I also don't really get the desire to defend them even if you were a loyal fan. Outside of AWS, none of their services are good anymore and have deteriorated. The only reason people think Prime is even valuable is because of the quantity > quality overriding people's rational. Amazon (the storefront) has turned into Aliexpress but with the shoddiest random brands ever like XYGHY selling you a product they're dropshipping for a 300% markup. They've turned into the store where it's only worth using to get AmazonBasics from.

Prime shipping has degraded to me to the point that 20% and rising of the orders are late, and that’s with a recent warehouse in the same city.

...and of course our state AGs and the FTC are doing nothing about holding Amazon accountable for claiming prime = 1 day shipping.

I might well be one of the very few people in the thread who can still benefit from prime shipping.

We have an Amazon prime depot about 10 minute walk from our house. The drivers can schedule their deliveries to us either to the beginning or end of their routes, and that shows: we get prime shipping for almost everything. In fact, trying to batch individual items into fewer deliveries is not necessarily even an option anymore. It's rare that I need the order in for next day, and I'd be happy to have the whole batch delivered in 2-3 days. But no, I get a small batch on next day, one item on day 2 and two more on day 3. There is no - or very rarely - option to select "all of these in one go, on day 3, please".

Then again, I live in UK, in the weird place that's both in London and in Kent at the same time. That said, when we do need next-day delivery, it tends to be available for about 50% of the time.

What does the "end of the route" look like for you? For me, along with the worsening reliability of prime, it's just getting later and later. When first moved into this address, deliveries were generally before 3. Slowly that became 5, then 7. Finally, to take the absolute piss this has become as late as 10pm, which is not what I call "next day" and at that point I don't really want it delivered at all.

Rarely much later than than after 7, usually between 14:00 and 17:00 in the afternoon. In a rather bizarre twist, maybe slightly less than half the time _before_ 14:30. Never before 09:45

I think we've had two deliveries after 20:00 in the past year.

I let my prime membership lapse last year and I barely notice the difference. I stopped shopping there as much and started queuing things up into batches to meet the free shipping without prime threshold. Now that threshold seems to be zero, I still get free shipping on everything. It takes a little bit longer, like 1-2 days, sometimes, that's it.

> They've turned into the store where it's only worth using to get AmazonBasics from.

Some that is because if anything does well in their marketplace, they make an AmazonBasics version and then undercut them.

I don't think it's so much about defending AMZN as it is recognizing what a weak case the FTC chose. It's going to amount to a mere slap on the wrist for Amazon, in reality. This suit does nothing to limit the velocity Amazon has in entertainment, retail, payments, cloud and so on.

I don’t think I’m defending Amazon so much as noting that Amazon does not have a monopoly on retail or even e-commerce.

I don’t think issues should be picking sides so much as seeking the truth.

Amazon had 38% of online retail market share [0] and only 9% of total retail market share [1]. So I think it’s going to be hard to show antitrust violations without some price collusion.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/274255/market-share-of-t... [1] https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2022/amazon-and-walmart-m...

Anitrust actions do not require the presence of a monopoly.

Rather, they addresses situations where companies unreasonably exert power to lessen competition.

The idea is to prevent monopolies from forming in the first place.

Can they save me from Comcast first? I’d be curious how that backlog refinement meeting goes.

> See that filter that orders priority by realized value? Remove it and order by campaign contributions

> Can they save me from Comcast first?

Talk to the FCC, probably.

The Friends of Comcast Club?

Translated from non incriminating corporate speak to plain English:

"We have to been seen doing something, the election cycle is fast approaching. What if we go after Comcast?"

"They gave a important senators son a no show job so they are off limits for the time being"

"Amazon?"

"Let me check, actually they haven't done much for us lately, let's shake them down, if they give my cousin a few million for consulting we give them a small fine, if not we give them the law"

> unreasonably exert power to lessen competition.

The unreasonable part is where the monopoly power comes in.

Companies lessening competition happens all the time, it’s the monopoly aspect that triggers antitrust.

Monopoly power does not require a literal monopoly. Straight from the FTC: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power

I'd say Amazon has "significant and durable market power"

What does that mean? Does Microsoft have that with Windows? Intel with x86? Apple with phones? What is the scale of those words?

It means it's up to the courts to decide on a case by case basis.

That sounds...arbitrary and subject to politicisation.

What method wouldn't be? Putting it to a committee would have similar problems. Writing it into a law would be too static.

Especially because the first part of determining marketshare and market power is determining the market. New markets happen all the time, with old markets dying out. Twenty years ago, smartphones wouldn't have been a market. Fifteen years ago: streaming services.

