[throwanem]

> Amazon would split off its profitable parts (AWS/services), which would make the barely profitable parts of Amazon worse for everyone.

Okay but how is that actually bad?

The barely profitable parts of Amazon, ie the retail operation, are already pretty comprehensively lousy. Making it unprofitable to more or less monopolize retail, the way Amazon does now, seems like it would open competition back up among ecommerce business on a smaller scale. As I've discovered since quitting Amazon myself, with platforms like Stripe and Shopify, human-scale ecommerce no longer needs to be - or is! - the patchwork headache we all remember unfondly from 2005. The experience at point of sale is consistent, reliable, quick, and pleasant. The money goes to support small businesses, rather than being shoveled directly into the flaming mouth of Mammon. And while it does take a little longer for shipments to arrive, that's actually also a net good because almost nothing actually needs the kind of unsustainable next-day Prime treatment that Amazon's retail operation insists on by default. Without Amazon's perverse incentives toward counterfeit garbage, the rate at which I've had what I get match what I order has so far been 100%. And without Amazon Logistics involved, I can be fairly confident besides that whoever did the work of delivering that order probably was not denied the basic human dignity of access to toilet facilities because of rampant Taylorism or for any other reason.

You've really made a remarkably strong case for the thing you're arguing against! I doubt that's what you wanted, but I appreciate it all the same.

[greggyb]

Fun fact: Amazon is <10% of retail in the US, and lower globally.

I don't really have much to disagree with you about, but maybe you want to check the "monopoly" claim.

[jimnotgym]

But their retail presence is often at the expense of SMEs

Look how the small ecommerce companies have all become FBA companies

[castlecrasher2]

>Look how the small ecommerce companies have all become FBA companies

While I suspect you're right in that many have, I don't believe it's anywhere near a majority.

[dredmorbius]

FBA: fulfillment by Amazon.

https://sell.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon.html

Or in the alternative, Fellow of the British Academy.

https://www.acronymfinder.com/FBA.html

[throwanem]

I used "monopolize" loosely, sure. Maybe they don't entirely, but they clearly want to.

(And don't they? How much of b2c ecommerce are they? - how has the pandemic affected their share? You seem to have readier access to that data than I do!)

[greggyb]

I've just come across the statistic before. Here's a quick search hit, saying e-commerce as of a year and a bit ago that indicates 35% of e-commerce.

https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/12/amazons-mark...

Maybe they do want to monopolize, but I'm pretty sure that they couldn't, what with Walmart, Target, eBay, Ali Express, and other major global players in the space. Amazon's want is largely irrelevant to a conversation like this.

[throwanem]

On the other hand, it's harder to make a sentence flow around "oligopolistic".

I feel like seeing that Amazon owned a third of US ecommerce, before the pandemic stomped brick-and-mortar flat, goes more to my point than to yours.

[greggyb]

Your point has changed at least twice in this thread.

My point was simply that "monopoly" is not an accurate term here.

You can't say "oligopoly may be more accurate, so I've been correct."

[throwanem]

Sure I can! You're quibbling over my choice of a single, admittedly inexact but contextually plain, word, rather than engage at all with the actual point I made. I'm just trying to meet you where you are.