Definitely worth the full read. The bot cuts out too much of the story.
Big agree. Glad I actually read through the whole thing. Looks like a decent case against Amazon. Let’s hope the FTC wins.
So worth the read. We all knew they were shitty (Fuck you Bezos for setting up a charity to pay your workers during the height of COVD) but they managed to exceed the bottom barrel expectations and descend even lower.
His previous article on counterfeit capitalism was also enlightening, and is a more substantive version of a few paragraphs I wrote last week.
Good stuff. Thank you.
I’m just going to assume that Amazon is preventing merchants from offering dick.
Do Walmart next.
No, Google.
Google is a far bigger threat than Waltons could ever be in their wildest dreams.
I don’t know about that, Walmart has done a lot of damage to our towns, cities and urban fabric by destroying small businesses and getting subsidized huge properties with more parking lot than productive business and residential space, and almost single-handedly creating a poor class of working people who still have to rely on welfare.
Not to mention, Walmart is the largest employer in the world with 2.3 Million “Associates.” I bet they would treat them like contractors if the Federal Government let them, all the while spreading bullshit claims like “we don’t need unions, because we are already like a family”.
I don’t even think that counts their unofficial sites like sweatshops.
People who live on the internet don’t care about those problems.
Says someone who 100% goes full karen at their ISP every time theres a connection disruption.
You must know me so well
The Google one has already been going on for three years.
Edit: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-monopolist-google-violating-antitrust-laws
Different sphere. Google doesn’t own the consumer relationship or point of transaction to buy any or all goods.
Google does a lot of things worth scrutiny to break up, but it’s not the same sphere.
Google is an obvious threat, Walmart is an insidious one.
They are both corporations.
The corporate world has demonstrated that they don’t care about anything or anyone just as long as they are making record profits.
Corporations are the source of problems these days. As far as I am concerned they all should go straight to hell.
They’re already going after Google which is mentioned in the article. The real next target (at least in the tech space, don’t know a ton outside of that) is Microsoft imo.
Walmart is the largest employer in half the states in the union. And almost all of those employees are still on government assistance so we’re subsidizing their staff wages. That part at the least needs to stop
I came up with a solution for this… Any employer who has employees on assistance has to pay the government back for the assistance in full. Republicans want to come after the families of deceased disabled people to recuperate Medicaid money, so this should be right up their alley, right?
Glad to see it. At least take the swing.
This is amazing
Of course the shipping isn’t free. But probably, the shipping to a handful of more localized facilities and then to the home directly is cheaper than the cost of shipping one case of that product to each of 4000 brick and mortar locations, where it might sit, tying up capital at each one for weeks before selling.
The article uses a 40% split too - I seriously doubt that the cost to ship a $6 item is $4, especially for Amazon running their own logistics network to lower costs even further. I don’t quite understand why unbundling the shipping cost would be somehow better, meanwhile my local grocery store or Best Buy doesn’t separately charge me for their transportation costs to get the item to the store location.
None of this is to defend the obviously undefendable Amazon - sounds like the FBA program is extremely predatory. And their selling ad placement on search pages has slowly ruined the shopping experience. I hope Amazon gets broken up for the good of the consumer and the market.
we already have a federal shipping service, and it would be better if republicans didn’t try and destroy it every chance they get, like scrapping the sorting machines to stop mail in voters
What’s crappy is that’s the only reason they are killing it. Cause it allows MORE people to vote easier. Which means LESS votes for Republicans. That’s why they keep trying to kill it and it sucks.
it’s actually not the only reason, there is the second of wanting to destroy the post service to be able to privatize it or make it so bad that it stops being an option, and they can push a private post office.
“Let’s say a product today is sold for $10 on Amazon with ‘free shipping’. If Amazon is forced to unbundle the FBA fee from the product price then it would cost $6 + $4 shipping.
In the short term, this is going to bring Amazon even more money. They’ll just accept both until a competitor comes along.
That doesn’t add up. The majority of what Amazon sells is at MSRP.
Often times things are cheaper elsewhere these days. MSRP isn’t really a good deal. The problem is Amazon has become the default and spends an enormous amount of money to make sure you are directed there.
Amazon often times has to lower its prices to match retailers though. It’s definitely not the default.
I think most customers can figure out the bottom line price including shipping and compare that with other places, eg comparing Amazon to Ebay. What this will mean though is that websites will no longer bundle the price together, shipping and the item will be separated and prices will go up.
Lol FTC is a fucking joke in this country. Nothings going to happen
Amazon is just gonna drag it out until they get a favorable administration to give them a sweetheart settlement.
Like Microsoft did.
Thats not what MS did at all, but okay.
That’s exactly what Microsoft successfully did.
Did they do the same thing in the UK where they were also being held up? No. Was the trump admin particularly hostile to this or the Biden admin particularly lax on it? No. So it has nothing to do with the admin, it’s just they have hoards of lawyers that can exploit loopholes or make good defences.
