Amazon dominates online retail and is one of the most valuable companies in the world. But are consumers harmed by its low prices? CNN's Jon Sarlin reports.
It could be many things, a "monopoly" is not one of them considering you can buy the exact same products from 1000 different outlets and websites without even looking 20 minutes. A monopoly would be more like your cable tv company, the electric company, your house phone provider (before voip came along), natural gas provider, or satellite tv service. Basically, if you want a certain product there is only one person selling it available to you.
amazon itself is also a seller of most items on the website. Their prices are generated by a computerized algorithm that considers many factors to make sure they have the best prices. If you sell something and lower your price, their rpice will also lower. If you found your inventory at a storage sale and got it below dealer cost, you can sell it cheaper than anyone else and still make money. Amazon will also lower their price and even take a loss on that item. that makes it predatory pricing...
You are right Code and Ui, and also, Amazon has multiple individual entrepreneurs that operate in the realm of Amazon, so Amazon hasn't really killed businesses, it created new ones in a different form
Daway, how is it competition when there's almost no competitors left? The question in hand is not the prices that hurt consumers, but the choices of whom they can buy from is.
I remember when Wal-Mart was just starting up. Everyone said it was going to shut down a lot of smaller retailers. And they were right, but it was a new way to shop. Amazon is the same way. Instead of having to get in my car, drive 40 miles to get to my closest Wal-Mart to try and find what I need, I just go on line and order it. Usually from Amazon, but I do shop around, sometimes I find a better value, but not usually.
Dream on Amazon will never be brought to court for Monopoly because their core business they compete with Alibaba.... AWS competes Google Cloud, MS Azure Alibaba Cloud.... Amazon Music competes with Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, TH-cam... so please justify a monopoly in that?
They're getting very big, that's about the extent of it. Just as walmart got big which enabled them crush all the smaller retail shops in any given town, Amazon is doing the same. It'll be a crazy move if they can handle their own logistics on a grand scale. The only bad part remaining would be the porch pirates because you can bet their trucks would be followed all day long, picking up one box after another.
You are not answering the question here. Amazon is getting big in what exactly? In online retail? music streaming? cloud computing? You have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Amazon has crushed Google, Microsoft, Spotify, Apple, Alibaba, Walmart. So until then there's no case.
@CNNMoney Amazon *is not* really worth it. The Prime service now costs like $100 a year, and that's for the free shipping and other bonuses like Twitch Prime subscribing, but you can get more out of your month instead of shopping on Amazon and certain more value than spending a yearly subscription to their Prime services. For example, if you want to buy regular household items, you can still get your free 2 day shipping with a minimum of like $35 per order and overall spend about the same amount if you shop at like Target, Walgreen, or Walmart online. For video games and electronics, you get a way better deal through Best Buy and eBay. Best Buy as their Gamer Club Unlocked program that you pay a small amount (not nearly the $100 like Amazon Prime) and you get discounts on new games and preorders. That plus Best Buy reward points and you can easily buy lots of games and save more money than shopping on Amazon. Amazon used to be good like 5 or 6 years ago when their customer service was better and when Prime costed like $60 a year. But ever since they kept raising the price a lot for that and their customer service got worse and worse, I stopped shopping on Amazon and instead went to Walmart, Target, Best Buy, eBay, etc.
eBay highly underrated. They provide a fair market value on alot of items. Indeed many people rely on eBay to price check items for the fair going market rate in real time. eBay > Amazon
Amazon isn't a monopoly. Do people not realise that Amazon is a marketplace, their primary business isn't to sell items.They offer a place for entities to sell items. Just because the convenience of online stores has made a lot of in person stores obsolete doesn't mean Amazon is a monopoly.
"It's not an easy question to answer." Yes it is. Monopolies by definition have 100% market share; Amazon does not have 100% share of any market. Amazon is not a monopoly.
Haha that's not how it works. The 100% market share is very theoretical and in true imperfect markets that's not true. That's why when a company has the ability to restrict supply, restrict consumer choice and has the ability to price discriminate in combination with usually 40% or more market share then arguments come into play for the CMA to investigate a firm for being a monopoly.
By that logic, if oscar meyer sold every hotdog that you could find in every supermarket in the country.. Joe dickles hotdog stand in east bumfuck New Hampshire would still hold .00001 percent of the hotdog market, setting Oscar Mayer outside the definition of a monopoly and free from regulation... 🙄
You better check your dictionary again. The FTC has gone after smaller companies whose “monopoly” is only 60% to 70%. The definition of monopoly is NOT a 100% market share.
Predatory pricing is fully illegal in German capitalism, and it's one of the things that make it so great. Thanks to cost accounting being legally recognised in the german speaking countries, these countries have an objective way of defining 'predatory pricing'.. Something the American capitalist would find very hard to implement indeed.
The problem is that no model can predict the future, so the term "predatory pricing" is based on how things have been done in the past. This could mean that over time we could end up in some kind of stasis where new methods arent very interesting to persue, since you cant benefit from them on a free market basis. The hunt for predatory pricing may also stop new companies that need to set a lower price on their service or product for any reason. In the long term I think preventing predatory pricing by law is bad and will end up causing more imbalances than it was implemented for to prevent.
Amazon does “predatory pricing”. The problem is the FTC defines a monopoly where Amazon kills its competition and then raises the prices exponentially. The government needs to pass new legislation to regulate E-Commerce.
@@zemzem8323 I totally agree. People seem to think that a company literally needs to kill off *all* competition in order to be a monopoly. Even If it isn't a true monopoly, Amazon controls too much of the market.
@@andrewgallagher7690 "controls too much of the market" by what metrics? A monopoly is "exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action" as quoted from the Merriam Webster dictionary. If other companies can't compete with Amazon it's because they don't provide people with better products and services than them. If you think the barrier to entry to the same business of Amazon is too high then you need to blame government for all the regulation that strangles Amazon's competition. You're advocating for breaking up a company because you feel like they control too much of the market, key word being feel.
@@jermaine.a1675 “Controls too much of the market” as in Amazon is the only competent online shopping site. I know that Amazon isn’t a monopoly but that doesn’t mean that it’s too large.
Sure Amazon is awesome. But its like a snake swallowing itself. Amazon tries to sell to the same people it displaces while increasingly using robots to replace humans. Small businesses and malls are falling like a pack of cards.
Daway Legit But Amazon DONT need to make a profit they sold the kindle under production value and funded it from their billions they get through their web hosting the company starves out competition because it doesn’t need to make any profit which is unfair for smaller companies
People who complain about Amazon being a monopoly are the same people who demand lower prices (which is why they buy from Amazon). Please decide on which one to complain about.
Ebay does actively interfere with the competitiveness of the market. The issue with amazon is that they eat losses ( covered by aws profits) to price out the competition and ensure that Amazon is the only place to find that good at the lowest price. That effectively would kill comparison shopping online. If you’re a small business, either you have to do business with amazon on their terms or have your product cloned at sold at a lower price
im assuming you are talking about rockefeller here. His company, or businesses, was shut down because he controlled everything about standard oil in what is called horizontal development. This mesnt he owned the trucks and trains that delivered the oil, the company that made the barrels etc. Amazon is indeed going horizontal but very quietly. They own a large number of companies/brands you wouldn't think amazon owned.
The case for breaking up amazon like a monopoly because it's a political actor, so the simple scope of the company creates a problem with money in politics. Even beyond that, amazon as a dominant force in the market can substantially reduce access to certain types of items by refusing to list them. For example, amazon de-listed many items connected with sport shooting and hunting such as firearm magazines and attachments which make guns more comfortable to hold for small or recoil sensitive shooters like shorter stocks and recoil pads. Now, that isn't really a significant issue for firearm owners, sport shooters, and hunters because the hobby and lifestyle of firearms is so widespread in the US that there is already fierce competition among several online retailers of gun stuff such as Brownells, Midway USA, and Optics Planet such that even when amazon stocked the aforementioned items it didn't always have the best price. The problem arises when one considers that amazon could de-list items that are part of a less well known or less common hobby/lifestyle and effectively extinguish access to that hobby or lifestyle instantly, with no oversight, no checks and balances, and no accountability because there is no market that can be established in selling to those hobbyists because there simply aren't enough of them to sustain a business (but there could be if the hobby grew naturally and thrived upon the low prices and access to a large marketplace amazon offers. That kind of ability to muzzle an entire lifestyle is significant, and accordingly amazon should either represent an open market without a conscience and be treated like a public utility so everyone and every lifestyle enjoys equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment OR it must be broken up as a monopoly would be for its ability to manipulate the public without consent as an unaccountable political actor. You may not care about guns or even think about them, but think about something you like that's important to you but not many people know about. Imagine if you couldn't buy what you need to get into that hobby or lifestyle through the internet and no brick and mortar stores exist near you to supply what you need. Imagine if something like that could have happened and people weren't able to easily get rainbow flags or to get black lives matter T-shirts, or any other piece of merchandise that is more than just an item but an element of a lifestyle. Imagine those things being shut down and never getting off the ground in the first place because some corporate fat cat doesn't want them to succeed, and tell me that's not a problem.
@@stephanyescutia3429 Well, in short it effects us because it has tons of power in the market. It can immediately drive competitors out of business by offering lower prices and taking a loss the competition can't tolerate because they are small. Additionally, amazon and other large companies like google can shape the way society interacts with segments of the population by changing what society sees when they look for traditional practices - either erasing them by showing nothing or appropriating their culture to commodify and profit off it instead of preserving it, or by showing only certain sides of a culture. Imagine how amazon or google could change the view we have of native americans if it refused to carry anything about them, or made cheap knock-off items to undercut people trying to preserve or sprea dthe culture, or how it could get people to think of them as savage and evil if it prioritized books which detailed how the aztecs sacrificed people by the thousands and ripped out their still beating hearts in a public display... or how it could get people to forget the problems of the past by refusing to carry a book that talked about that part of history. There are plenty of ways monopolies are harmful, but the biggest way is that they can trap people into buying certain objects or ideas by denying them access to alternatives.
What is monopoly? One ex: If I sell a milk packet along with my compatriots but for less price(even if I get loss for years), so I do not take profit at first so I attract all customers to my marketplace and make my compatriots to close thier buisness. And later I increases price of milk to get profit and leave customer no other options rather than buy from me. Is Amazon doing that???- I think you know the answer
Last few online purchases I made; about 95% non-Amazon by value, and about 60% non-amazon by order count. Companies are figuring out online; Amazon is not yet a monopoly.
Even if tech companies use "predatory pricing" to secure a consumer base that other companies have no chance of competing with, that doesn't mean we have to bring government into the equation. So long as those companies provide services the consumer is willing to exchange for voluntarily, they will continue to patronize those businesses. If the business then "price gouges," it doesn't matter. No one is being forced to buy the commodities they offer. If it isn't worth it to you, that is if you do not increase your wealth with the trade, you won't engage in consensual trade with them. It is literally impossible for the consumer to get screwed in any way.
you create a battery technology that lasts twice as long, at the same price. I'm an established company, i lower my old tech battery prices to 1/4 and take a loss on every unit until you die...and you will die when you can't cover operating costs now that my 1/2 life batteries cost 1/4 of your double life batteries. Then i buy your battery technology, shut it down, keep making my shitty old batteries and jack up the price to double the original price to make up my losses. The consumer loses. This scenario happens.
Amazon's cloud business is off setting their e-commerce loss. So, to say they are making a profit is slightly misleading, but I don't think anyone cares.
This all comes down to what your priority is. If you view this through the lens of business, you'll reach some asinine conclusions. On the left, you'll resent the success of Amazon and desire to subject them to regulation. On the right, you'll see business as a positive thing and try to prop Amazon up when it eventually fails. Rather, we should view this through the lens of consumers. And letting the market have control is obviously the best way to empower consumers.
