Amazon is dangerous - 2023 UPDATE FTC preparing anti trust lawsuit???

[FAH1223]

 

[1thouwow]

We gonna have to stop this machine sooner or later

 

[BigMoneyGrip]

Bezos ain’t gonna like when Amazon is broken up

 

[DEAD7]

Amazon showing their products first on their platform doesnt strike me as illegal or sinister.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Amazon showing their products first on their platform doesnt strike me as illegal or sinister.

That sort of shyt is literally the exact reason anti-trust legislation was created. You totally fukk up the market when you control multiple levels of it simultaneously.

 

[DEAD7]

That sort of shyt is literally the exact reason anti-trust legislation was created. You totally fukk up the market when you control multiple levels of it simultaneously.

How does seeing amazon products first on Amazon.com fall into this?
They arent google...

 

[Rigby.]

How does seeing amazon products first on Amazon.com fall into this?
They arent google...

It's a similar situation to what Apple gets dragged into routinely. Does these platforms, that are supposed to have some sense of neutrality (looking at the App Store), have a responsibility to not shelve competing products? With Spotify for example, there's some ecosystem integration functions that Apple doesn't allow. It's a tough argument to pick a side either way

 

[Professor Emeritus]

How does seeing amazon products first on Amazon.com fall into this?
They arent google...

Because they've monopolized online retail and are building towards that with distribution networks too. So if you are trying to sell your shyt online and you don't sell on Amazon, you're at a SERIOUS disadvantage. But then when you do sell on Amazon if you do it well at all, that gives Amazon extremely detailed information on your product's advantages and especially its consumer base, which then allows Amazon to copy your product (even if they create something inferior), but then replace your consumers with theirs because they can use their retail monopoly to fukk you over without actually producing anything better.

Or, to say it like they would in the Yale Law Journal:

because online platforms serve as critical intermediaries, integrating across business lines positions these platforms to control the essential infrastructure on which their rivals depend. This dual role also enables a platform to exploit information collected on companies using its services to undermine them as competitors.

This used to be the general wisdom on vertical integration as dealt by the Supreme Court:

Critics of vertical integration primarily focused on two theories of potential harm: leverage and foreclosure. Leverage reflects the idea that a firm can use its dominance in one line of business to establish dominance in another. Because “horizontal power in one market or stage of production creates ‘leverage’ for the extension of the power to bar entry at another level,” vertical integration combined with horizontal market power “can impair competition to a greater extent than could the exercise of horizontal power alone.”115 Foreclosure, meanwhile, occurs when a firm uses one line of business to disadvantage rivals in another line. A flourmill that also owned a bakery could hike prices or degrade quality when selling to rival bakers—or refuse to do business with them entirely. In this view, even if an integrated firm did not directly resort to exclusionary tactics, the arrangement would still increase barriers to entry by requiring would-be entrants to compete at two levels.

When seeking to block vertical combinations or arrangements, the government frequently built its case on one of these theories—and, through the 1960s, courts largely accepted them.116 In Brown Shoe v. United States, for example, the government sought to block a merger between a leading manufacturer and a leading retailer of shoes on the grounds that the tie-up would “foreclos[e] competition” and “enhanc[e] Brown’s competitive advantage over other producers, distributors and sellers of shoes.”117 The Court acknowledged that the Clayton Act did not “render unlawful all . . . vertical arrangements,” but held that this merger would undermine competition by “foreclos[ing] . . . independent manufacturers from markets otherwise open to them.”118 In other words, the concern was that—once merged—the combined entity would forbid its retailing arm from stocking shoes made by competing independent manufacturers. Calling this form of foreclosure “the primary vice of a vertical merger,”119 the Court noted it was also largely inevitable: “Every extended vertical arrangement by its very nature, for at least a time, denies to competitors of the supplier the opportunity to compete for part or all of the trade of the customer-party to the vertical arrangement.”120 In his partial concurrence, Justice Harlan observed that the deal would enable Brown to “turn an independent purchaser into a captive market for its shoes,” thereby “diminish[ing] the available market for which shoe manufacturers compete.”121 The Court enjoined the merger.122

Another reason courts cited for blocking these arrangements was that vertical deals eliminated potential rivals—a recognition of how a merger would reshape industry structure. Upholding the FTC’s challenge of Ford purchasing an equipment manufacturer, the Court noted that before the acquisition, Ford had helped check the power of the manufacturers and had a “soothing influence” over prices.123 An outside firm “may someday go in and set the stage for noticeable deconcentration,” the Court wrote.124 “While it merely stays near the edge, it is a deterrent to current competitors.”125 In other words, the threat of potential entry by Ford—the fact that, pre-merger, it could have internally expanded into equipment manufacturing—had played an important disciplining role. Relatedly, the Court observed that when a company in a competitive market integrates with a firm in an oligopolistic one, the merger can have “the result of transmitting the rigidity of the oligopolistic structure” of one industry to the other, “thus reducing the chances of future deconcentration” of the market.126 The Court required Ford to divest the manufacturer.127

The article goes on to show how Bork and the Chicago School basically convinced the Supreme Court to stop being mean to monopolies and the Reagan Administration cemented it.

Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox



fukking Bork man, on the wrong side of history at every turn.

 

[DEAD7]

Because they've monopolized online retail

Define monopoly.
Cause I think my definition may be off.

 

[DEAD7]

It's a similar situation to what Apple gets dragged into routinely. Does these platforms, that are supposed to have some sense of neutrality (looking at the App Store), have a responsibility to not shelve competing products? With Spotify for example, there's some ecosystem integration functions that Apple doesn't allow. It's a tough argument to pick a side either way

Where is this coming from?

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Define monopoly.
Cause I think my definition may be off.

Monopoly power is gained when a single corporation can change or set the market price or market supply of a product rather than simply being a single producer responding to the natural supply/demand conditions. Once a single player has become so large that it effectively controls what the other players in the market are able to do, then it has gained a degree of monopoly power.

 

[Rigby.]

Where is this coming from?

I mean that's the end of the spectrum they're supposed to be operating on. Apple and Amazon's (especially) marketplaces find themselves way closer to pure monopoly

 

[DEAD7]

I mean that's the end of the spectrum they're supposed to be operating on. Apple and Amazon's (especially) marketplaces find themselves way closer to pure monopoly

Apples store belongs to apple... control of that market belongs(and should belong) completely to apple no? Google playstore is the larger(and mor eliberal) of the two markets, so i dont see the issue. Consumers have a choice... so how are consumers being harmed?

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Apples store belongs to apple... control of that market belongs(and should belong) completely to apple no? Google playstore is the larger(and mor eliberal) of the two markets, so i dont see the issue. Consumers have a choice... so how are consumers being harmed?

How consumers are harmed by retailers which have effectively captured the retail marketplace and then used it to push their own products is detailed in the article I posted.

 

[DEAD7]

How consumers are harmed by retailers which have effectively captured the retail marketplace and then used it to push their own products is detailed in the article I posted.

I don’t believe Apple has done this... and I disagree with breaking up Amazon’s e-commerce which accounts for over 90% of its business.

I believe Amazon’s size has greatly benefited consumers and continues to.