Was the trump admin particularly hostile to this or the Biden admin particularly lax on it?
On the Microsoft antitrust case?
The one that started during the Clinton administration and ended during the GWB administration?
oh okay, thats the one you’re referring to, not the Activision buyout.
Yeah im not educated on that one so idk.
Cory Doctorow says this is the best FTC we’ve had in 40 years, and Lisa Khan is “doing the Lord’s work”. I trust him implicitly on such matters.
Cory Doctorow says this is the best FTC we’ve had in 40 years
With all well-earned respect to Doctorow, that bar is pretty low when it comes to antitrust.
If they don’t finish before the next presidential term there’s a good chance Trump will replace everyone.
A lot of conjecture here.
“If” and “a good chance”. 😞
If you aren’t taking the possibility seriously you really haven’t been paying attention 🙄
Is it the FTC’s fault at all? Lina Khan is doing great work, and the US has fought against Microsoft’s monopoly before. The real problem is the judicial system has no interest in joining this fight.
I wanted to read the whole article, but when I tap on continue reading when this pop up came up, nothing’s happening. The pop up will not go away, who coded this website? Why won’t this pop up disappear? I am not going to make an account just to read this one news article
Might be your browser.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission and 17 states filed an antitrust suit against Amazon, one of the biggest companies in the world, for monopolization and unfair methods of competition.
Ostensibly, the retail firm is the lowest price option in the market, and it offers “free shipping” to over 100 million Amazon Prime customers, for which it charges a $139 a year membership fee.
Consumers pay for the free shipping, it’s just a hidden tax baked into the price of what you buy by an extraordinarily clever scheme put forward by Amazon.
The firm even speculated that “media and selling partners may claim the removal of the clause was not only trivial but a trick and an attempt to garner goodwill with policymakers amid increasing competition concerns.”
Indeed, the stakes here are one reason that antitrust legend Bill Kovacic called the Amazon complaint “the most important case that the FTC has brought in its 109-year history.”
The second is something called Project Nessie, which is an algorithmic pricing system so egregious that the FTC determined that it deserved its own charge as an unfair method of competition.
The original article contains 1,754 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 89%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
for anyone who read through the summary, the full article is worth the read.
Agreed, read the whole thing!
The charges seem to revolve around how Amazon treats third-party sellers on its platform. It would seem, then, that I can avoid being a contributor to that by only purchasing on Amazon items which are sold by Amazon. And because their Prime free shipping costs them more than it does me, my choosing to do so only fucks them harder.
Goddamn the mental gymnastics of Amazon shoppers
Seriously.
“If I just buy more cheap junk I don’t need from Amazon it’ll hurt them!”
Especially thanks to my Amazon Prime subscription!
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
It may fuck the company harder, but you’re also fucking all the mistreated workers that ensure the shit you ordered gets to you.
Jesus Christ man
Fuck Amazon by buying Amazon.
Are we still letting anyone vote?
If they’re losing money by offering free shipping on their own sales, yes.
Would you agree or disagree that they might make up that physical money through things like influence, marketing their brand for free on their delivery vehicles, continuing to hold down market value, etc?
Not all company value is strictly in sales, not so sure I agree that this hurts Amazon in the short term or the long term but I’m happy to continue chatting about it
I guaranfuckingtee Amazon doesn’t lose money on shipping. If they were losing money on it they’d raise the price of Prime. Anyone reading this thread who thinks they have it figured out more than a trillion dollar company with armies of logistics departments is foolish.
According to one J.P. Morgan analyst, the actual value of Prime is roughly $1,000 for a customer, which means that Amazon is subsidizing its Prime business to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a year.
the actual value of Prime is roughly $1000
value is different than cost. At market shipping rates, Amazon could be charging their customers more, say $1000, for Prime. But that doesn’t mean it costs Amazon that much to operate it. So your statement means they are leaving money on the table, but they still very well may be making a profit off Prime. Just not as much as they could.
And yet they’re still able to rake in cash, weird. Almost like some random JP Morgan analyst is telling half a story to slant it how they want.
If Amazon was “losing” money on Prime they’d raise the price. It really is that simple, all the creative accounting in the world doesn’t change that.
edit; you know how you can cost Amazon $1k per year? Cancel prime and stop buying so much bullshit.
Those Amazon items are mostly copies. So not really.
Do they still mix inventory so it doesn’t even matter who you buy it from?
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The amount of companies that Amazon would be broken up until is kinda high because they do so much. And each of those smaller companies wouldn’t be insulated from competition as they are because they’re an integral part of a monopoly.
I should clarify that fragmenting mega corps is a good thing because it reduces their ability to disproportionately influence entire economies.
That is the problem that antitrust is meant to solve.
The consolidation of wealth is also a problem, but let’s not ignore this one just because other problems exist.
Breaking up companies gets rid of “too big to fail” bailouts, increases competition, and lowers prices for consumers.
The article was worth reading
