[eesmith]

In the sense described in the lawsuit. See https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/2022-... for details, starting with:

> The policy and spirit of the California antitrust laws are to promote the free play of competitive market forces and the lower prices to consumers that result. Amazon, the dominant online retail store in the United States, has violated the policy, spirit, and letter of those laws by imposing agreements at the retail and wholesale level that have prevented effective price competition across a wide swath of online marketplaces and stores.

The linked-to article concerns a possible preliminary injunction related to that antitrust case.

[twoodfin]

You don’t need to be a monopoly for anti-trust law to come into play. Airlines can’t collude on pricing, for example, even though no single airline is a monopoly.

[eesmith]

Yes. And? There's no claim that Amazon is part of a price-fixing cartel or other collusion.

A pure monopoly is one where there is a single seller or provider. The US grants limited-time monopoly power to a new patent holder, and USPS has a monopoly on traditional letter delivery within the United States, for examples. A pure monopoly is therefore not necessarily illegal.

In addition to that definition, quoting https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/monopoly :

"In a legal context, the term monopoly is also used to describe a variety of market conditions that are not monopolies in the truest sense. For instance, the term monopoly may be referring to instances where: ... There are many buyers or sellers, but one actor has enough market share to dictate prices (near monopolies)"

That use certainly seems appropriate in the context of Amazon's ability to dictate prices, as described in California's complaint, yes?

[twoodfin]

California’s complaint alleges that Amazon is a monopoly?

That word is not used in the injunction request or the original complaint, except in the title of an article cited by the latter.

[eesmith]

malfist literally wrote "near monopoly power", which is not the same thing as claiming that "Amazon is a monopoly".

You asked malfist 'In what sense does Amazon have “near monopoly power”?'

I answered that question. The state of California claims Amazon has enough market share to dictate prices, making it a near monopoly, and it abuses those near monopoly powers in violation of California anti-trust laws. California doesn't need to demonstrate that Amazon is a pure monopoly because that is irrelevant, and not true.

I farther pointed out that even using the term "monopoly" without the "near" qualifier can mean "There are many buyers or sellers, but one actor has enough market share to dictate prices (near monopolies)", with citation.

Which means your statement "Amazon is a monopoly" is a correct summary of the issue, even if those injunction request and complaint don't use those terms.

It seems you think the term "monopoly" can only ever be applied to pure monopolies. You seem to be confusing the economic and legal definitions. Quoting the introduction paragraph from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly

> In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge overly high prices, which is associated with unfair price raises.

This thread concerns a lawsuit, so the legal definition is the most relevant.

[twoodfin]

Is Walmart a “near monopoly”? How about Costco? They both have significant pricing power over their suppliers. How would you differential them from Amazon, if at all?

If we’re using your definition and not anything directly alleged in the CA complaint…

[eesmith]

What is your goal here?

Do you understand what malfist wrote by "near monopoly power", and agree that it's a correct description of California's anti-trust lawsuit?

If not, what do you not understand?

As to your new set of questions, do you mean my personal beliefs, or do you mean the process by which the courts determine if an organization is abusing monopoly power, or to you mean an actual court decision? I'll answer all three.

Personally, yes, these companies abuse their near monopoly power. The failure to enforce the Robinson–Patman Act, the de-fanging of the FTC and consumer protection agencies, and the post-Borkian re-casting of antitrust law to "consumer welfare", has, IMHO, devastated the American free market resulting in a centralized command economy dominated by a handful of megacorporations.

Nor am I alone in this belief. It is not hard to find articles like "Walmart’s Monopolization of Local Grocery Markets" at https://ilsr.org/article/independent-business/walmarts-monop... which, among other things, points out how the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department has, since the 1960s, greatly raised the threshold for what "highly concentrated" market capture means, and WalMart is extreme even by that definition.

The legal process is to identify the relevant market. This can neither be too narrow - the market for "RC Cola" is not "those who buy RC Cola" but also includes other colas - nor too large -- RC Cola is not really interchangeable with milk, even though both are liquids which people drink.

If 99% of the people drink RC Cola, that could be because they love the taste, and are willing to pay more for it. (This is the premise of the Borkian view that monopolies are a direct and visible expression of consumer choice.) The anti-trust case must therefore also show there was abuse of its market position. That is what California's complaint does by describing many cases of third-party sellers unwilling to offer lower prices elsewhere, for fear of retaliation by Amazon. (The "consumer welfare" interpretation wrongly, IMO, rejects the idea that vendor concerns like this are part of antitrust law.)

There's probably more, but I'm a programmer, not a lawyer. I only know about these details because of the Microsoft antitrust lawsuit and commentary about the influence of Lina Khan on the FTC.

As for legal decisions, like I said, the last 40 years or so have chiseled away at antitrust law. So we have the FTC under Lina Kahn bringing up an anti-trust case, https://www.forbes.com/sites/errolschweizer/2025/12/18/how-w... :

"A newly unredacted FTC complaint shows that PepsiCo and Walmart worked together to rig grocery pricing, drive up pricing at competitors and protect Walmart’s dominance. Internal PepsiCo documents reveal a coordinated strategy to give Walmart better wholesale prices, penalize independent and regional grocers that tried to lower their prices and preserve Walmart’s “price gap” by pushing rivals’ shelf prices up."

but then having it dropped voluntarily by the Trump/Ferguson FTC.

Which is why these sorts of things are now taken up on state courts, like California for Amazon, or New York (see Gelbspan v. Pepsico and Walmart at https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/mopabybynva/...). That does use the word "monopoly" and "monopolist", and describes the SSNIP test as the Hypothetical Monopoly Test used to determine if the relevant market is well-defined.

So if you are looking for actual court cases which have determined this, you either haven't been paying attention to the topic (completely understandable!), or you are a willing supporter of the Chicago School and the billionaire class which gain power by promoting it.