
The Death of the Mom and Pop E-Store - sebst
https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-death-of-the-mom-and-pop-e-store/
======
ThePhysicist
Amazon basically uses third-party sellers to outsource product discovery risk.
By pressuring / enticing sellers to use Amazon's fulfillment platform they
know where those sellers get their products from, and if a given product
becomes very popular they can just contact the manufacturer and sell the
product themselves, cutting out the third-party seller. It's understandable
that sellers love the high reach they can get on Amazon, but by selling on the
platform they provide Amazon all the information they need to eventually kill
their business (except if they're producing the good they sell, in which case
Amazon might have more difficulty cutting them out). In my opinion this is a
gross misalignment of incentives, as the platform operator has a direct
incentive to put you out of business as soon as you become successful.

~~~
ct520
“Might have more difficulty cutting them out..”

Pretty sure this is why amazon created amazon basics. To go that last mile on
cutting out the high margin products they can’t source themself.

~~~
adventured
Walmart helped to innovate the space. They did it mostly as a form of
leverage, so they could apply pressure to brands that constantly seek to raise
prices. Walmart will add or pull various Great Value products depending on if
they want to punch a brand downward on price. So if Kraft insists on $2.50 for
a box of Velveeta Shells, Walmart introduces a generic version of the same
product at $1.10 and puts it right next to the Kraft product. They do the same
thing throughout their store, not primarily targeting high margin products (of
which they have few in their entire store), rather using it as a lid on
pricing power for brands. Walmart makes very little on the Great Value brand
products, however it helps them counter the exclusivity leverage that huge
brands like Coke, Pepsi, Kraft, Mondelez, et al. have over them.

Amazon does seem to be using their basics system in a very different manner,
from observing what products they're pushing and the prices they're charging.

~~~
elgenie
Walmart does exert massive price pressure on their suppliers, but it's mostly
by virtue of the leverage they gain by being so huge that their suppliers need
Walmart a lot more than Walmart needs them.

Walmart didn't create or innovate store brands (aka private label) for food;
they didn't even start selling food until 1988 or launch Great Value until
1992. Private labels date back to the mid-1800s. [1]

[1]
[https://plma.com/PRIVATELABELSSTOREBRANDSANDGENERICPRODUCTSC...](https://plma.com/PRIVATELABELSSTOREBRANDSANDGENERICPRODUCTSCHAP27.pdf)

~~~
adventured
I never said Walmart invented the space. They did innovate in the space
however and have used it at a scale that had not remotely been seen before.

I entirely disagree with your premise that Walmart's primary leverage against
the large brands is their scale. The reason I was so specific on pressure on
brands, is because that's where Walmart has the weakest position versus the
core brands in cases of segment dominance. Kraft for example is an
extraordinarily large and powerful supplier at what they do. Without the very
cheap, near zero margin version of their Great Value competing products,
Walmart has few good options for applying pressure to a supplier the size of
Kraft that dominates so many spaces. There are no replacement products that
can blanket fill up their thousands of stores coast to coast and always meet
demand as the sole supplier. You can't get that kind of supply & guarantee
from small mom & pop labels that are heavily regional.

~~~
elgenie
Kraft-Heinz scale ($18B sales) is impressive, but it's still not much compared
to Wal-Mart scale ($514B). That scale is what underlies the negotiation, just
as Kraft-Heinz's scale typically let's them attempt to dominate their other
customers. "Weakest position" for Wal-Mart, even if true, is relative and the
absolute value is still quite strong.

Every regional grocery store chain has private labels from which they get
roughly the same stuff; store brands are a mid-1850s innovation for exactly
the same leverage over suppliers as Walmart want to get. Walmart making a
decision to vertically integrate an element of their supply chain as opposed
to regionally contract also isn't an innovation: it's simply an obvious and
logical step at scale. Finally, dismissing regional contracting as a
possibility is silly: Florida and Washington state having their generic mac-n-
cheese rolling out of different factories is not a deal breaker.

------
jdietrich
A legitimate mom-and-pop is never going to compete with larger retailers for
commodity items like PC components. They don't have the buying power, they
don't have the economies of scale and they can't offer meaningfully better
support or curation. The "mom-and-pop" retailers who _can_ compete are
generally doing something shady, from grey imports to outright counterfeiting.

That's far from the case in all verticals. I have bought tons of stuff from
small specialised online retailers, because they can meaningfully compete in
niche markets. If I want a woodworking tool, my first port of call is Workshop
Heaven, because they sell a carefully curated selection of extremely high-
quality products. Everything they ship has been QCed by someone who actually
knows about tools, so I'll happily pay a premium in the knowledge that I'll
never get a dud. I'll buy a tool from a brand that I've never heard of,
because I trust their curation. I look forward to seeing their newsletter in
my inbox, because it usually highlights cool new tools that I haven't heard
of.

IMO, the future of mom-and-pop retailing doesn't look like mom-and-pop retail
- it looks like a boutique. A small selection of carefully curated products, a
fanatical commitment to quality and genuinely useful pre- and post-sales
support. To survive in a post-Amazon world, small retailers need to evolve
into niche brands in their own right.

~~~
verisimilidude
Agreed, boutique online sellers can still compete. For example, I will always
buy my stationary from JetPens if I can help it.

Someone should put together a list of such retailers across various
specialties.

~~~
danShumway
I'll add Goulet Pens to that list.

They maintain a Youtube channel where they break down pretty much anything
you'd ever want to know about how to intelligently buy a fountain pen.

They've got a usable site where I don't have to worry about getting scammed or
even creating an account -- last time I bought a pen from them, the package
even came with a handwritten note; it was just a really nice experience.

Pretty much all of my ink/pen related needs go through Goulet, specifically
because I trust them more than Amazon.

------
buboard
Its amazing how technology has failed at democratizing commerce , and
everything really. In the early 2000s it was all about decentralizing,
democratizing , empowering the small units. Nowadays, from tech stacks to
marketing channels it 's as if there is a conspiracy to keep centralizing.

Consolidation happens in every economic wave, but this feels premature.

~~~
neilv
Maybe there are better references, but, in January 2000, I wrote up a bunch of
notes on the experience of building a PC from parts, as the various resellers
and shoppers were still in the early stages of figuring things out:
[https://www.neilvandyke.org/cheap-
pc-2000/](https://www.neilvandyke.org/cheap-pc-2000/)

~~~
giobox
Wow, I remember the having the exact same deliberation and selecting the Abit
BP6 at the time for much the same reasons.

The ability of that motherboard to run dual Intel Celeron CPUs was unique at
the time as it was a feature Intel had disabled on these chips and required
some magic from Abit to enable the dual CPU functionality. This was arguably
really the board that made dual processor configs affordable for enthusiasts
on a budget for the first time, I loved mine.

>
> [http://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/3q99/bp6/bp6-1.html](http://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/3q99/bp6/bp6-1.html)

------
eggfriedrice
I run a small online store, we focus on a particular niche tech, LoRaWAN. It's
specific enough (at the moment) that there aren't many other folk in this
area.

We started out with Shopify, but that's actually really limited in
functionality unless you spend many $100s per month on apps to add basic stuff
(like VAT handling). We switched to a self-hosted shop, which feels totally
old skool but is working out pretty well. We're happily charging cards and
shipping stuff all over the world.

Our thing is knowing the products and providing support, so I think that has
some value. If you want a boxes shifted cheap then Amazon's your answer.
Anything cleverer, then specialist retailers still have some real value.

~~~
hanoz
Got a link? Having gone from zero to keen this afternoon as a result of the
"Crazy LORA ranges" post, I'm interested in acquiring a ”The Things Node" or
if possible a cheaper device which will let me test if my nearest Things
Network gateway is in range.

~~~
eggfriedrice
[https://connectedthings.store/gb/](https://connectedthings.store/gb/)

We don't have the Things Node yet, but we do have the Things Uno (EU) which is
a really handy dev board for experiments.

------
gesman
Anything related to electronics and photography and supplies I buy at BHPhoto.

Why - because BHPhoto:

\- Has excellent support, refund and matching policies.

\- Does not charge sales tax (imagine that!) if you use their Payboo card.
Actually they officially charge sales tax but it gets immediately refunded so
you don't pay it.

\- Does not carry counterfeit junk or faked-up crap with fake reviews from
shady sellers like Amazon or ebay does.

\- Offer free shipping

Smaller e-tailer and retailers cannot compete with BHPhoto refund policies and
cannot compete with sales tax compensation policies (thanks government for
enforcing sales taxes all over).

Support and guarantee of quality products is more important to me that 2 days
shipping.

~~~
sfkdjf9j3j
I stopped shopping at B&H after this mess a few years ago:
[https://petapixel.com/2017/08/16/bh-pay-3-22m-settle-
lawsuit...](https://petapixel.com/2017/08/16/bh-pay-3-22m-settle-lawsuit-
filed-dept-labor/)

I'm lucky to have some local stores I can still shop at though, and of course
KEH for used equipment.

~~~
gesman
Understood.

Everyone has their own priorities to choose shopping locations.

------
Axsuul
I'm in this space. There are just so many ways to reach potential customers
nowadays each with their own audiences. Although marketplaces still rule, I’m
beginning to see the trend that savvy long-term businesses who want to protect
their upside and own their customers are beginning to focus more of their
efforts on their own properties (à la Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce,
Squarespace, etc) while treating the marketplaces they sell on as marketing
channels. It’s already becoming commonplace now for a retailer to be on a
wholesale platform, a few marketplaces, have their own website, and also sell
in a brick & mortar location.

Shameless plug: I work on Trunk [0] which helps businesses sync their
inventory in real-time across everywhere they sell. The long-term vision is to
make selling on multiple places just as easy as selling on one!

[0] [https://www.trunkinventory.com](https://www.trunkinventory.com)

