This is not a one-off for Amazon. New products need to sell through Amazon to get access to consumers without paying through the nose for that access; they can't be cost-competitive otherwise (close parallel here to the SO monopoly). Amazon frequently cherry-picks the most successful new products that they think they can manufacture themselves.

This is bad for innovation in the consumer products space, because it kills the incentive that independent entrepreneurs have to innovate. Why innovate if Amazon is going to capture all your profits once you are successful? What branded grocery-store products ever face the same quandary due to the existence of similar white-label products being sold in the same store?

In an environment where anti-trust principles were being enforced against Amazon, they would have listed the original product under the "camera bag" headline, increasing their sales, instead of stealing their concept and making it harder for them to build a sustainable business.

I challenge you on this.

I think that both Sears and A&P had Amazon level monopolies for quite a long time.

Regardless I'd disagree about the reach of Sears vs. Amazon. They kinda look the same as a retailer scope (Sears owned phone-order, Amazon monopolized online), but that's where the analogy ends.

> In 1930, A&P, now the world's largest retailer, reached $2.9 billion in sales ($44.4 billion today) with 16,000 stores.

Grocery stores don't have anything like monopoly power.

I know someone who lives out near the nature coast of Florida and Wal-Mart is a lot more important to their daily life than I'm used to.

This is to say that it is often more of a partnership to push more product at a cheaper price point than to push the competition out.

I do. Especially with how common it is for a single chain to have over 30% market share in some area. Often the chain's only contribution is packaging someone else's product in their own branding, so independent brands can't build consumer trust. And in my experience, they make sure the store-brand product is always well stocked, while others are allowed to frequently run out. Even when, if you look at the fine print, the manufacturer is the same.