Well, here's a real example. About a decade ago there was a simple video conferencing system called Nautilus. A simple LCD screen that let you call other people with the device and talk to them, not having to bother with computers or smartphones. The sort of thing that is good for talking with elderly relatives who may not be very computer or phone savvy. I bought one (from Amazon) for myself and my elderly parents. It worked well, but a few years later Amazon came out with their Echo Show products which are basically the same thing, which killed the Nautilus. I'm sure it was covered by patents and what not, but you can't protect the idea. Amazon obviously saw that it sold reasonably well and used its power as both a marketplace and a technology company to undercut their own seller.

Really? That’s your example? Everyone and their mother has a video conferencing solution and the idea has been around as something to aspire to since the 60s with the Jetsons .

Do you agree with the look and feel lawsuit that Apple had against MS? Or think that Roku, Amazon, Google , etc did something untoward because they came after Apple with set top boxes?

Well, for historical accuracy, Roku was first in regard to streaming devices you hooked up to your TV. Apple and the rest copied them. And it is pretty much obvious that Microsoft copied Apple (and yes, you can argue that Apple in turn copied PARC). But what makes Amazon copying things different is that they are a marketplace for other people's products and a maker of products themselves. That has an intrinsic conflict of interest.

The first AppleTV was released in 2007. The first Roku in 2008.

As far as Amazon copying others as a marketplace owner, ever heard of the Kirkland’s brand? Store brands have been around forever.

Fortunately or unfortunately, that is something that is easy to research. ie: Amazon Basics

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/amazon-copied-produ...

> thousands of pages of internal Amazon documents examined by Reuters – including emails, strategy papers and business plans – show the company ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoffs and manipulating search results to boost its own product lines in India, one of the company's largest growth markets.

Again have you heard of the Kirkland’s brand? Have you been to a CVS and seen the knockoffs? Literally every single major retailer has house brands that compete with third parties.

Your "What about Kirkland" -ism is irrelevant.

A big company can stall a copyright lawsuit for as long as it wants. Small companies cannot win against Amazon in court.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-14-fi-19337-...

Small victories like the chain wrench lawsuit against Sears happen. But they are rare.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-bionic-wrench-sea...

It’s not whataboutism at all. Only people that don’t know that housebrands have been a thing forever would think that the evil Amazon is doing something unique.

And CVS follows the formula of name brand OTC drugs down to the very ingrediant to make house brands. You can’t copyright a shirt measurement.

And before you call me an “Amazon shill”. I got PIPed from Amazon less than two months ago. I’m the last person who has any love for Amazon. Honestly I don’t have any feeling either way. It was just my 8th job over 25 years, they gave me a nice check and I had a comparable offer within two weeks.

The major difference here is that Amazon has major market power as an online mall.

Like with the sears example, large 'mall' like organizations do outright steal designs and stonewall the original copyright holder.

A random housebrand does not have access to Amazon's statistics, logistics or reach. Amazon is looking at stats that they hide from their providers, to choose who to copy, then out-price the original seller. (Due to inhouse logistics)

They are not even remotely the same thing.

And CVS doesn’t have major power when it comes to selling drugs and knowing which ones it should knock off with home brands? Every single store knows what to knock off based on what it sells.

And Walmart sells a lot more than Amazon.

You don’t think that every store knows how to undercut other products in its own store with house brands?

“A simple LCD screen that let you call other people with the device and talk to them” sounds like a commoditized product to me.

Yes, anyone here can go out and find an ODM from China to anufacturer them, send a custom version of AOSP to the ODM, slap their brand on it and sell it on Amazon.