[ajross]

> the brands have a closer connection to their customers

That's... not a thing though. No such thing as "brand rights" [1] beyond stuff like trademark, which clearly doesn't apply here. In particular there's no inherent recognition of a manufacturers ability to control what happens to downstream goods. Stuff is stuff, if you sell stuff the people you sell it to can sell it too.

[1] Nor do we really want there to be? I mean, I get that this seems bad because ZOMG AMZN, but in general do we actually want to be handing more market control to manufacturers vs. middlemen and consumers?

[SpicyLemonZest]

As the source article covers, some manufacturers routinely ensure this kind of closer connection through contractual promises from authorized retailers. (Obviously any individual person who buys a product can still resell it, but for things like clothes consumers widely understand this to be a separate "second-hand market".) Amazon invests a lot of effort themselves in the consumer experience, they understand very well that stuff isn't just stuff and it matters how you sell it.

[EagnaIonat]

> No such thing as "brand rights" [1] beyond stuff like trademark, which clearly doesn't apply here.

I don't disagree with you on a personal opinion side, but the more expensive brands have a snobbery about who they sell to. To me it seems less about quality and more about "I'm rich" app style of fashion.

[danaris]

It's not bad because ZOMG AMZN, it's bad because *Amazon is a monopoly*, and thus anything they do to take more control should be treated with extreme suspicion.

[ajross]

Again, no such thing. There's no antitrust regulatory framework that recognizes the ability of "small" brands to constrain their downstream markets in ways "big" ones can't.

People are getting bent out of shape here, again, based on the specific player. But seriously what do you really think the solution is supposed to look like? I just don't see a fix here that won't make things worse, and I absolutely don't see one available under current law.

[danaris]

Did I say this was a legal argument? I don't see that anywhere.

And there's absolutely zero chance the current administration is going to take any positive antitrust steps unless the target just happens to be one that seriously pisses off Trump.

"Monopolies shouldn't be allowed to control everything" is a practical, economic, and moral argument before it is a legal one. If there is no legal framework to protect small brands from a company like Amazon coming in and doing these things, then perhaps there should be. (It's possible, though unlikely, that there's no practical way to do so without sufficient negative side effects that it harms more than it helps: I haven't sat down and tried to work out the second- and third-order effects.)

In case it's not abundantly clear, one very likely endgame of this for Amazon is picking the products within this subset that do the best, ripping them off itself (either fully legally, for simple manufactured goods, or questionably or outright illegally for things one buys because of the design—like shirts with particular art on them), and selling those under the cost the original creators need to be profitable. Those creators then go out of business. Then Amazon can, if they wish, raise the prices to whatever the market will bear.

The creators lose. The consumers lose. Even the wholesalers and manufacturers likely lose, if they're still involved, because Amazon is going to be paying them less for the same product due to economies of scale.

The only one that wins is Amazon. By design.

[ajross]

> Did I say this was a legal argument? I don't see that anywhere.

Ahem, I said that, in the comment to which you responded. Forgive me for making assumptions about the context of discussion.

But that said, I still don't see where you're going with this. No fix for what you want exists that wouldn't also outlaw stuff like fashion consultants, custom PC builders and thrift shops.

[danaris]

Of course it wouldn't, if those businesses weren't also monopolies.

It really is frustrating sometimes dealing with people on HN who assume that there can only ever be one set of rules for how businesses can deal with each other: that no matter how dominant a given company gets, you can never make them abide by a preset more-restrictive ruleset, or design specific rules for them that prevent them from abusing that dominance to hurt other people or businesses.

Antitrust law is specifically designed to do exactly that. It has been essentially abandoned over the past 3-4 decades in the US, in favor of Gordon Gekko's motto of "greed is good", with the Chicago School's "principles" essentially being "if it's more efficient™ for the economy, that's better; monopolies are more efficient™, so we should just let them do whatever they want," but what I describe is (more or less) what it is supposed to do.