"On the right, you'll see business as a positive thing and try to prop Amazon up when it eventually fails." so supporting the free market also means mindless shilling for one player in said market? Yeah, no.
LIna Khan is incandescently stupid. Lowering prices to defeat competition is a good thing. It only becomes bad when, after establishing a monopoly, the company jacks prices way higher than their competition ever did. But that can't work in practice since the moment they do, tons of competition will pop up. And if Amazon or any other company tries fluctuating prices heavily in an attempt to thwart competition half the time and rake in returns the other half, it won't work at all. Consumers will pick up on their practices in no time and wait for the ebb of prices before buying.
Do you remember life before amazon? How/why did we ever let ourselves be so dependent on one company? We were fine thank you before amazon! And now we can't live without them? When we let one company dominate, (Yes dominate) the shipping distribution network of the world we are at a huge risk of whatever they choose to do, or not to do!!! Ridiculously long processing and shipping times for goods in the name of??? I'd personally love to see amazon kicked to the curb and go back to every factory, retailer, company ship for themselves! Amazon has a monopoly on the distribution of goods not only in our country but most of western civilization. It truly is a monopoly! And now, we can't live without them.... It's a good wake up call to realize just how dependent and vulnerable we are to a companies whims... Think about it. Too big to fail? We've been lulled in to a dependency on one company that dictates what, when, where goods are shipped. We're on shaky ground folks.
Monopolies are about market share, not pricing techniques. Pricing strategies are a tactic to achieve market share. The worldwide retail market is in the trillions. Amazon only really holds about 30% of that. Henceforth, NOT a monopoly.
Is Amazon a monopoly? Is the NSA spying on you? Is the sky blue? These are the hard questions in life.
No answer is yes
Amazon is absolutely a monopoly just like jd Rockefeller with oil...exactly the same
@@sashatallica8891 But was the solution for the gov't to step in? Real and fair question.
Short answer: Yes
Long answer:
Heck yes!
No
No.
@@TheRishijoesanu yes shill
@@scottsimmons9296 yes shill
When you vow never to buy from Amazon again, then see the row of empty shops in front of you surrounded by Amazon boxes, you're screwed
the irony part of this is the girl keep buying from amazon
It could be many things, a "monopoly" is not one of them considering you can buy the exact same products from 1000 different outlets and websites without even looking 20 minutes. A monopoly would be more like your cable tv company, the electric company, your house phone provider (before voip came along), natural gas provider, or satellite tv service. Basically, if you want a certain product there is only one person selling it available to you.
Amazon does not price items. The sellers that sell on it do.
Whats the other part?
amazon itself is also a seller of most items on the website. Their prices are generated by a computerized algorithm that considers many factors to make sure they have the best prices. If you sell something and lower your price, their rpice will also lower. If you found your inventory at a storage sale and got it below dealer cost, you can sell it cheaper than anyone else and still make money. Amazon will also lower their price and even take a loss on that item. that makes it predatory pricing...
You are right Code and Ui, and also, Amazon has multiple individual entrepreneurs that operate in the realm of Amazon, so Amazon hasn't really killed businesses, it created new ones in a different form
Amazon under cuts the original producer of an item by recreating the same product but selling it cheaper
Daway, how is it competition when there's almost no competitors left? The question in hand is not the prices that hurt consumers, but the choices of whom they can buy from is.
2:40 Well, if buddy is looking for a unicorn, they have those on Amazon too.
I remember when Wal-Mart was just starting up. Everyone said it was going to shut down a lot of smaller retailers. And they were right, but it was a new way to shop. Amazon is the same way. Instead of having to get in my car, drive 40 miles to get to my closest Wal-Mart to try and find what I need, I just go on line and order it. Usually from Amazon, but I do shop around, sometimes I find a better value, but not usually.
Is the best price all that you care about? Congrats, you helped Amazon commoditize everything.
Well...with the recent purchases in various sectors:food, drugs, technology, and much more, I say if there already not one, they are on their way.
They seem to be building a conglomerate monopoly, which is even more concerning
Dream on Amazon will never be brought to court for Monopoly because their core business they compete with Alibaba.... AWS competes Google Cloud, MS Azure Alibaba Cloud.... Amazon Music competes with Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, TH-cam... so please justify a monopoly in that?
They're getting very big, that's about the extent of it. Just as walmart got big which enabled them crush all the smaller retail shops in any given town, Amazon is doing the same. It'll be a crazy move if they can handle their own logistics on a grand scale. The only bad part remaining would be the porch pirates because you can bet their trucks would be followed all day long, picking up one box after another.
You are not answering the question here. Amazon is getting big in what exactly? In online retail? music streaming? cloud computing? You have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Amazon has crushed Google, Microsoft, Spotify, Apple, Alibaba, Walmart. So until then there's no case.
they have the power to enter all markets, create barriors to enter and price lower than most competitors thus creating a monopoly
@@josephiffrig9154 Wrong!
@CNNMoney
Amazon *is not* really worth it. The Prime service now costs like $100 a year, and that's for the free shipping and other bonuses like Twitch Prime subscribing, but you can get more out of your month instead of shopping on Amazon and certain more value than spending a yearly subscription to their Prime services.
For example, if you want to buy regular household items, you can still get your free 2 day shipping with a minimum of like $35 per order and overall spend about the same amount if you shop at like Target, Walgreen, or Walmart online.
For video games and electronics, you get a way better deal through Best Buy and eBay.
Best Buy as their Gamer Club Unlocked program that you pay a small amount (not nearly the $100 like Amazon Prime) and you get discounts on new games and preorders. That plus Best Buy reward points and you can easily buy lots of games and save more money than shopping on Amazon.
Amazon used to be good like 5 or 6 years ago when their customer service was better and when Prime costed like $60 a year. But ever since they kept raising the price a lot for that and their customer service got worse and worse, I stopped shopping on Amazon and instead went to Walmart, Target, Best Buy, eBay, etc.
eBay highly underrated. They provide a fair market value on alot of items. Indeed many people rely on eBay to price check items for the fair going market rate in real time. eBay > Amazon
Amazon isn't a monopoly. Do people not realise that Amazon is a marketplace, their primary business isn't to sell items.They offer a place for entities to sell items. Just because the convenience of online stores has made a lot of in person stores obsolete doesn't mean Amazon is a monopoly.
"It's not an easy question to answer."
Yes it is. Monopolies by definition have 100% market share; Amazon does not have 100% share of any market. Amazon is not a monopoly.
Lol; by definition you've little understanding of practical economics.
Haha that's not how it works. The 100% market share is very theoretical and in true imperfect markets that's not true. That's why when a company has the ability to restrict supply, restrict consumer choice and has the ability to price discriminate in combination with usually 40% or more market share then arguments come into play for the CMA to investigate a firm for being a monopoly.
Monopoly doesnt mean 100% market share, it just means controlling the vast majority
By that logic, if oscar meyer sold every hotdog that you could find in every supermarket in the country.. Joe dickles hotdog stand in east bumfuck New Hampshire would still hold .00001 percent of the hotdog market, setting Oscar Mayer outside the definition of a monopoly and free from regulation... 🙄
You better check your dictionary again. The FTC has gone after smaller companies whose “monopoly” is only 60% to 70%. The definition of monopoly is NOT a 100% market share.
Predatory pricing is fully illegal in German capitalism, and it's one of the things that make it so great. Thanks to cost accounting being legally recognised in the german speaking countries, these countries have an objective way of defining 'predatory pricing'.. Something the American capitalist would find very hard to implement indeed.
The problem is that no model can predict the future, so the term "predatory pricing" is based on how things have been done in the past. This could mean that over time we could end up in some kind of stasis where new methods arent very interesting to persue, since you cant benefit from them on a free market basis. The hunt for predatory pricing may also stop new companies that need to set a lower price on their service or product for any reason.
