[maxerickson]

Amazon was never a bookseller.

How a company that was focused on their legacy customer relationship system and logistics operations lost out to a company that was focused on building the future of customer relationships and logistics is a lot less difficult to understand.

[recursive]

> Amazon was never a bookseller.

I remember it differently. Also, actual history is different too.

> Bezos finally decided that his new business would sell books online, because of the large worldwide demand for literature, the low unit price for books, and the huge number of titles available in print.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Amazon#Online_books...

[maxerickson]

Yeah, they sold books, I didn't say they didn't. The couple paragraphs above the one you link talk about Bezos wanting to participate in the internet business boom and then the ones you link talk about commerce.

Selling books was never the ambition, it was only the path.

[pstuart]

That was their MVP of retail. IIRC, they never hid their ambitions to expand their market.

[8note]

I'm not sure what your point is? They still sold books and only books at the time

[pstuart]

Yes they only sold books at that point because it was the easiest thing for them to sell (thus the MVP). IIRC they did not hide their ambition to go beyond that.

[maxerickson]

The point is that doesn't make them a bookseller!

[recursive]

That's literally the definition. It kind of does.

[CamperBob2]

Time to stop digging.

[maxerickson]

Not my internet points!