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exploded mummy posted:Good thing that Trader Joe's is an eclectic boutique grocery instead of being part of some gigantic international grocery conglomerate taking in some 50 billion euros of revenue Was my argument that Trader Joe's is an "eclectic boutique grocery"? Do you believe that pointing out otherwise has anything to do with what I wrote? Go back, read what I wrote, think about it more carefully, and try formulating a new response.
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Jan 1, 2019 07:03
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BrandorKP posted:Oh no, I understand that's what you're saying, you're just wrong. The thing that's new about amazon is the combination of the relationship between tech and traditional businesses into one thing. All the other poo poo is just a business being a business, which can be pretty lovely. So Amazon is actually just a small-time retailer without any significant market power at all? Whew, thank goodness
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Jan 1, 2019 07:05
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QuarkJets posted:. I don't know what mental block is preventing you from realizing that Amazon is not just another retailer. Literally is.
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Jan 1, 2019 07:25
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Literally is. It has an advantage in that it's probably hitting like 50% of electronic retail sales these days but at the same time, Wal Mart probably has about a 25% overall retail share and Amazon is somewhere around 5 or 6%
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Jan 1, 2019 07:35
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Overall retail share is not a good metric for market power. Different retail products are not part of the same market. Amazon's ability to influence markets is different from Wal-mart's (though of course Wal-mart's is incredibly problematic) because of the information medium differences between Amazon's online market controls and Wal-mart's primarily brick and mortar controls. Both offer up-chain vertical influence, but Amazon has more granular control over market information. One way to think about this is that Wal-mart can arrange and promote products in their stores to appeal to as many customers as possible. In contrast, Amazon can tailor their market information system (including advertising) to individuals. Another major difference facilitated by Amazon's online marketplace structure is that they facilitates a much broader scope of markets, including much lower and higher scale product areas, with a much more constrained and limited information system that Amazon fully controls. The article from a couple pages back, describing internal sabotage and arbitrage between sellers on Amazon? Review manipulation, sham sellers, etc? Wal-mart doesn't have that. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 07:52
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Liquid Communism posted:Yep. Also, and key to Amazon's issue, advertising themselves as the cheap and easy place to find the name brand goods consumers want, to the point of running subscription services to refill them. Combining that with using search and sales metrics on the marketplace to target production of house brands and aggressively refusing to police knockoff skus in a way that hurts consumer confidence in competing brands they carry, and it is deeply poor business ethics. Honest question :how do you not see that house brands do far more of targeting generic knockoffs than they do targeting whatever name brand might exist? Though it is hard to say who is a name brand of towel or usb charger, or trashcan.
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Jan 1, 2019 08:52
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KingNastidon posted:Are there any juicy stories of Amazon deceptively altering placement or description or rating star count? On the e-book side, absolutely yes. Not sure about the physical product side of the store for that, though. There are entire forums dedicated to figuring out the insanity of Amazon's book visibility algorithms and documenting their manipulation of both rankings and promotional opportunities for their own book imprints. It'd be a long, messy essay to explain how obscene their search/visibility manipulation (or payment manipulation to authors/publishers for that matter) is, so I'm just going to leave it as "YES" for now. They do this a lot on the book side.
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Jan 1, 2019 09:44
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poo poo POST MALONE posted:TJ's definitely sells products they don't make and aren't exclusive. Basically all of their wine and beer. All their wine? ALL THEIR WINE? Sir, I shall never share my three buck chuck with you.
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Jan 1, 2019 09:55
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Literally is. And Microsoft is just another software developer, nbd. "Amazon? They're no different than any other retail company you may as well invest in Bob's Discount VHS Sales lol" - forums poster Owlofcreamcheese e: So what's your endgame here? Do you have an argument that you want to make, or do you just really like jumping in to say "nah" when someone points out that Amazon is a huge company doing lovely things? QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 10:41
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QuarkJets posted:And Microsoft is just another software developer, nbd. Why are you so afraid of technology??