In the long term I think preventing predatory pricing by law is bad and will end up causing more imbalances than it was implemented for to prevent.
Amazon does “predatory pricing”. The problem is the FTC defines a monopoly where Amazon kills its competition and then raises the prices exponentially.
The government needs to pass new legislation to regulate E-Commerce.
@@zemzem8323 I totally agree. People seem to think that a company literally needs to kill off *all* competition in order to be a monopoly. Even If it isn't a true monopoly, Amazon controls too much of the market.
@@andrewgallagher7690 "controls too much of the market" by what metrics? A monopoly is "exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action" as quoted from the Merriam Webster dictionary.
If other companies can't compete with Amazon it's because they don't provide people with better products and services than them. If you think the barrier to entry to the same business of Amazon is too high then you need to blame government for all the regulation that strangles Amazon's competition. You're advocating for breaking up a company because you feel like they control too much of the market, key word being feel.
@@jermaine.a1675 “Controls too much of the market” as in Amazon is the only competent online shopping site. I know that Amazon isn’t a monopoly but that doesn’t mean that it’s too large.
Yes, they are and a rip off too. Better prices at Walmart and they deliver faster.
Bo Rood not everyone lives in America
really? they deliver faster?
watvid1 I see
dark light Yes and they have the best deals.
Walmart SUCKS
I love Amazon it's awesome 👍😁
Sure Amazon is awesome. But its like a snake swallowing itself. Amazon tries to sell to the same people it displaces while increasingly using robots to replace humans. Small businesses and malls are falling like a pack of cards.
Try working there
Guess you didn't break out the matrix lol
Daway Legit But Amazon DONT need to make a profit they sold the kindle under production value and funded it from their billions they get through their web hosting the company starves out competition because it doesn’t need to make any profit which is unfair for smaller companies
predatory pricing is what is charged for rent and food
People who complain about Amazon being a monopoly are the same people who demand lower prices (which is why they buy from Amazon).
Please decide on which one to complain about.
Which section of which article of the United States Constitution authorizes the federal government to regulate the prices businesses can set?
Regulation of interstate commerce. If that good crosses state lines, or affects any good crossing state lines, it is affecting interstate commerce.
Wait, what? What about eBay??? Just because Amazon is winning doesn't mean that they're a monopoly.
eBay was and to some degree is an auction site, though in the last decade or so, Amazon and eBay started to overlap in their business models.
Ebay does actively interfere with the competitiveness of the market. The issue with amazon is that they eat losses ( covered by aws profits) to price out the competition and ensure that Amazon is the only place to find that good at the lowest price. That effectively would kill comparison shopping online. If you’re a small business, either you have to do business with amazon on their terms or have your product cloned at sold at a lower price
If you can’t simply say No then the answer is Yes.
Standard Oil wasnt a monopoly(same as amazon haha) Still it got broken up.
im assuming you are talking about rockefeller here.
His company, or businesses, was shut down because he controlled everything about standard oil in what is called horizontal development. This mesnt he owned the trucks and trains that delivered the oil, the company that made the barrels etc.
Amazon is indeed going horizontal but very quietly. They own a large number of companies/brands you wouldn't think amazon owned.
Amazon, Walmart, Google, Facebook, AT&T, and Verizon, Comcast, Spectrum are all monopolies
I was born in 97
When it either buys Walmart its going to be legit.
No. The ticket to entry is pretty expensive but Amazon isn't selling the tickets.
Answer: Yes.
Is it a big deal?
NO.
Frsh will make walmart beg for mercy
Yep
Predatory pricing limits selection!
People still use Amazon? Lmao I just get whatever I want within 10 minutes
Anton 99 lmao how did you get it so fast?? do you use teleportation device??
Live in a city dumbass. Just walk down street to buy whatever you want. Unless you live in a suburbs ofc then sure. Going out might be a pain.
NO NAME ARTIST ever heard of a store?
It’s not a monopoly as there is eBay that is kind of like a competition to amazon.
if Amazon is a monopoly, what type of monopoly is it?
