[highwaylights]

Yes, but the argument is that drop-shippers aren’t really producing any value.

It’s not like they’re putting banners over their product pics saying “hey, you know you can buy this exact same product for like half the price on alibaba if you’re willing to wait a couple more weeks for it right?”.

I don’t like Amazon consolidating this much power either but if they can push you out of your business that easily you weren’t the critical component of it.

[BizarroLand]

Show me a business that Amazon couldn't destroy just for kicks.

Also, it's not like you have any choices. If you manufacture your products yourself, you have to fund a massive venture to handle the workload. If you outsource the products, then the companies you pay to manufacture your stuff can easily make knockoffs and then let drop shippers undercut you with inferior versions of your own products.

Look at a lot of the stuff for sale on Temu for instance. There are hundreds if not thousands of products that were invented, tested, and designed by Western companies that you can now buy a reasonable facsimile of on Temu for a quarter of the price.

This includes art work, enamel pins, battery packs, woodworking tools.

You're on a hard path either way, but if you make it to the point where you have a standout product knowing that at the final step Amazon can easily step in and price you out of existence, even if they had to take a loss on it just to destroy you, they could and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

That should be broken up. Monopolies are bad. Monopsonies are bad. They are bad for the country, bad for the people, and bad for the flow of money.

I hope we see record fines against them and that everyone affected by this gets to be part of an earth shattering nuclear verdict.

[danielmarkbruce]

Apple Iphone, airpods, ipad, macbook. Google search. Coke. Boeing. Caterpillar. Goldman Sachs. AirBnB. Exxon. AutoDesk. BlackRock. CME. Costco. JP Morgan Chase. Mastercard, Visa, Nike, TSMC and a thousand others.

They started out as a retailer, and opened up a bunch of their infrastructure to competitors. The idea that they'd make it easy for competitors using their infrastructure to beat them makes zero sense.

[thghtihadanacct]

Those are good ones but i was thinking of local stuff like grocery (which they tried and are currently failing) and gas (not that i use it). Also, real services like plumbing, electric, vehicle maint. ... Angies list got that corner ;)

[danielmarkbruce]

The list is extremely long as you say. Amazon isn't good at much except cheap third party stuff made by contract manufacturers in china, books, and AWS.

[BizarroLand]

Most people responded by providing a logical response to my argument while discarding the semantics.

Semantically, what company that (Relies on Amazon to operate) couldn't they destroy on a whim?

[danielmarkbruce]

That's pretty circular. To the extent any company, A, relies on company B to operate, A can be destroyed by B, according the definition of "rely".

So the logical response wasn't to assume you were being circular. The logical response was to assume you were inferring Amazon is big enough and capable enough to squash any business.

[BizarroLand]

And yet it is obvious in retrospect that I didn't mean entirely independent multi-billion dollar empires, but that is the response everyone went with.

[danielmarkbruce]

It clearly wasn't obvious to most given the responses.

[eru]

How did Goldman Sachs '[start] out as a retailer, and opened up a bunch of their infrastructure to competitors'? Or am I misunderstanding you?

[whoknew1122]

The 'they' here is Amazon. This is how it should be read: "Amazon started out as a retailer, and opened up a bunch of their infrastructure to competitors. The idea that they'd make it easy for competitors using their infrastructure to beat them makes zero sense.

[danielmarkbruce]

Bad use of pronouns on my part. As another comment pointed out, I should have written "Amazon".

[eru]

OK, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks.

[8note]

I don't think Amazon could destroy apple or Walmart just for kicks.

Aramco? Air Canada? Samsung? Memory Express? Digikey? McMaster Carr? McDonald's? The Big R? Cantillion? Texas Instruments?

"Show me a business" is quite vague

[berniedurfee]

Why not McMaster Carr or even Digikey?

I’m sure Amazon has put a sizable dent in their sales without even really trying.

Amazon now has special search tools for buying fasteners that make it easier to find exactly what you need.

Prices are cheap, risk is high, but prices are cheap.