Like going back to your "Intel with x86", what is the market? x86_64 CPUs? Sure they have monopoly power. All CPUs? Now they don't have as much because they're competing with ARM too. Mobile phone CPUs? I don't think there's been a new Intel phone since the Asus Zenfone 2 (2015).

The method of letting the markets decide would work, I think.

I suspect this action might have been related to this announcement: https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/policy-statement-re... [pdf]

article - https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/11/...

They are more rigorously enforcing laws against unfair practices, monopoly or not.

"Unfair methods of competition, the policy statement explains, are tactics that seek to gain an advantage while avoiding competing on the merits, and that tend to reduce competition in the market."

There are three primary antitrust laws, only one of them focuses on monopoly power in the way you describe. The Clayton and FTC acts are broader.

Amazon has a near-monopoly at this point on online retail in the USA, mostly owing to their logistics network and ability to deliver so easily combined with the one stop shop advantage.

“Amazon had 38% of online retail market share”

As a commentors above pointed out, online market share includes Airline sites, etc, and Delta alone is a top 5 online purchasing site. Show me what “Amazon had 38% of online retail market share” actually means. That they have 100% of 90 areas measured and 0% of airline ticket sales?

Being good at something does not make you a monopoly. They are not actively blocking other online retail platforms. This is not a statement to defend Amazon but the fact that I prefer Amazon for its features (like same day delivery) is just plain capitalism. The customers have a choice to buy from a retailer they prefer and the important thing is that I still have an option to choose where I make my purchases.

This exactly. I tried buying from other online retailers recently to support other businesses directly, and their websites are replete with what I would consider dark patterns. Things like listing 2-day shipping and then burying the fact that you'll get the item 2 days from when it ships but it will take them a month to process it. Seriously, this is a thing.

At least with Amazon I know I'm actually getting it in 2 days or they'll give me a refund (and often times still give me the product too).

Amazon also has dark patterns. I have accidentally signed up for Amazon Prime twice in the last year due to the way they practically force it under your cursor while you are checking out.

I do not want Amazon Prime because in my area (in southeastern Australia), it fails to meet its delivery promises about 95+% of the time, and when that happens, Amazon cancels the order on you half the time and sends it off to some distant pick-up point the other half. Regular Amazon just sends things by post, which is so much more reliable and convenient.

I strongly prefer using smaller online retailers. I have not found it very difficult to find ones that offer better and more honest service (not to mention lower prices) than Amazon. As far as I'm concerned, Amazon is for Kindle books, and occasionally the odd item I can't find anywhere else.

If you sell a thing on amazon, they require it to be no cheaper on any other site. or so I've heard.

You don't need a monopoly to engage in anti-competitive behavior. Ffs. Antitrust isn't necessarily about monopolies. How is that so hard to understand?

The OP of the thread you are replying in claimed “so obviously monopolistic”…

I really don't give a shit, tbh.

You can't argue that the FTC is unjustified by saying that the OP is wrong in saying it's monopolistic, when FTC isn't saying they're a monopoly.

Like, what even is this discussion?

Agree, (these are not the droids you are looking for). Look to Google, Meta, and the telecoms as they are the most eggregious and abuse their market position blatantly.

This antitrust action isn't about their retail sector though... I can only assume the many people acting without that understanding here didn't read the article.

> Amazon had 38% of online retail market share

Sure, but “online retail” is pretty clearly an overly broad market including separate segments between which there is no substitution effect, and there are a whole lot of segments within that where Amazon has majority (>50%) market share (safety & security, communications, home audio, portable audio, etc.)

Not that this is about retail, per se, anyway, except maybe in leveraging market position in retail as an aspect of the anticompetitive behavior regarding sellers planning on using their fulfillment services.

Where are you getting that data?

Online retail includes airlines websites, for example (Delta recently shared they were a Top 5 US online retailer in their investor presentations).

I am sure that for CPG, Amazon’s share is significantly higher.

Remember the FTC and their laughably ill-prepared anti-trust lawsuit against then Facebook? They tried table-pounding instead of doing their homework to properly define the area of monopoly and got their case thrown out.

Amazon has been able to get away with a lot because for a long time their customer experience was fantastic. You could buy pretty much anything knowing it was the lowest price, get it in a day or two, and return it for pretty much any reason.

Over time the experience degraded because they encouraged cheaply copying popular products, and then they even did it themselves and competed with their sellers. And of course their anticompetitive practices have made things much worse for those sellers.