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Jan 1, 2019 11:37
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QuarkJets posted:And Microsoft is just another software developer, nbd. You keep moving the goal posts with your end goal being "Amazon Bad." Within the last page or two you were saying that Amazon was uniquely bad because they prioritize placement of specific items based on receiving advertising money or larger margins / strategic importance eg Amazon Basics. This is obviously silly to anyone that's walked into a brick and mortar store or visited other e-commerce websites and considered why products are located where they are. Amazon uses big data / marketing science to inform marketing and advertising strategy. Every company does this, although it's just more consequential with Amazon because they have more market share, tremendous datasets, and the ability to customize the shopping experience at the individual level. Can this result in a negative experience for consumers and/or sellers on their market place? Of course! Companies don't spend time and money on marketing / advertising to benefit consumers in any industry. They will also squeeze sellers to increase their own profits, just like a Walmart or Ford would negotiate discounts given their outsized purchasing power. Your issue is just that Amazon is doing all these things on a much larger scale [and better] than has been done in the past. There probably isn't going to be some broadly applied legislation that requires all retailers to provide transparency into the algorithms and decision framework that drives sales strategy. It's also impossible to enforce because companies make decisions that aren't supported by data all the time. If it's just the unique threat given monopolistic power then define what is too big and what mechanisms should be implemented to impact Amazon and any future Amazon.
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Jan 1, 2019 11:54
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KingNastidon posted:You keep moving the goal posts lol no I haven't. "hey when Amazon replaces a product with their own clone and then shunts the original to the bottom of the listing that's hosed up" and "their dominant position in digital retail has enabled them to do this to an extent that is far more significant than physical retailers" have been my positions from start to finish. looking forward to reading whatever fantasies lead to you believing that statement quote:with your end goal being "Amazon Bad." Within the last page or two you were saying that Amazon was uniquely bad because they prioritize placement of specific items based on receiving advertising money or larger margins / strategic importance eg Amazon Basics. This is obviously silly to anyone that's walked into a brick and mortar store or visited other e-commerce websites and considered why products are located where they are. nope, I never said anything about advertising money or the placement of any items other than AmazonBasics products. You're thinking of other people I've pointed out that AmazonBasics items get priority over other brands because it's often based on a formerly well-selling product, and they want that product to go away now. Some have argued that other companies do the same thing by placing their own brand closer to eye-level, but anyone who has been to a brick and mortar store and also shopped on amazon can immediately identify why that's a lovely comparison. The other counterargument to this is that you can't justify lovely behavior by precedent; even if Target did literally the same thing on their storefront that doesn't mean that it's okay. quote:Amazon uses big data / marketing science to inform marketing and advertising strategy. Every company does this, although it's just more consequential with Amazon because they have more market share, tremendous datasets, and the ability to customize the shopping experience at the individual level. Yup that's all true but you don't seem to be contradicting anything that I've written so moving on: quote:Your issue is just that Amazon is doing all these things on a much larger scale [and better] than has been done in the past. There probably isn't going to be some broadly applied legislation that requires all retailers to provide transparency into the algorithms and decision framework that drives sales strategy. It's also impossible to enforce because companies make decisions that aren't supported by data all the time. If it's just the unique threat given monopolistic power then define what is too big and what mechanisms should be implemented to impact Amazon and any future Amazon. That's partly the issue. And "well they're doing capitalism better" is enough to justify action; a broad law isn't necessary, we already have sufficient rules under antitrust law to sue companies that appear to be doing really well but that are also behaving contrary to the public interest. No one is arguing that we need to change any laws The other part is that digital storefronts make it easier to manipulate consumer behavior. The tools available there are simply more effective. Meanwhile, posters like owlofcreamcheese (the person I was responding to in the post that you quoted) are arguing that not only is Amazon not behaving in a way that is contrary to the public interest, they're also not big enough to really be a concern. It seems like you and I are on the same page here.
