I don't see Amazon as being particularly more of a monopoly than Walmart. If Amazon was a traditional brick and mortar business, would we even be having this conversation?
A big chain consumes the market and puts others our of businesses and it is just how things are. A new internet company goes from niche to cannot be ignored and it is scary change despite the impact being essentially the same.
Combine that with openly envious old media and their selective condemnation. I honestly suspect the real reason is that tech companies don't buy enough TV ads for their liking given the softball treatment of ones that do frequently like cable.
It doesn't matter. The power strips are still being manufactured at the same factory in China.
As I said before, I'm not convinced that all of these things will actually happen. But the answer can't be as simple as "who cares...Amazon is just cutting out the middle man."
The difference would be Amazon's [alleged] monopoly power.
> 2) The consumer (along with Amazon) is a beneficiary here. The losers are brands trying to sell commodity items at a markup. The play is not to undercut all the power strip sellers (to take an example) and once they are out of business, jack up the price. The play is to take the margin due to marketing and brand equity from the sellers and split it between the consumer and Jeff Bezos, so rather than being harmed, the consumer benefits from this.
That seems like a very charitable way of describing the situation, and even if accurate may only remain true in the short term. Whether undercutting branded sellers is the goal or not, that's exactly what's happening--even as you charitably describe it. What happens ten years down the road when those brands are gone due to Amazon's allegedly benevolent undercutting?
I'm not sure about the ultimate merits here (in fact, I'm a bit skeptical of the claim that Amazon has all of the market power that some say it does). But I think you may be dismissing this all a bit too quickly.