to be smashed pronto.
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There are billion dollar businesses being built on Amazon fulfillment. There are hundreds of thousands of small merchants using Amazon fulfillment. It’s nearly impossible for a small merchant to handle the complexity of sales taxes and compete without Amazon’s services.
Going after Amazon over its services to small businesses is doing the work of Walmart lobbyists. Just like the “text tax” for “rural broadband” is a ploy by AT&T lobbyists.
Markets should belong to those who invest in them, not those who are coziest with government.
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You seem to have assumed that people who are critical of Amazon, adore WalMart, for some reason. This is called a straw man. It’s also completely off-topic.
Welcome to BoingBoing.
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Let’s not pretend that these arguments are happening in a vacuum. Incumbents that lose power in the market always try to get that power back through government, which often means finding those whose ideology can be manipulated into support for their position.
The creation of “purity” that benefits a larger actor is not uncommon in the quiet rooms where elites debate regulation.
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Could you rephrase that in a way that is even the least bit relevant?
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Although you can’t ignore that a lot of the recent criticism of Amazon is coming from the right, and it probably has more to do with the fact Bezos owns the Washington Post than any new enlightenment regarding monopolies.
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That’s almost entirely wrong at every step. Companies are not making billions on Amazon, Amazon is making billions by being he only online marketplace. Billion dollar brands just know to invest in Amazon for their sales, and small brands literally have no possible way to enter the market outside of on Amazon’s terms. And Amazon is cherry picking the best of he small brands and driving them out of business with their private label.
And (again) criticizing monopolized retail includes a criticism of Walmart. Going after Amazon doesn’t promote the “vested government interest in Walmart” it is taking a long overdue step too late, a step that should have been taken against Walmart as well years ago. They are both huge thorns in the American economy, and as of right now Amazon is the bigger thorn with its sweetheart deals with he government and total control of the retail economy.
The idea that Amazon is a free market is ludicrous, as is the idea that Amazon is being bullied by lobbied interest in Walmart. You’re talking about a company whose own lobbied interest has given them complete tax exemption through their existence, and existence which created the wealthiest individual on the planet who also has a private media arm. They literally use electronic sensors on their employees to make sure they don’t pee too much.
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The point is that the idea that the Republicans are going to kumbaya with the Democrats over anti-trust enforcement is idiotic. The best they can hope for is that the Republicans will join with them to selectively take down centrist billionaires in order to give competitive advantage to far-right billionaires.
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Congress has almost no control of how anti-trust is policed, only if they give regulating bodies more power or not. What policy would cause Amazon to be broken up that wouldn’t impact far-right billionaires too?
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Walmart corporate was doing that to their employees in the '90s. It is interesting that all these Amazon stories (rightfully) make it into the news, but to learn about similar (and worse) behavior by their established and politically connected competition you have to know someone who worked there.
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Walmart was not live-tracking employee positions in the building and harvesting the data, they were doing it the old fashioned way with asshole managers. And again, Amazon is everything Walmart is and was but worse in every way.
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No, they were live tracking with sensors on badges that were then fed into their mainframe. They didn’t have high resolution GPS, but they didn’t need it. The detectors were built into the doors.
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At issue is the definition of an anti-competitive trust. Believing that the Republicans can’t narrowly define it to target Amazon, Apple and Google and not Walmart, Dell and AT&T, much less choose attorneys who will blatantly selectively enforce it is pretty much exactly how the Democrats get owned on every issue.
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No, that’s not the issue at all. Anti-trust hasn’t existed in the US in my lifetime, and only gets worse each year. We have nearly a century of successful anti-trust legislation in this country that has almost entirely been undone.
And Democrats actively joining Republicans to weaken anti-trust regulation for two generations because the influence of center-right financial institutions and tech moguls is why they get owned on these issues, not the Republicans cleverly wording things to benefit their donors. In fact, every instance of the Democrats being “owned” is because they went right to meet the GOP, and not he other way around.
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“Patriot Act” on Netflix had an episode, “Amazon”, that explained Amazon’s business practices.
A quick summery of the key points:
- Small retailers selling on Amazon have claimed that Amazon notes their best-selling items, goes to the manufacturer and starts selling them themselves, cheaper than the original small retailer can manage.
- Amazon undercuts competitors ruthlessly - using past profits to support running at a heavy loss in the sector - in sectors it wants to claim - this is how they acquired diapers.com
- It is this undercutting that allows Amazon to claim low profit margin and evade current anti-trust laws through their low prices.
However, yes, I would bet money that this is of interest now only to pleasure the Fuhrer by silencing the Washington Post.
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