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Jan 1, 2019 12:50
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KingNastidon posted:If it's just the unique threat given monopolistic power then define what is too big and what mechanisms should be implemented to impact Amazon and any future Amazon. EU probably would sanction Amazon heavily, if it had as big marketshare in EU as in US. US is more ripe for monopolistic companies to exploit.
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Jan 1, 2019 12:59
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QuarkJets posted:I've pointed out that AmazonBasics items get priority over other brands because it's often based on a formerly well-selling product, and they want that product to go away now. Some have argued that other companies do the same thing by placing their own brand closer to eye-level, but anyone who has been to a brick and mortar store and also shopped on amazon can immediately identify why that's a lovely comparison. The other counterargument to this is that you can't justify lovely behavior by precedent; even if Target did literally the same thing on their storefront that doesn't mean that it's okay. How do you (or others) want to fix this issue beyond existing anti-trust laws? This is just backward vertical integration. Hopefully everyone could agree that there can be downsides to the consumer, but it's a common practice irrespective of the scale of a business.
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Jan 1, 2019 13:09
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I don't get why anyone would give a poo poo about amazon specifically. $BigCompany engages in $BadBusinessPractice to make is an extremely common dull boring thing that's hard to be specifically get interested in beyond a general statement of "anti-trust legislation good". This isn't even techbro specific beyond the incredibly trivial point of "but amazon does it with computers, on the internet" so pointing out that amazon bad is just an unnecessarily specific instance of pointing out that companies gonna company. If we make specifically amazon go away that's not going to solve anything, another similar company is going to fill the void in short order and be just as bad, lasting solutions can only come via broader changes in regulation. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 13:24
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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What exactly are people searching for where they see the entire first page of search results being Amazon house brands (I believe at least one poster made this assertion)? I see Amazon brands all the time, but I've never seen them take up the whole drat page.
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Jan 1, 2019 13:35
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QuarkJets posted:
Prove it. Every Amazon Basics product is by definition a generic household good. Like towels or motor oil. Amazon is not making knock off or white label versions of some solo inventors special baby product and the using it's size and merchandizing practices to shunt all business away from that seller. So go ahead prove it, show me a single widget Amazon saw was selling well, made a copy of and then displaced the original seller driving them to ruin. You are a liar.
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Jan 1, 2019 13:59
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Cicero posted:What exactly are people searching for where they see the entire first page of search results being Amazon house brands (I believe at least one poster made this assertion)? I see Amazon brands all the time, but I've never seen them take up the whole drat page. Me neither. I’m also not getting how when Amazon white labels, it is a great evil, but when other companies do it, it is totally different and ok.
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Jan 1, 2019 14:10
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Found the thing:QuarkJets posted:Did your mother call you up out of the basement to make you take out the trash or something, and then you simply forgot to read the rest of my post before writing this? The issue isn't that they have white label products alongside brand-name products, the issue is that most of the time you're shown a page full of Amazon products before you even see any alternatives. There is a world of difference between having multiple shelf levels that all contain different products vs a full page of Amazon products appearing before you see anything else. The accurate analogy would be a store placing their brand in front of others on the same shelf, which just doesn't happen Hitting the "Top Rated from Our Brands" row of all Amazon stuff is possible in some cases to be sure, but there's a huge difference between that and his earlier assertion that you have to go the second page most of the time to see anything non-Amazon. And there are other special categories that get placement at or near the top too: sponsored content (aka "ads that look like regular entries"), which I don't think are ever Amazon entries (at least I can't recall seeing any), as well as "Expert Recommendations" rows.
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Jan 1, 2019 15:03
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What I want to know is how exactly do you plan on breaking up Amazon where it doesn't just recombine in a year or two. It's not like Bell where you have physical infrastructure around the country that can be divided up thus allow competing utilities to move in. Warehouses are useless unless managed from a central location. Their store physically doesn't exist. Amazon doesn't provide utilities or other essential services. Breaking up their website is just moving deckchairs on the Titanic.
