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Re:Fulfillment by Amazon suspends non-essential inbound ship... by monadic2 on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @11:47AM (#22606016)
> In an unencumbered free market system

This is not a real thing. Stop bringing it up as if it’s a meaningful concept.

Re:Fulfillment by Amazon suspends non-essential inbound ship... by Ajedi32 on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @12:52PM (#22606960)
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Are you saying an unencumbered free market system is impossible, or just that it's not what our current system is right now?

If the latter, I agree; that was sort of the whole point of my comment. Amazon controls a large portion of the shipping market, therefore what we have here is closer to a monopsony than an unencumbered free market.

If the former, I mostly disagree. Obviously a perfectly idealized free market system is impossible in the real world: all idealized systems are. There's no such thing as a frictionless surface or a perfect sphere either. That doesn't mean however that we couldn't be a lot closer to that ideal than where we are now, or that idealized systems aren't useful tools for modeling the behavior of similar, non-idealized systems in the real world.

Re:Fulfillment by Amazon suspends non-essential inbound ship... by dmwallin on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @01:38PM (#22607610)
While an unencumbered free market can exist it's not a stable equilibrium. Without strong external forces keeping it in that state a free market will quickly centralize power and enact artificial market barriers.
Re:Fulfillment by Amazon suspends non-essential inbound ship... by will4274 on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @12:41PM (#22606786)
From the rules: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. And: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive
Re:Fulfillment by Amazon suspends non-essential inbound ship... by monadic2 on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @09:31PM (#22612698)
Exactly.