
The False Tale of Amazon's Industry-Conquering Juggernaut - yarapavan
https://www.wired.com/story/the-false-tale-of-amazons-industry-conquering-juggernaut/
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atonse
My understanding of diapers.com is different. What I read was that Amazon got
in a price war with them and sold diapers at a loss until diapers.com was
forced to sell because they could no longer compete. And once amazon bought
them, they just shuttered them.

So that’s a PERFECT example of how they could throw money at the problem and
kill the competition.

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rangersanger
I'm sure theres a direct source out there, as the former CEO of diapers does
not hesitate to discuss his aim to crush amazon.

[https://collaborativegain.com/the-diaper-war-amazon-whole-
fo...](https://collaborativegain.com/the-diaper-war-amazon-whole-foods/)
[https://www.recode.net/2017/3/29/15112314/amazon-shutting-
do...](https://www.recode.net/2017/3/29/15112314/amazon-shutting-down-diapers-
com-quidsi-soap-com)

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sulam
This piece has a monopoly on the use of the word monopsony.

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sehugg
_Amazon’s book monopsony is valuable, but it also comes at significant
reputational cost_

Does it really? Except maybe from defunct book publishers and ebook publishers
that get on the wrong side of KDP's inscrutable approval process. Even DOJ
sided with them in 2012.

~~~
cafard
My wife worked for a publisher that had terms dictated to it by Amazon. Since
then, we have not bought through Amazon. I got the hairy eyeball for ordering
a $10-book through Alibris, and had to explain that I was not aware that
Amazon had purchased it.

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petra
Weird article, kinda like a pick-n-choose game.

Amazon does control 50% of e-commerce. And yes it uses merchants to get there,
while charging them a nice fee.

And does it really ,fairly compete with merchants, while having full
control(owning the buy box and the "sold by Amazon" brand) , full visibility
into their business, and much better capabilities ? Or instead of competition
, they just let merchants carry the risks of the import business ?

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empath75
> In fact, I can’t think of a single industry, other than bookselling, that
> Amazon has entered with significant negative repercussions for the
> incumbents in that industry.

uh.. aws?

~~~
Lazare
That was covered later in the article:

> Amazon is great at inventing new categories, from online bookselling to
> cloud-computing services to voice-commanded personal assistants.

The author is categorising AWS as a new category more-or-less created by AWS,
rather than an existing category they entered and disrupted.

I'm not sure I 100% agree, but it's still a reasonable position to hold. VPS
providers existed before AWS, but AWS is much more than just another VPS
provider.

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achow
Also, Amazon did not succeed in China; is second in India - is throwing $$ for
last many years to be number one but victory is nowhere in sight.

Amazon is utlimately collection of good, mediocre and bad PMs, Devs,
Designers.

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avemuri
Um. They've overtaken flipkart in market share and revenue

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achow
Source?

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NeedMoreTea
That reads like a paid PR piece.

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mcphage
For whom? And to what end? What are they even selling?

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NeedMoreTea
PR, public relations. Not selling anything but promoting the image of Amazon.

Netflix aren't the incumbent in TV so claiming they aren't really damaging
Netflix seems to be intentionally missing the point. Amazon are having a
similar, but slightly lesser effect, to Netflix by dint of their somewhat
smaller streaming market share. Not to forget they bought out Lovefilm, imdb,
and probably a bunch of others I forgot.

~~~
mcphage
Trying to convince people not to be afraid of Amazon? Because the general
thrust of the article is “Amazon is big, but they’re not very good at anything
but books”

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phobosdeimos
Amazon isn't all that special. The rest of corporate America just fucked up.

Fast delivery and low overhead is frankly something any webshop could have
delivered but the dinosaurs were set in their ways.

