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by samolang 3082 days ago
> Middlemen, example Amazon, have never been stronger.

The strength of a middleman can be directly measured by how much they mark up prices. Does amazon really mark up prices more than the brick and mortar retailers it replaced?

2 comments

You're forgetting Amazon is a "marketplace" and not just a "retail store."

Anyway, I don't think "markup" is very much related to how strong they are. I define "strong" as "how critical for business that service is."

I'm just using Amazon as an example, one that everyone can understand has a massive amount of power.

I think of distributors, not retail stores, to be pretty much the strongest middlemen there is. If you're making a widget are you going to hire someone full time to market your product to individual stores and then hire and maintain a fleet to deliver them? Fuck no you aren't, you're going to call a distributor.

Hmm or how much they can out price competitors, which has largely been amazon approach, further more they keep expanding yo new markets!