Re: More fault lines
 

This reply says It Worked.

Re: More fault lines
 

What the antitrust problem with Amazon?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Re: More fault lines
 

The better question might be, what's antitrust law's problem with Amazon? http://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/a...itrust-paradox

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Some on the right get it, apparently.

The 74 Seconds treatment of the video was pretty good. In addition to talking to a former MPD trainer who says Yanez failed completely - not shocking - it goes through the audio of Yanez's very first explanation of what happened. Between him saying he didn't know where the gun was and that Castile's grip looked wider than a wallet, I don't know how he could credibly testify that he saw a gun. He heard "gun" and then assumed it's presence in Castile's hand.

Re: More fault lines
 

I suppose I need to read that, but for now just let me say that buying a specialty retailer doesn't seem like it makes much difference to Amazon's role in retail markets.

ETA: Btw, my favorite lefty "antitrust" freakout over the deal is "Amazon's going to get 451 locations they can use as distribution centers."

Because, right, the expensive real estate that Whole Foods uses for super fancy and expensive grocery stores is perfectly suited to use as a logistics hub and can totally handle hundreds of trucks coming and going every day and Amazon certainly couldn't comparable industrial space for way cheaper than it's paying for Whole Foods.

EATA: Not sure I can finish that article. She's wrong a lot. What she describes as narrowing is actually having to articulate the actual harm. Vertical theories are certainly still viable, just rare, as they should be because the harm is rare. Economies of scale and scope are absolutely barriers to entry under the "Chicago School." Market power is, in fact, often fleeting.

EATA: I really could not care less about the original intent behind 100 year old statutes. Indeed, much of the what motivated the Sherman, Clayton and Robinson-Patman was wrong.

Re: More fault lines
 

It shouldn't surprise you that I'm familiar with that article. Who ought to be suing Amazon, and for what? Or do the laws need to be changed, and if so how?

Re: More fault lines
 

My son told me at 9:30 last night that he needed an external hard drive to download photos because he had filled his laptop. I got on Amazon and ordered a Seagate drive which they will deliver, at no extra charge because I'm a Prime member, today. Amazon is not monopolizing the market for external drives. There are many other places where I could buy that drive. Nor are they monopolizing the provision of next-day delivery services. Other companies could build that if they want to. As a consumer, I think it's awesome that Amazon will sell me what I want so quickly and conveniently. So what's the argument that markets are not working well?

Re: More fault lines
 

You gotta stop focusing on consumers, man. What about "the health of markets as a whole?"

I mean, how is the higher-cost, lower-service incumbent electronics retailer going to survive? And what's going to happen once it's gone?

But sarcasm aside, not unlike Walmart, I could see potential monopsony issues in theory, but most of what people complain about for both retailers is competition on the merits. It's supposed to be entirely legal to build a monopoly that way.

Nonetheless, get big and successful enough and you're eventually going to get into some antitrust trouble. As usual, I'd expect it from the EU first, but the US agencies will probably come up with a theory right about the time Amazon's being overtaken by whatever's next.

Re: More fault lines
 

E-commerce is killing traditional retail, because it's just not efficient to have to go to store to buy many things. This will cause a lot of dislocation.

Re: More fault lines
 

Nobody. That's the point.

The sole effective change would be to bar predatory pricing of the kind in which Amazon engages. I'm not even remotely close to qualified to comment on the acceptable breadth of antitrust law, but that sounds like outlawing loss leading as a business practice. That seems extreme.

I only offered the article because you asked the question. I was more interested in the question of how people like Bezos view the world (the bit in the editorial I posted earlier, where the author described tech oligarchs as believing they were entitled to outsize influence, as they were emerging as masters, with superfluous labor serfs below).

Re: More fault lines
 

The evil thing is it sells infringing stuff from whomever, but insulates itself from infringement suits.

Re: More fault lines
 

If you want to figure out how Bezos views the world, reading stuff he wrote would be a better place to start.

I don't think Amazon engages in predatory pricing. To the contrary, Amazon often offers pricing that is no better than the competition, but gets business from consumers who like the convenience, who can't be bothered to shop around, or who think it's too déclassé to shop at eBay or Walmart. What Amazon does ruthlessly is try to reduce its costs, and keep its margins low. That's hard for traditional retailers to compete with.

Re: More fault lines
 

One thing she didn't talk about - for some reason - is the types of predatory price cases that have actually been viable post Brooke Group, which are in industries characterized with high fixed costs as a barrier to entry and very low marginal costs - basically, airlines - where recoupment actually sounds plausible.

Of course, that's not at all Amazon.

Re: More fault lines
 

Matt Yglesias's take from four+ years ago still holds up pretty well: