[jimmaswell]

> They essentially are the government as they have a larger impact on your daily life than the actual government!

Amazon and Wal Mart could disappear overnight and I would just shop elsewhere. Amazon isn't in charge of my water quality or road maintenance.

[supercanuck]

Are you sure about that? All the people in your town would also have to shop at those alternatives as well.

Do you think that there is enough inventory and stock to go around? Would those alternatives replenish their inventory in a timely fashion? Would you seek alternatives to your normal shopping?

I think people vastly overestimate the capabilities of their local options.

[eanzenberg]

People also vastly underestimate how hard it is to produce commodities. Like, if Amazon disappeared overnight then we'd just all switch to something else and no issues would arise. What nuttiness!

[adwn]

> People also vastly underestimate how hard it is to produce commodities.

Neither Amazon nor Walmart produce those commodities, they distribute them. Sure, there would be some initial issues, but both the remaining distributors as well as the producers would have strong incentives to quickly resolve those issues.

[jimmaswell]

Obviously there would be temporary shortages in some areas heavily dependent on Wal Mart, but elsewhere where Wal Mart is one of 20 similar stores, the surrounding businesses would be able to handle increased business. That one Wal Mart suddenly closed to prevent union forming and the town survived. Brick and mortar in general would have growing pains but also adapt.

[derision]

So people didn't buy things before Amazon?

[danaris]

Of course they did—the same way they bought things at the local mom & pop stores before Walmart came in, undercut them, and drove them all out of business.

Companies like Amazon and Walmart massively distort the market, and do so quite deliberately. It's hopelessly naïve to think that if they vanished tomorrow, everyone would be able to just shrug and switch their purchasing to a drop-in replacement.

That's only possible in, as someone else described it, the "spherical cow in a vacuum" type of hypothetical free market. We live in the real world, where an arbitrary number of fully equivalent businesses can't actually continue to compete perfectly for everyone's money.

[derision]

Depends where you live. In Cleveland, there's still plenty of small shops I go to all the time. I also order from Amazon and shop at Walmart.

[enraged_camel]

Keep in mind that over the past couple of decades, Walmart has replaced small mom-and-shops in most towns and small cities.

An enormous amount of people in America would be utterly screwed if it went away.

[Retric]

For a few weeks possibly, but most of their items can be ordered online and their failure would open many doors for new stores.

Also, the overwhelming majority of people are driving to Walmart so even if significantly less convenient they can also drive somewhere else.

[LeoTinnitus]

It would open many doors over the course of a few decades of market correction. Just cause walmart closes shop doesn't mean local poor people suddenly have the capital to start a business and compete. It's why ghost towns are still a thing. When the oil derrick town dries up, the driller who now lost his job isn't gonna just start drilling for oil now.

[jimbob45]

Sounds like a decent reason to nationalize Walmart (other than that their margins are very thin and it’s unlikely anyone could do better)

[LeoTinnitus]

Why nationalize them? What would be the point? The purpose for nationalization is to give preferential treatment to the state. Walmart already does that and (in my personal opinion) does for the people as well.

Although the only thing I wish they cut back on was their employee culture cult stuff. It reminds me of McDonalds where you have to say thank you to a supervisor after everything, even if they're yelling at you to be a dick. It's like the f'ing military. That kinda brainwashing garbage needs to go.