My comment is not about their lying. That's a different problem and not what my comment is about.

> Can you really not distinguish Amazon, it’s market position, and their acts from brick and mortar retailers that carry private label items?

Who do you think had the dominant market position before Amazon was a thing? Again, this play is older than Amazon itself.

My argument was just a rhetorical statement reflecting on the government's ineffectiveness and contradictory behavior when defining what harms customers or competition. It's only now they care, because it's only now that they seem to see the political benefits from pursuing what's a rampant decades-long behavior.

Believe me, my comment is not trying to defend Amazon, is simply trying to showcase how politicians are opportunistic demagogues.

There seems to be no winning with the government actions : Act early and they’re accused of stifling “innovation”, act late and they’re accused of “ineffective ness”.

Except that in this case they are about 30 to 40 years late.

Yes, the government regulatory actions are typically net negative.

I don't know, I like being able to see the mountains from Pasadena today. That wasn't possible in the 1980s.

But nobody is paying for better air! (Yet)

Is their argument that it harms customers and competition? It seems it benefits both. Customers get cheaper goods and Amazon is competing with the existing players. The government willingnes to act is then easier to explain: it's not defending customers (it rarely does) but it tries to shelve other established businesses from competition (which is common).

Isn’t it still the case that Walmart and similar brick and mortar stores have significantly higher revenue than Amazon’s e-commerce revenue? If anything, it’s worse for traditional stores because they have limited shelf space and so store brands can prevent name brands from even being available.

No, no it isn’t the case. Walmart is the only one with more revenue, but they don’t have AWS margins to prop up everything else. I think we’d all be better off if we didn’t have a 2-horse race for 90% of our purchases…

Target (#3)had $93b in revenue in FY2020. Amazon e-commerce had $120b.

https://corporate.target.com/annual-reports/2020

https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1218313/amazon-revenue-de...

I'd agree if we had a 2-horse race, but I don't see it, there are a ton of competing retail stores both online and offline.

And especially online, it's not like you're limited geographically where say your only store that has what you want is a big Walmart, you have access to hundreds of online retailer to choose from.

Target needs to do same day delivery and then they will win hands down. It does not take an MBA to figure this out and I don't know why they have not done it yet.

They already do this and it's called Shipt. There's a delivery charge (about $9.99) or yearly membership available.

Its because same day delivery takes a rather large investment in logistics systems that they may not have ready to go.

This is easy. Offer a target membership for $100 a year. Pay employees who live nearby to deliver. Easy.

Here are the results of my google search for "target same day delivery"

https://www.target.com/c/same-day-delivery/-/N-bswkz?tab=how...

It appears they are already doing exactly this.

If you add a few more “easy” to it it may hide you have no idea what it takes logistically or have ever built something of similar scope / complexity.

But did they lie to congress… it’s not about prioritising their own brands because yes everyone does it, it’s about lying to Congress.

Sure, I don’t disagree about this part of the charge: I just don’t think there’s much difference between any other commerce-oriented business and Amazon on the question of prioritizing store brands.

Customers can actually see all the products at a physical store shelf to make comparisons albeit they may be placed at different heights on the shelves. Amazon essentially hides other competitors on the screen since they get the “buy box” and competition can only be seen by clicking to another screen; vast majority of users do not click to other screens.

“Do it on a computer” may work for patent attorneys but it’s bs. Just because Amazon is on a screen doesn’t actually make it different than brick and mortar.

That’s funny because that’s not far from what Amazon argued for 24 years while they didn’t charge and pay sales tax between 1994-2017. They think they are special when it benefits them and think they are the same when it benefits them.

You mean collect sales taxes on consumer behalf, obviously Amazon wouldn’t pay sales tax on anything they didn’t buy. Before 2017, consumers were supposed to pay sales taxes themselves on purchases in any state where Amazon didn’t have a presence (they of course had to collect sales tax in any state they had warehouses in). But that would be like a Washingtonian having to pay sales taxes on purchases they made in Oregon, they mostly didn’t bother.

The whole states couldn’t mandate internet retailers to collect sales taxes in states they didn’t operate in was setup by the federal government (who regulate interstate commerce) and didn’t apply to just Amazon. The taxes were still owed by consumers, but the burden of collection not being ar the retail level meant that they were mostly not paying.

What do you think businesses do after they “collect sales tax” they pay it to the government.

What brick and mortar doesn’t charge sales tax and leaves it to the consumer to pay to the government directly?

You are making the very same bs argument Amazon made in multiple courts and lost, of course Amazon has to collect the sales tax, businesses get sales tax numbers from governments a consumer can’t exactly pay sales tax directly to governments, despite what Amazon tried to argue that’s not how sales tax works, all sales tax is reported/collected/paid based on a business sales tax account.

> What do you think businesses do after they “collect sales tax” they pay it to the government.

"Collecting sales tax on on behalf of the consumer for the government" should give you a good clue to what they are doing with that money. Consumers always paying the sales tax, not the businesses who collect them. They are still responsible for paying sales tax even when the business isn't collecting them (e.g. when I go to Portland and buy a MacBook Pro from the Apple store, I am supposed to myself pay sales tax to Washington state).

> What brick and mortar doesn’t charge sales tax and leaves it to the consumer to pay to the government directly?

The federal government created this scenario during the Bill Clinton Administration. It wasn't something Amazon decided on its own. And again, brick and mortar stores don't always collect sales tax (see Portland Apple store above, which gets way more business than is expected for the Portland area).

> You are making the very same bs argument Amazon made in multiple courts and lost, of course Amazon has to collect the sales tax, businesses get sales tax numbers from governments a consumer can’t exactly pay sales tax directly to governments, despite what Amazon tried to argue that’s not how sales tax works, all sales tax is reported/collected/paid based on a business sales tax account.

Again, Amazon didn't make that decision. It wasn't their decision to make. If you want to go after someone, go after the Clinton Administration, the congress that was installed at the time, and the Supreme Court.

> They are still responsible for paying sales tax even when the business isn't collecting them (e.g. when I go to Portland and buy a MacBook Pro from the Apple store, I am supposed to myself pay sales tax to Washington state).

That isn’t how sales tax works at all.

Good luck going to apple and trying to buy a MacBook and telling them not to charge sales tax because you are going to pay it yourself.

Paying sales tax as an individual to a state isn’t a real concept, businesses collect it because they have to by law the business is liable for the sales tax based on their receipts plus penalties, states don’t go after consumers. If businesses weren’t liable, then none of them would charge it/collect it/account for it/pay it to the state, because it’s extra work. They do it because they are liable for it.

But please I’d love for you to share your proof/receipts that you have successfully bought a MacBook without apple charging you sales tax and your proof that you paid it directly to state.

Purchasing via a catalog, as was popular before ecommerce.

Ironically, this likely unblocked bottlenecks on delivery speed and cost for Amazon, because they previously avoided operating in new states and now are spinning up distribution centers everywhere.

Can the law distinguish

The law is the law it doesn’t distinguish anything, but facts can easily be distinguished and when you apply 2 different sets of facts to the law, don’t expect the same outcome.

It’s why Amazon never makes the argument about private label brands in grocery stores/brick and mortar retailers. If it were that easy, they wouldn’t be testifying before Congress much less lying under oath about prioritizing their own products, they would have just said “of course we use data to copy the best selling 3rd party products on our site and then prioritize our own products to win the market just like everyone else.”

Let’s try it and see.