They're not a monopoly though. Like 40% market share in eCommerce and like 15% in retail overall isn't close to a monopoly. Yes they compete in other spaces, the onus is on their competitors not to suck.

40% in ecommerce would definitely be able to have monopoly power which would often be enough to trigger an anti-trust response, historically.

What producer of a consumer good sold through Amazon could afford to lose 40% of their retail presence/revenue overnight? Well in the current environment, Amazon has that power. Its extremely unbalanced and lets them really crush any rising opposition unless you trust they won't unfairly wield that power.

Are you sure you're not confusing "monopoly" with monopsony? The former is about a seller vs buyers, where a single source has huge power over pricing and thus is able to raise prices for buyers far beyond market justification. The latter is when a single buyer controls a high enough share of purchases that they can exert significant power of sellers. While they both impact markets, they're not the same thing and they have different effects. The impact of monopsonys and to what extent their bad is a lot more controversial, because the fundamental idea of grouping together in order to gain enough purchasing power to negotiate lower prices from sellers is used in a lot of areas. I think monopsony does have implications for things like wages and working conditions, with outright depressing of wages as well as potential for more wage discrimination.

Those are all different issues though with different potential regulatory tools to apply against them vs a monopolist simply outright raising prices for buyers. I'm definitely concerned that way, way too many people have started to just reach for the big BREAK 'EM UP hammer for any problem they see, despite the potential for nasty battles delaying effectiveness and enormous and unpredictable side effects. I'd really like to see much more focused efforts tried first, particularly since a big central target can actually be easier to regulate and check for certain things. There is plenty of low hanging fruit at Amazon like their commingling practices, but such things tend to be more technocratic.

I'm concerned that focused efforts like that are seen as "boring" and in turn not getting the attention they should. This is similar to how I feel about other areas like secure hardware stacks. Rather then "break up Apple/Google!!!" I'd much, much rather see things like "devices owners must have the option to load their own crypto roots with equal power as any manufacturer roots" or "devices must be warranted for 1 month/$20 retail price up to 60 months" or the like done. They're not as catchy politics but they'd be really directly useful without risking a lot of the value scale can bring.

Antitrust is not purely about consumers, but about protecting a competitive and open market. However I will admit that this has been widely debated and is not actually consensus in US history. A counter-argument is that antitrust action should be purely focused on consumer prices and do nothing unless consumer pricing is negatively affected. I would argue that the former is still being consumer-pricing focused, just with a long term view instead of a short term view

Yes but historically an anti-trust response is brought against a company that is actually using that monopoly power, and frankly "definitely able to have" is speculative. Do they have it? Are they abusing it?

I don't know but, there are two potential cases that pop up that could be such as them leveraging internal data on their third party sellers to out compete them and putting their products first in line which as we know from search carries a lot of weight for what people click.

And then there's the part where this has to be bad for consumers. Sucks for competitors but anti-trust has also historically been used when a companies practices are bad for the consumer. My life has only gotten better using Amazon services I don't know about you.

My point being is that there are things that legally could be construed as anti-competitive but I as a consumer am not hurt and third party sellers and other competitors generally speaking and in my opinion, suck. I'm not in the business of breaking up companies simply because they're better.

>What producer of a consumer good sold through Amazon could afford to lose 40% of their retail presence/revenue overnight? Well in the current environment, Amazon has that power.

Are there any examples of them actually doing this?

Of them having 40% of the market place?

The comment is referring to the fact that companies trying to sell goods online are given a choice to either forego 40% of potential revenues or work with Amazon. This gives Amazon an enormous amount of leverage over suppliers.

No, of them forcing anybody off their platform.

>The comment is referring to the fact that companies trying to sell goods online are given a choice to either forego 40% of potential revenues or work with Amazon. This gives Amazon an enormous amount of leverage over suppliers.

Antitrust law (at least in the US) is conducted on the basis of harm to consumers. If Amazon's negotiating power with suppliers results in better prices/outcomes for consumers, then there's not necessarily anything wrong with that. As a producer, nobody is obligated to buy what you're selling.

http://sites.middlebury.edu/econ0450f10/files/2010/08/bastia... is a nice argument why laws should try to benefit consumers, not producers.

> Antitrust law (at least in the US) is conducted on the basis of harm to consumers.

This is far from a consensus view amongst lawmakers and economists.

Thats why its called anti-trust. If we are in a position where society needs to trust a company to not abuse their power, then they should be a candidate for anti-trust actions.

I believe some of the concern with Amazon is how horizontal and diversified the company is. I'm not sure if any other company has ever gone so wide as to have everything from technology to groceries.

The concern is how effectively a company like this could reinvest into their other verticals. Grocery stores are low margin. Cloud computing is one of Amazons highest profit sectors. Is it fair to smaller(smaller being relative in this case) grocers such as Meijer, Publix, or Kroger to compete against Whole Foods which is a company that can actively lose profit due to backing from other Amazon verticals such as AWS?

Yeah the closest thing Amazon reminds me of if: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_integration

Though the parts of the "supply chain" are really different verticals they can use the revenue from to compete in their other verticals. The consequences are likely different but I haven't seen how it's bad yet at least against other large companies.

Monopoly is a concern, but so is trying to improve the situation through negative reinforcement, by breaking apart the company.

Instead, foster competition by handing out grants to competitors on the condition that they can't be sold to the Big Co for 10 years, and provide mentoring to those startups.

Also, 10 billion vs 100 is arbitrary and could easily vary from market to market, and is determined by who?

Here we edge into the moral question of whether it is ok to be a billionaire, and the discussion taps into the current outrage against the 1%.

I think it is ok to be a billionaire, if and only if you give back to the community commensurately - something like a 50% flat income tax (no deductions, applies to all income including investment earnings/interest) if your net worth is over 1 billion.

> Instead, foster competition by handing out grants to competitors on the condition that they can't be sold to the Big Co for 10 years, and provide mentoring to those startups.

With what goal? More gigantic conglomerates? Or after ten years, they get rolled up into an existing one? To me, this sounds like it would make the problem worse.

What is your concern with negative reinforcement? Pretty much our entire legislation is based on the concept of fines and punishment.

>I think it is ok to be a billionaire, if and only if you give back to the community commensurately

How is it even remotely your business how much money other people have given somebody? A billionare (assuming they didn't inherit it) has already given way more back to the community than the average person, because they brought into existance something that collectively brought billions of dollars of value to people.