Re:FTC Sues Amazon for Illegally Maintaining Monopoly Power
by nwiswell on Tuesday September 26, 2023 @04:41PM
(#37665552)
> if the market was working correctly Amazon's profits would be driven down to zero and you'd effectively have this
Would you? Consumer behavior seems to be to simply go to their default marketplace rather than to search the whole internet, so it ends up being a winner-take-all system where alternative marketplaces like eBay are almost irrelevant and Amazon charges whatever they like.
There are "natural monopolies", like with roads and power distribution networks, and I would argue it's turned out that online marketplaces have turned out to be another one, and we should modify our public policy to reflect that.
Would you? Consumer behavior seems to be to simply go to their default marketplace rather than to search the whole internet, so it ends up being a winner-take-all system where alternative marketplaces like eBay are almost irrelevant and Amazon charges whatever they like.
There are "natural monopolies", like with roads and power distribution networks, and I would argue it's turned out that online marketplaces have turned out to be another one, and we should modify our public policy to reflect that.