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Jan 1, 2019 15:15
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QuarkJets posted:And Microsoft is just another software developer, nbd. You swore over and over you understood that amazon isn't a monopoly and swore no one would ever say that but you keep indicating that you think it is. Why is that?
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Jan 1, 2019 15:38
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QuarkJets posted:The Kirtland brand isn't a separate production line for popular products, it's literally just a different label slapped onto existing products. For instance Costco isn't producing their own tequila, Patron makes the tequila and puts it into bottles with a Kirtland label. The idea here isn't to steal sales, the brand is meant to be associated with good value, so a deal is worked out with producers of popular products in order to assure this. I'd be totally fine with Amazon doing that Is what Amazon doing really that different? Foxconn or whatever lovely OEM is making every single product, so does it really matter if it is Amazon or Logitech or shady electronics selling an item that’s all made from the same OEM company?
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Jan 1, 2019 15:52
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Stretch Marx posted:What I want to know is how exactly do you plan on breaking up Amazon where it doesn't just recombine in a year or two. It's not like Bell where you have physical infrastructure around the country that can be divided up thus allow competing utilities to move in. Warehouses are useless unless managed from a central location. Their store physically doesn't exist. Amazon doesn't provide utilities or other essential services. Breaking up their website is just moving deckchairs on the Titanic. Well, you can, in fact, break up their warehouse and delivery infrastructure. Independent of antitrust, you can also do a lot with FTC/consumer protections on online marketplace information systems - a bit like how Steam has to deal with EU regulations.
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Jan 1, 2019 16:37
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Discendo Vox posted:Independent of antitrust, you can also do a lot with FTC/consumer protections on online marketplace information systems - a bit like how Steam has to deal with EU regulations. For example, I think mandating that they can't artificially raise their own products' ranking in search results (similar to what I think Google has been hit for in the past by the EU) would be a good move.
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Jan 1, 2019 17:19
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KingFisher posted:Prove it. Here is an example or perhaps this product isn't significant enough? Or maybe the company is too big/too small/just right to count? Or maybe a laptop stand isn't considered an invention? I'm curious what your rationalization will be.
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Jan 1, 2019 19:34
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Cicero posted:mostly because size also has pro-consumer advantages, too. It (size) does, but it also creates a bunch of externalities, squashes competition by economies of scale and concentrates power.
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Jan 1, 2019 19:38
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Raldikuk posted:Here is an example or perhaps this product isn't significant enough? Or maybe the company is too big/too small/just right to count? Or maybe a laptop stand isn't considered an invention? I'm curious what your rationalization will be. Who considers a laptop stand to not be a commodity? Just like the many generic laptop fan bases. This seems to be original stand:  I am not expert, but I remember seeing many similar design for such stands for the Apple laptops over the years, they are all copying off of Apple's own designs in first place.
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Jan 1, 2019 20:08
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If I can derail Amazon chat with Amazon chat, I don't like having to search thru dozens of no-name Chinese knockoffs in order to find products that people have actually used and reviewed.
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Jan 1, 2019 20:47
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nepetaMisekiryoiki posted:Who considers a laptop stand to not be a commodity? Just like the many generic laptop fan bases. I would say by definition it isn't a commodity... but I assume you mean more towards "basic home good like towels" and uhhh, I mean a laptop stand clearly isn't that? But I'm happy to see you went with the "not significant enough" angle. The poster I replied to asked for a single example of a "widget" amazon used its analytics to steal. That stand is an example of precisely that.
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Jan 1, 2019 20:53
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Raldikuk posted:I would say by definition it isn't a commodity... but I assume you mean more towards "basic home good like towels" and uhhh, I mean a laptop stand clearly isn't that? But I'm happy to see you went with the "not significant enough" angle. How is it not like that? They are interchangeable and produced by wide variety of manufacturer. And if it was worth protection, company would have been able to secure some manner of patents for it to prevent Amazon copy. Clearly design was too similar to others already, that they could not achieve design patent in United States and European Union to prevent sales.
