Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

Re:Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program n... by blocked_again on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @07:43PM (#30094423)

I don't really buy that consumer protection and antitrust regulations actually result in a better free market. I think the market is better off doing it's thing rather than a bunch of politicians trying to make it more efficient.

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Re:Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program n... by bee_rider on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @08:16PM (#30094741)

What do you mean by "better free market?" Are you using terms like "efficient" and "free market" in their technical sense or are you just saying that you don't like regulations?

Definitionally regulations are a divergence from an ideal free market. Provably, under some conditions (which don't exist in the real world) a market will converge to some definition of efficiency. Practically, no politician cares about this.

Politicians aren't trying to make the market more efficient with regulations -- good politicians are trying to protect their constituents, bad ones are mostly trying to protect their donors.

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Re:Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program n... by p1necone on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @09:09PM (#30095248)

Do you want a single megacorp ruling the world? Because this is how you get a single megacorp ruling the world.

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Re:Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program n... by eru on Thursday January 27, 2022 @04:09AM (#30098067)

Eh, not really. Conglomerates have been on the decline in the last few decades.

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Re:Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program n... by kylebyproxy on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @11:36PM (#30096260)

Depends. Is it a worker cooperative that employs everyone?

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Re:Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program n... by pixl97 on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @08:01PM (#30094566)

Well then, hopefully you dont want IP laws either.

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Re:Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program n... by ggff67 on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @09:13PM (#30095285)

The funny thing is IP laws are by definition monopolies protected by government. Every one of the big tech "quasi-monopolies" are sitting on a mountain of it.

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Re:Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program n... by eru on Thursday January 27, 2022 @04:13AM (#30098105)

Be careful, IP is a hodgepodge of things, like copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.

To pick one: trade secrets are not a monopoly. If you figure out the secret ingredient in Coca Cola (by legal means), you are free to use that knowledge and even publish it.

Similarly, I have my reservations about whether patents are a good idea; but I don't mind trademarks nearly as much.

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Re:Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program n... by eru on Thursday January 27, 2022 @04:08AM (#30098061)

That might be true, but wouldn't matter in a legal sense, if there are anti-trust laws on the book.

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