If they did this to Apple and Google, what prevents them from doing it to smaller companies that make similar products? How is this not anticompetitive?
This isn't anti-competitive because you're not required to sell your competitors products. I can't fathom requiring the Apple store to carry Amazon Fire Tablets and Android phones.
Why can't you fanthom that? If Apple would control Amazon level of commerce in field of electronics, not carrying them would mean that there's no more free market and no competition in the field. Any new (or existing) player couldn't enter the market no matter how good their product is.
The result is pretty much stores as they were here in the 1980s socialism - filled with a single crappy product with no other choice. Let's not have that.
"not carrying them would mean that there's no more free market and no competition in the field. Any new (or existing) player couldn't enter the market no matter how good their product is."
Um, go to the Apple website and order it or Walmart.com/Jet.com? If Amazon started purchasing or shutting down all other retailers, then it would be a monopoly. Simply being more successful than them doesn't make it so.
"Lots of people use Amazon" doesn't imply the level of control you're suggesting. Just off the top of my head there are:
- Fry's
- Newegg.
- BestBuy
- Andorama
- Wallmart/Jet
- Microcenter
- Directron
- B&H
- Costco
- Ebay
- Overstock
And if those don't suit you just about every company is happy to sell to you direct. Saying that Amazon has some kind of monopoly control on selling things is silly.