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Jan 1, 2019 20:58
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nepetaMisekiryoiki posted:How is it not like that? They are interchangeable and produced by wide variety of manufacturer. And if it was worth protection, company would have been able to secure some manner of patents for it to prevent Amazon copy. Clearly design was too similar to others already, that they could not achieve design patent in United States and European Union to prevent sales. How is a laptop stand not like paper towels? Really? The argument that there are many manufacturers with similar goods would apply to automobiles too...are those basic home goods? They have a patent actually but amazon was able to circumvent it. Which amazon was able to determine was worth their time and money to do given that they had the data around the products sales and such.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:08
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Raldikuk posted:How is a laptop stand not like paper towels? Really? The argument that there are many manufacturers with similar goods would apply to automobiles too...are those basic home goods? You still do not answer for the difference. Also indeed do I not pay attention to masses of cars. No one particular cares that most modern car look very similar and do very similar thing. If I take journey and need to rent car at destination, I do not care for brand and make, just general category. It would seem the "circumvention" was simply to make slightly different Apple-like slab of aluminum. A very basic design for stands.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:14
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Again the trend is the shortening of product life cycles. This is thing happening independent of amazon. Businesses are making less money from products and for a shorter amount of time. That products we used to not think of as being able to be commodified are is part of this.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:17
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Raldikuk posted:Here is an example or perhaps this product isn't significant enough? Or maybe the company is too big/too small/just right to count? Or maybe a laptop stand isn't considered an invention? I'm curious what your rationalization will be. they had a design patent and didnt get a utility patent so yes, it wasnt an invention, just a common application that had protection for the specific ornamental design
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Jan 1, 2019 21:42
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nepetaMisekiryoiki posted:You still do not answer for the difference. Also indeed do I not pay attention to masses of cars. No one particular cares that most modern car look very similar and do very similar thing. If I take journey and need to rent car at destination, I do not care for brand and make, just general category. Great so in your mind there is also no difference between paper towels and automobiles. Geeeee I wonder why I didn't take the time to respond in depth about the differences  Anyway tho we got you pegged down with "not significant enough" which is great, but you're also not the one claiming people are liars for observing this stuff happening so kinda moot.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:44
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:You swore over and over you understood that amazon isn't a monopoly and swore no one would ever say that but you keep indicating that you think it is. Why is that? They're not. Microsoft wasn't (and isn't) a monopoly, either. Why do you keep saying that I'm doing something that I've never done?
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Jan 1, 2019 21:44
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Cicero posted:Found the thing: I posted a screenshot showing that my search results for a towel resulted in the entire screen showing AmazonBasics products, I don't know why that's insufficient proof for you but it happened. e: There may be a terminology issue here, in my original post I pointed out that you can scroll down to see the other listings. I was referring to a "page" as the viewable window pre-scrolling, not a full set of N results or whatever QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 21:47
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exploded mummy posted:they had a design patent and didnt get a utility patent Ahhh yes only things patented under 35 U.S.C. 101 can be claimed to be "inventions" got it. I guess that absolves amazon then and we can ignore the anti competitive practices, phew.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:49
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QuarkJets posted:I posted a screenshot showing that my search results for a towel resulted in the entire screen showing AmazonBasics products, I don't know why that's insufficient proof for you but it happened. Unless your screen is 909 pixels tall you very clearly edited that screen shot to cut off the rest of the screen.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:54
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Raldikuk posted:Great so in your mind there is also no difference between paper towels and automobiles. Geeeee I wonder why I didn't take the time to respond in depth about the differences In terms of their commodity status there is none. Is that not what we are discussing? Vast amounts of manufacturer and designs, mostly interchangeable in the end. Raldikuk posted:Ahhh yes only things patented under 35 U.S.C. 101 can be claimed to be "inventions" got it. I guess that absolves amazon then and we can ignore the anti competitive practices, phew. What is the anti competition of making yet another laptop stand? It sounds like it is competition to me. Who is permitted to make laptop stand?
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Jan 1, 2019 21:59
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