The FTC Sues to Break Up Amazon Over an Economy-Wide "Hidden Tax"
The FTC Sues to Break Up Amazon Over an Economy-Wide "Hidden Tax"
"We have nowhere else to go and Amazon know it." The FTC and states are going after Amazon, largely for stopping merchants from offering discounts elsewhere.
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.
I'm just going to assume that Amazon is preventing merchants from offering dick.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Hands up, who thinks Jeff Bezos is still CEO?
No one. But the masterclass in enshittification was pioneered by Bezos, not the current CEO. That's why the FTC quotes him.
Jeff Bezos handed the CEO position to Jassy or whatever the fuck their name is prior to the rocket launch so if it went catastrophically wrong the stock price wouldn’t absolutely tank. Jeff is still a big shaker and mover with the board and effectively is still the CEO, even if not on paper.
As a side note, that was the trip they hyped up as “getting new perspectives from artists” and sent Shatner up there. When they came back down shatner was SHOOK and basking in the afterglow that a new perspective of the insignificance of their self brings and starts trying to articulate such a mind altering experience. Bezos met that energy by pulling out booth babes to champagne shower himself.
Was super tone deaf.
If you want to see it yourself just google “Bezos Interrupts Shatner Champagne”.
If you want to see it yourself just google “Bezos Interrupts Shatner Champagne”.
I've been on the internet long enough to be weary about searching terms. However, that was indeed fucking terrible.
“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.
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
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.
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.
It may fuck the company harder, but you’re also fucking all the mistreated workers that ensure the shit you ordered gets to you.
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?
Permanently Deleted
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