I wouldn’t say we are tied to it, as in we are trapped, and I’m certainly no fan of Bezos but we buy a lot stuff and I’d rather not spend my free time strolling through a B&M store.
There’s a trade off, when boycotting a way of life cuts into my finances and time, I’m going to hedge for myself. I’ll happily look for alternatives for Amazon but, for me personally, Prime saves me a lot of money. I’ll not give it up until I find something else that comes close.
The whole point of a monopoly is to make sure there will never be an alternative. By limiting yourself to Amazon, you are insuring that they will always be your only option and ultimately surrendering to the oligarchy that is currently our likely future.
Not quite. I’d say it more like this:
By limiting yourself to Amazon, you are
insuring that they will always be your only option.contributing towards them increasingly becoming your only option. You’re making yourself part of the problem, not part of the solution.
The challenge for all of us consumers as to Amazon, and citizens as to politics in general, is how much personal trouble we’re willing to absorb to make our own infinitesimal impact on large scale events. Collective action works. Solo action is at best a feel-good measure. How to attract a big enough following that enough solo actions add up to a collective action is the core problem.
That’s only part of it. Monopolies are generally considered bad because they lead to higher prices, lower quality, reduced innovation, and fewer choices for consumers, all due to the lack of competition.
In the case of Amazon, the opposite is true. To my shopping experience, Amazon is cheaper and higher quality. Plus I get free shopping and unlimited free returns.
Again, I’m no fan of Bezos, but he is where he is in the marketplace because he is meeting consumer needs - not because of monopolizing in the traditional sense.
Charging lower prices to keep the competition out is one of the features of a monopoly.
So far.
They don’t have enough of a monopoly yet to do otherwise.
Amazon has demonstrated this with how they treat their third party sellers. Once they have created a situation where sellers are reliant on them they not only jack up the fees, but they throw up obstacles to selling on other platforms.
One could argue that his current model (cheaper, better, free shipping, free returns) has made him the richest man on the planet. I’m not seeing a strong incentive to change that. Suggesting that he will, is pure speculation.
Then it is third party sellers that are reliant on Amazon, not me. I agree there are some shitty practices going on but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts, they are making a lot more money with Amazon than without Amazon.
The opportunity to become richer yet?
The theory that because people have lots of money they won’t feel any desire to get yet more of it has, I think, been pretty well disproven.
The problem isn’t Frankenstein: it’s the monster he created.
The issue here is two things- price- Generally cheaper on Amazon. And selection- say I am happy with buying a used copy on Amazon- when I got there they list a dozen Indy sellers. Or I could go to several many sites looking for the book I wants, not knowing what is the best price- and often not finding a book.
My friends who own the used book store love Amazon- they get buyers from all over the nation who have never heard of their store. And a few do come back to buy direct. But they’d never come to their store in the first place if it wasnt for Amazon.
You have already admitted that you are reliant on Amazon for the pricing and shipping they provide.
They are selling more product, but no, most aren’t making more money. And if they are it’s because Amazon has made them work harder for it. This issue hits very close to home for me but I have no desire to drag my business life on to this message board. If you care, there are thousands of horror stories online about Amazon’s exploitive relationship with it’s third party sellers and suppliers.
Isn’t a boycott supposed to be at least a little bit inconvenient? Those who participated in the Montgomery bus boycott accepted that it would make things more complicated.
Yes. That’s a big part of it. I can say that I am going to boycott Walmart but I don’t live anywhere near one so it’s pretty meaningless.
Strawman. This wasn’t my argument at all. His current business model is making him more money. You are making the assumption that by changing that model (inferior products at higher prices), he could increase his market share. It’s possible (I doubt it) or he could very well lose it. He might be that stupid, or he might not - again, pure speculation.
I did no such thing, I said I choose them for the pricing and shipping. I also shop other places online and once a week in B&M stores.
I’m just being objective, as of right now they are operating in a free marketplace. They are not a monopoly, they are just the most successful at online sales. And, yes, just like other big stores (WalMart) they can make it challenging to work with them for third party vendors. But Amazon doesn’t owe small businesses a platform within which to operate.
Cite? I have worked with large corporations (Centex Homes) and they were, because of volume, able to get below market prices on appliances (for example). Appliance retailers in their market made less per unit but on the whole made much more in sales.
For the record - I don’t like Jeff Bezos. I’m also not judging his business practices one way or the other. They provide a service I can take advantage of - so I will. When that no longer works for me, I’ll stop. No one here has provided proof that Amazon will become a monopoly and will raise their prices unfairly, and when that day comes I will have no alternative. If you can provide me that proof, I will join you in your boycott.
I work hard for my money. I also give quite a bit of it away to charities, etc. What I have left I want to maximize.
Yes, and locally I will, and do, boycott as I see fit. For instance, for my own reasons, I boycott Hobby Lobby and only shop at Michaels for craft stuff - even though I prefer the Hobby Lobby selection. I’ll do the same for fast food places, for example. But I’m not going to boycott the place I get 90 % of the things I buy especially when I don’t see the need to.
If he succeeds in removing all effective competition, then it’s not only possible, it’s probable – not that he could increase market share as he’d already have almost all of it, but that he could increase prices, and possibly also drop quality, without being penalized for it.
Eventually effective competition might show up; but it would be likely to take quite a while. And, when and if they did, he could always drop his prices again.
'Zactly. Creating a monopoly is naturally a two three step process:
Undercut the competition until they go out of business. Buy out anyone you can’t strangle.
Raise the prices to your customers and force price decreases upon your suppliers. When you are the only 800lb gorilla in the value chain, everybody in both directions is at your mercy.
Profit! Obscene monopolistic levels of profit.
Right now Amazon is about 80% done with Step 1.
Not only is that a big ‘if’, that he would raise prices if that if came true is highly speculative with no basis in fact.
Right now, Amazon has several strong challengers; Walmart, Target, eBay, and Rakuten.
Wrong, as of 2023, Amazon accounted for 37.6% of US e-commerce sales, they were projected to go up to 40 in 2024. A loooong way from 80%.
That Amazon is destined to become a monopoly, and thus ruin our lives, is hyperbolic and a bunch of ‘the sky is falling’ rhetoric.
40% is HUGE. Twice as much as it’s nearest competitor Walmart (which also has too big a chunk). The FTC agrees. Bizarrely, Trump has yet to intervene. I think he needs the case to hang over Bezos’ head in case he goes off reservation.