In my view, there has never been a more diverse and vibrant marketplace than online shopping. Amazon offers decent services, but whether it's shoes, or TVs, or food, there are many, many, very viable alternatives. It's very interesting to me that some folks are able to define "monopoly" in their head in a manner that captures Amazon.

I think monopoly is a bit of a misnomer here. There's certain levels of market power at which you no longer need to cut corners to make a profit, and at that point the right thing to do is pay it forward. Start treating everyone better. Amazon obviously isn't doing this, and are instead taking a more parasitic route and I think monopoly or not, people are fucking tired of the whole "legally right but ethically wrong" thing.

In what world is Amazon a monopoly in retail? Walmart does almost double their sales.

It is possible to be a retailer, and a monopoly, without being a monopoly in retail. Indeed, most determinations of monopoly power use a much narrower definition of the field they hold that power in.

For instance, Amazon holds a significant percentage of online book sales—and, in fact, of online retail sales in general; see one of the sibling comments for references.

The context is selling physical goods, in general, on Amazon, not just books.