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Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by MattGaiser on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:19AM (#23499457)
1. Amazon is not a monopoly in any market. It faces stiff competition across the board.

2. Amazon both drives costs down and is a lead innovator and the fear with monopolies is that they raise prices and hinder innovation. Amazon probably captures 90% of my non-food consumer spending simply because nobody else seems to be trying to improve except them.

Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by stephenr on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:29AM (#23499560)
The fear with monopolies is that they kill off competition, and then are free to raise prices.

Amazon has been selling books at a loss for decades, and it has absolutely killed a large chunk of their competition for physical books in the US.

Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by x43b on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:38AM (#23499642)
Do you have evidence Amazon sold books at a loss for 20+ years?

Buying a book for $10, selling it for $12, then spending $5 on a new warehouse is cash flow negative but not selling at a loss. Amazon isn't even cash flow negative anymore.

Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by yellow_postit on Friday June 12, 2020 @11:36AM (#23500283)
That’s only one fear about monopolies and a relatively recent one at that. See for example the EU’s quite different treatment and understanding around monopolies.

There can be more reason to be concerned about a monopoly than just consumer price harm.

Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by logicchains on Friday June 12, 2020 @11:50AM (#23500422)
>There can be more reason to be concerned about a monopoly than just consumer price harm.

Yes, but it doesn't mean they're economically-well-informed reasons.

Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by theandrewbailey on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:29AM (#23499561)
A monopoly can have competition. Lots of people used Netscape on Macs in the 90s, but the US government (and lots of other people) said Microsoft was a monopoly anyway.
Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by jonhohle on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:49AM (#23499764)
Being a monopoly isn’t the issue. Abusing monopoly power is. Commentators often miss that both is required for antitrust action.

In what market does Amazon have a defacto monopoly in? Apple is another one often brought up for antitrust related to App Store policing.

In the late 90s, early 00s, Microsoft sold 90+% of desktop operating systems (their monopoly). That’s fine, great success! However, they used that monopoly to harm competitors: bundling a competing product with their earned monopoly (IE/Netscape), threatening vendors which attempted to also sell a competitor’s product (Sony/BeOS), locking in customers by extending common platforms and making them incompatible with competitor’s products (Java).

Had they not had a monopoly, those actions probably wouldn’t be considered abuse. It’s the combination that’s the problem.

Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by theandrewbailey on Friday June 12, 2020 @11:01AM (#23499920)
That pretty much explains it. Pointing out Mac+Netscape vs MS in the 90s is my simple one-liner when anyone says that $company isn't a monopoly, because $competition.
Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by scarface74 on Friday June 12, 2020 @04:59PM (#23503837)
And guess what? Apple overtook Microsoft in revenue and profit not because of government intervention but because of strong leadership and being innovative - capitalism worked.
Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by Jtsummers on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:48AM (#23499749)
Microsoft's violations, while having to do with the browser market, were not exclusive to it.

MS had something around 97% market share with Windows alone. They used that position to release their free, and largely broken if you go by the standards, IE browser. By pushing that free browser, which cost them over a billion in marketing and development, they cut into the markets of the cross-platform browsers. This was their game plan. Web applications (even the rudimentary versions in the mid-90s) offered a chance for companies to leave Windows, to remove the need for dedicated applications on thick client-styled machines. The OS would be come irrelevant, and this is something MS feared.

But that wasn't the only product market that they did this with. They straight up bought competitors and either closed their product lines or sold them themselves. They threatened to penalize OEMs who sold non-Windows OSes by taking away their OEM license cost (much lower than the shelf price) for Windows, with the margins of that market that killed many alternate OS efforts. They just couldn't get into the market, why pay $50-200 for a new product when you already have Windows on your computer?

Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by Tomte on Friday June 12, 2020 @11:00AM (#23499900)
https://www.newyorker.com/business/adam-davidson/teddy-roose... has an interesting discussion of what it means to be monopoly, and that the classic American viewpoint and the European viewpoint differ.
Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by ikeboy on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:30AM (#23499578)
What company can I go to for two day shipping on millions of products?

The only company that's even close is Walmart, and Amazon still dwarfs their e-commerce sales.

Re:Tim Bray told a union meeting Amazon should be broken up by votepaunchy on Friday June 12, 2020 @01:46PM (#23501724)
Is Shoprunner still around?