[lostapathy]

> Amazon now has special search tools for buying fasteners that make it easier to find exactly what you need

Easier but they are no McMaster, by a long shot.

[callalex]

I have a lot of friends in the manufacturing business that range from self-employed to military-backed conglomerates. None of them use this tool. Are they all Luddite idiots, or is this Amazon search tool, backed by their swiss-cheese supply chain, just not that useful?

[mbreese]

I used the Amazon tool recently to get a very particular type of screw. It was really easy to find exactly what I wanted.

Then I still got the wrong part delivered. It doesn’t matter how great the selection tool is, the rule is always: garbage in, garbage out.

[tyingq]

I think it's the same as the overall enshitification of all products and product quality. Consumers now value cheap fast shipping and low prices over everything else. Amazon delivers that, with the tradeoffs in product quality, support, etc. Other things are low quality too, like the product listings themselves. Often, for example, the listed dimensions or other specs (thread type, grade strength, etc) are missing or just wrong. That's much less true for sites like McMaster. But nobody values that anymore.

[exar0815]

Every cent Digikey looses they loose by being Digikey. Of all large suppliers, they are by country miles the worst and we try everything to avoid them. Farnell, Mouser, LCSC beat them handily. And their pages are already bad.

[tonyarkles]

Wow! I have had nothing but amazing experiences with DK over the last 20 years, especially compared to everyone else. Maybe it has to do with being in Canada, though. The DK warehouse is just across the border and when you order DDP I think they bring your stuff over by truck and then distribute it. Have not once ever had a surprise customs charge from them, while other suppliers have all screwed me in one way or another (lol always great when one order gets split into three boxes and UPS charges brokerage fees separately on each one)

[fshbbdssbbgdd]

It’s not connecting for me how breaking up monopolies is going to stop Chinese clones of Western products from winning price wars. It might change how the margin gets carved up between the people who make the clones and various middlemen but how would it stop the overall trend of cloned products?

[adaptbrian]

It's all about discoverability, you wouldn't find them, tree falling in the woods, no one is around. Does it make a sound?

[fshbbdssbbgdd]

I would expect if Amazon disappeared, since people can’t go there to search for products to buy anymore, they’d use Google instead, or some other product search aggregator sites. They’d presumably still list the cheap sellers first (or whoever pays for an ad slot). That would be a huge change in the e-commerce industry, FTC can argue it benefits consumers because the prices of everything will be cheaper without Amazon’s fees, but I’m not seeing how to reduces the prevalence of cloned products.

[eru]

We should encourage more price wars. They are good for customers.

[chii]

Except once the price war is over, the consolidation of market share to one or a few players means that there is a good chance of monopoly pricing.

Unless, if the price wars are never over.

[eru]

> Except once the price war is over, the consolidation of market share to one or a few players means that there is a good chance of monopoly pricing.

Almost never happens like that.

[j16sdiz]

It always happen like that. That's why there are anti-dump rules on international trades.

[zdragnar]

According to Amazon's rebuttal to the charges, 80% of all retail is still brick-and-mortar. Amazon has tried it a few times, but remains essentially an online only service.

If your business depends on potential competitors for it's existence, then being eventually forced out seems like a pretty natural conclusion.

[gmd63]

We're reaching the point in the economy where racing to the lowest cost, such as Temu, comes with great damage to the world. It's spyware that collects data on the american consumer across applications, and the products are made with illegal forced labor.

If people keep choosing to reward dishonest cheaters and criminals just to get something for lower cost, we are not in a good place. And either cheating or disguising the true nature of your company is becoming the easiest way to stand out in a commoditized world.

More important than how you vote is how you buy.

[pyrale]

> if they can push you out of your business that easily you weren’t the critical component of it.

Alternative suggestion: modern monopolistic corporations are disproportionately powerful. If they can topple a country to sell bananas cheaper, they sure as hell can kill a small business, no matter how relevant that business is.

[desert_rue]

These aren’t drop shippers. They are importing the product and paying to store that product before a sale is made. The shop is taking on a risk that the inventory won’t sell, and the customer gets the product far faster.