The Business of Amazon

[PanthersATL]

Continuing from a Sunday Ticket thread conversation about Amazon anti-trust stuff with @LinvilleGorge, so as not to muck up the main forum with a divergence into a different topic.

  

11 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

It's not just my opinion. There was a House investigation. They pretty much agreed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/06/amazon-apple-facebook-google-congress/

 

And when that investigation came out (and focused specifically on Amazon), my thought was this:

"What exactly is Amazon's business? What do they sell?"

It's not books, movies, CDs.
It's not computer services, or 50lb bags of dogfood delivered next day.

Amazon is selling convenience. That is their #1 primary product and focus.

How can they make whatever it is that a consumer or business would want to buy a more convenient transaction?

People don't flock to Amazon to buy things anymore because Amazon has the cheapest prices. They use Amazon because AMZN has built the absolute most convenience/easiest way to make that purchase and get it into your hands.

Other businesses (Wal-Mart in particular) have tried, but what stops people from buying The Exact Same Product at Wal-Mart's online shop vs buying it via Amazon?  If you've tried to use either app or website, the answer is probably staring you in the face -- Amazon's interface and shopping flow is just easier.  Their return policy is easier. 

Same holds true for AWS vs AZURE (backend services). Having used both -- and they both do the same things -- I find working with AWS to be easier overall vs AZURE.

There's nothing stopping Wal-Mart or Microsoft or any other tiny upstart business from redesigning their product offerings to be easier to use, or to offer more desirable products than Amazon does.  

As for being anti-competitive, I'll equate that to things where a consumer is forced to use a specific vendor rather than have a choice.  Because consumers can choose to buy The Exact Same Things from companies other than Amazon, Amazon can defend themselves by saying that their is legit competition. Ditto using Google as a search engine (use Bing, or duckduckgo, or Ask Jeeves, or whatever), or Microsoft for a computer OS.

As long as there are options and choices available, I can't see how Amazon could be *forced* to split up their consumer business from their AWS business or whatever.  Plus, considering Amazon makes more money from the non-commerce services now, I don't see how a breakup would lead to anything worthwhile in general.

It's all about convenience. Make a simpler mousetrap, and people will flock to it.  (It's been Apple's mantra for a while, too...)

Edited September 12, 2021 by PanthersATL

[PanthersATL]

@stbugs

  

10 minutes ago, stbugs said:

We all (I hope) already have seen this but that doesn’t mean there will be an actual break up. This was all pandering as well because the big bad tech companies was trending early in the pandemic. Also, look at the 4 and tell me which one doesn’t have their own ecosystem that they rule with an iron fist, which doesn’t rule Internet search and tailor results to suit them best, which doesn’t rule social media and steer people to get riled up to boost time spent and revenue via advertising and which two own the advertising world right now and are involved in an antitrust lawsuit right now.

You could easily make a great case for antitrust lawsuits against Apple, Google and Facebook and they are actually all involved right now. Making a case against Amazon IMHO is much harder. Yes, their business practices may come under scrutiny but they have legit large competitors in every revenue stream they have. Walmart, Target, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Apple, AT&T, Disney, Google, Microsoft and a ton of others are competitors. Epic is suing Apple because you have to hand over 30% of your revenue to play in the mobile gaming arena and there’s no alternative. A bunch of state DAs are suing Google and Facebook because they came up with an advertising deal that was not available to anyone else basically colluding it own the bulk of online ads.

Epic actually won their suit vs Apple this week. Sets a precedent for their comparable suit against Google.   ("Apple must allow other forms of in-app purchase, rules judge")

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/10/22662320/epic-apple-ruling-injunction-judge-court-app-store

(and see my above post about Amazon, which I think agrees with what you said here)

[Floppin]

5 minutes ago, PanthersATL said:

@stbugs

  

Epic actually won their suit vs Apple this week. Sets a precedent for their comparable suit against Google.   ("Apple must allow other forms of in-app purchase, rules judge")

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/10/22662320/epic-apple-ruling-injunction-judge-court-app-store

(and see my above post about Amazon, which I think agrees with what you said here)

Honestly they didn't win that lawsuit at all. They won this very minor part and lost every other claim. This part was probably the least important part of the overall lawsuit. 

[PanthersATL]

44 minutes ago, Floppin said:

Honestly they didn't win that lawsuit at all. They won this very minor part and lost every other claim. This part was probably the least important part of the overall lawsuit. 

well, boo

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/10/22667769/apple-epic-lost-lawsuit-verdict-ruling
 

• Apple needs to allow their own purchase mechanisms into their own apps
• Judge confirmed that Apple doesn't need to allow Epic back into their walled garden
• Judge ruled Epic does owe Apple some $$

So while Epic "won" the ability for devs to include alternative payment methods, they can't take advantage of the ruling themselves.