Apparently competition shouldn't exist in a capitalistic country.
The case for breaking up amazon like a monopoly because it's a political actor, so the simple scope of the company creates a problem with money in politics. Even beyond that, amazon as a dominant force in the market can substantially reduce access to certain types of items by refusing to list them. For example, amazon de-listed many items connected with sport shooting and hunting such as firearm magazines and attachments which make guns more comfortable to hold for small or recoil sensitive shooters like shorter stocks and recoil pads.
Now, that isn't really a significant issue for firearm owners, sport shooters, and hunters because the hobby and lifestyle of firearms is so widespread in the US that there is already fierce competition among several online retailers of gun stuff such as Brownells, Midway USA, and Optics Planet such that even when amazon stocked the aforementioned items it didn't always have the best price.
The problem arises when one considers that amazon could de-list items that are part of a less well known or less common hobby/lifestyle and effectively extinguish access to that hobby or lifestyle instantly, with no oversight, no checks and balances, and no accountability because there is no market that can be established in selling to those hobbyists because there simply aren't enough of them to sustain a business (but there could be if the hobby grew naturally and thrived upon the low prices and access to a large marketplace amazon offers. That kind of ability to muzzle an entire lifestyle is significant, and accordingly amazon should either represent an open market without a conscience and be treated like a public utility so everyone and every lifestyle enjoys equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment OR it must be broken up as a monopoly would be for its ability to manipulate the public without consent as an unaccountable political actor.
You may not care about guns or even think about them, but think about something you like that's important to you but not many people know about. Imagine if you couldn't buy what you need to get into that hobby or lifestyle through the internet and no brick and mortar stores exist near you to supply what you need. Imagine if something like that could have happened and people weren't able to easily get rainbow flags or to get black lives matter T-shirts, or any other piece of merchandise that is more than just an item but an element of a lifestyle. Imagine those things being shut down and never getting off the ground in the first place because some corporate fat cat doesn't want them to succeed, and tell me that's not a problem.
CaptainKzer companies aren't people, so it can't be an actor.
CaptainKzer tldr
can u summarize why amazon being a monopoly effect us? society
@@stephanyescutia3429 Well, in short it effects us because it has tons of power in the market. It can immediately drive competitors out of business by offering lower prices and taking a loss the competition can't tolerate because they are small. Additionally, amazon and other large companies like google can shape the way society interacts with segments of the population by changing what society sees when they look for traditional practices - either erasing them by showing nothing or appropriating their culture to commodify and profit off it instead of preserving it, or by showing only certain sides of a culture. Imagine how amazon or google could change the view we have of native americans if it refused to carry anything about them, or made cheap knock-off items to undercut people trying to preserve or sprea dthe culture, or how it could get people to think of them as savage and evil if it prioritized books which detailed how the aztecs sacrificed people by the thousands and ripped out their still beating hearts in a public display... or how it could get people to forget the problems of the past by refusing to carry a book that talked about that part of history.
There are plenty of ways monopolies are harmful, but the biggest way is that they can trap people into buying certain objects or ideas by denying them access to alternatives.
Ricky Martin working for CNN now?
Yes
Yes. Amazon is monopoly. If someone disagrees, google - AWS and check its profits.
Yes. Why are we legitimately asking this question as if it is right in front of us?
Yes, and I’m fine with that.
When there’s no more competition, the past has shown us that the owners will skyrocket their prices
YES
What is monopoly?
One ex: If I sell a milk packet along with my compatriots but for less price(even if I get loss for years), so I do not take profit at first so I attract all customers to my marketplace and make my compatriots to close thier buisness. And later I increases price of milk to get profit and leave customer no other options rather than buy from me.
Is Amazon doing that???- I think you know the answer
Last few online purchases I made; about 95% non-Amazon by value, and about 60% non-amazon by order count. Companies are figuring out online; Amazon is not yet a monopoly.
They treat workers like shit and I hate WaPo
waaaaaah waaaaaaah, other companies need to figure it out or quit. World will not stop spinning just for you Wal-Mart
come to India and see Flipkart
Bala Iyer even in India Amazon ruling they growing faster than flipkart
India is a shithole
Bala Iyer bro they are going to buy Flipkart by this year end
Flipkart belongs to Walmart.
there is a monopoly of knowledge
Is the dollar store a monopoly? Walmart?,
Even if tech companies use "predatory pricing" to secure a consumer base that other companies have no chance of competing with, that doesn't mean we have to bring government into the equation. So long as those companies provide services the consumer is willing to exchange for voluntarily, they will continue to patronize those businesses. If the business then "price gouges," it doesn't matter. No one is being forced to buy the commodities they offer. If it isn't worth it to you, that is if you do not increase your wealth with the trade, you won't engage in consensual trade with them. It is literally impossible for the consumer to get screwed in any way.
you create a battery technology that lasts twice as long, at the same price. I'm an established company, i lower my old tech battery prices to 1/4 and take a loss on every unit until you die...and you will die when you can't cover operating costs now that my 1/2 life batteries cost 1/4 of your double life batteries. Then i buy your battery technology, shut it down, keep making my shitty old batteries and jack up the price to double the original price to make up my losses. The consumer loses. This scenario happens.
"It is literally impossible for the consumer to get screwed in any way" How dumb can you get?
Have you ever heard of crack-cocaine? Do you think the consumers are getting screwed? Or just happy to sell their asses on the corner?
Amazon's cloud business is off setting their e-commerce loss. So, to say they are making a profit is slightly misleading, but I don't think anyone cares.
It’s is and you know
Oligopolistic characteristics.
there is a monopoly of money
I Dont care the stock price had pretty much tripled my money in a few years
This all comes down to what your priority is. If you view this through the lens of business, you'll reach some asinine conclusions. On the left, you'll resent the success of Amazon and desire to subject them to regulation. On the right, you'll see business as a positive thing and try to prop Amazon up when it eventually fails. Rather, we should view this through the lens of consumers. And letting the market have control is obviously the best way to empower consumers.
"On the right, you'll see business as a positive thing and try to prop Amazon up when it eventually fails." so supporting the free market also means mindless shilling for one player in said market? Yeah, no.
LIna Khan is incandescently stupid. Lowering prices to defeat competition is a good thing. It only becomes bad when, after establishing a monopoly, the company jacks prices way higher than their competition ever did. But that can't work in practice since the moment they do, tons of competition will pop up. And if Amazon or any other company tries fluctuating prices heavily in an attempt to thwart competition half the time and rake in returns the other half, it won't work at all. Consumers will pick up on their practices in no time and wait for the ebb of prices before buying.
YOU ARE OUT OF FOCUS
Monopoly is good in market that changes very fast
Umair Yaqoob what do you mean ?
Do you remember life before amazon? How/why did we ever let ourselves be so dependent on one company? We were fine thank you before amazon! And now we can't live without them? When we let one company dominate, (Yes dominate) the shipping distribution network of the world we are at a huge risk of whatever they choose to do, or not to do!!! Ridiculously long processing and shipping times for goods in the name of??? I'd personally love to see amazon kicked to the curb and go back to every factory, retailer, company ship for themselves! Amazon has a monopoly on the distribution of goods not only in our country but most of western civilization. It truly is a monopoly! And now, we can't live without them.... It's a good wake up call to realize just how dependent and vulnerable we are to a companies whims... Think about it. Too big to fail? We've been lulled in to a dependency on one company that dictates what, when, where goods are shipped. We're on shaky ground folks.
Amazon Prime movies suck!
It’s actually an Oligopoly. Simply because of Google, Walmart and some others.
Are you a boi
Bezos is the smartest man in the room.
Long live amazon.
Hahahaha
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Monopolies are about market share, not pricing techniques. Pricing strategies are a tactic to achieve market share. The worldwide retail market is in the trillions. Amazon only really holds about 30% of that. Henceforth, NOT a monopoly.
Yes