~~~
codeisawesome
That’s a really cool idea! I’ve been wondering how to participate on Amazon
ecosystem without having to engage in Adversarial Interoperability - and this
is one neat way. Congrats on figuring it out!

~~~
Axsuul
Thanks so much! I wouldn't say I've figured it out just yet :)

------
rad_gruchalski
An amazon business story from Germany. I’ve opened a brand new amazon business
account for a brand new company (VAT number present, HRB number present). I
wanted to link a bank account to this amazon account, as one would do in
Germany. This did not work, for whatever reason.

However, amazon offered my company a €1500 credit line. I had to immediately
buy a printer and a couple of 27” screens. I used the credit line. I also used
a director’s home address as a delivery address because, you know, why would
you sit at an empty office and wait for shipment.

They have shipped the order, the invoices have been paid. One day after the
invoices have been paid, I received the email that the business account has
been suspended because of “reasons”.

Obviously, they did not say what the reasons were. They asked me to FAX to
them director’s personal information (passport scan, proof of address),
without giving any info on what are they going to do with info. I contacted
them via their support website, because there is obviously no number to call
or an actual person to contact. I have no idea how do they run their business
in Germany without this kind of info, their business unit has an office in
Germany, Regensburg, I believe.

In response to my contact, they sent me just blanket emails repeating their
requests.

I just dropped it and stopped buying via Amazon. No more personal or business
purchases anymore. Bye amazon.

The best was 6 weeks later, their business manager sent me a request for
feedback on what my experience with amazon business is like. Well, they never
came back to me after receiving a sour, detailed comment.

I avoid doing any kind of business with amazon AND aws since then. I give
money to German businesses. I will never send them any official documents via
scans. All the info they need is in commercial register but they are too lazy
to figure things out.

Bye amazon, only when the hell freezes.

* Edit: I’ve been a loyal amazon and aws customer for 7 years. Burned thousands of Euro with amazon and aws over the years through different ventures. However, their attitude and behaviour regarding the info which only governmental organisations should be asking for, turned me completely away.

I understand they have a fraud department and what not, and maybe they have a
good intent. However, this being amazon “business”, I expected them to know
how to do business. Companies have registered addresses, phone numbers, list
of shareholders and names of directors are publicly available. There are more
suitable channels than blanket emails, faxes and scans.

~~~
Dayshine
> I contacted them via their support website, because there is obviously no
> number to call or an actual person to contact

That's weird, when I'm logged in I have the option to have Amazon call me.
Perhaps only on consumer accounts not business accounts?

Did you try doing that, then asking to be transferred to the business team?

~~~
rad_gruchalski
The only option for contact available on my account was a support ticket. I
know they have numbers in the US. But this is EMEA, US does not deal with
that. Edit: here’s a Twitter thread:
[https://twitter.com/rad_g/status/1117811252493996034?s=21](https://twitter.com/rad_g/status/1117811252493996034?s=21)

~~~
Dayshine
I'm in the UK...

I just went to amazon.de and while the interface isn't the same (they make it
harder to find the contact us form it seems), I still had the option to pick
"call me" and then pick a german number.

~~~
rad_gruchalski
I don't know which amazon you are looking at. This is what I see in my
business account:

[https://pasteboard.co/IqF4F4q.png](https://pasteboard.co/IqF4F4q.png)

There is no option to call anybody and have them call me back.

------
augstein
At least in Europe (I mostly buy from Germany) there still seem to be a high
number of these smaller E-Stores.

In fact everything thats more expensive than ~100€, I‘ll search for on my
favorite price comparison website. Very rarely Amazon has the best offer and
ordering from a small E-Store isn‘t any more effort than ordering from Amazon,
when they offer payments via PayPal or Amazon Pay.

When ordered before 18:00, almost all vendors nowadays will ship the same day
and the products will arrive on the next one, just as when ordering from
Amazon.

------
XMPPwocky
I recently purchased a product sold on Amazon, but deliberately purchased it
from the manufacturer, via their Shopify site, to support them more.

Six days later, it arrived.

From an Amazon warehouse. In an Amazon box. Sporting a bright white ASIN
sticker.

Hmmmmmmm.

~~~
da02
So the manufacturer was just re-selling stuff from Amazon?

~~~
CamelCaseName
No, the manufacturer likely uses Amazon as their fulfillment network as you
often get better storage/shipping rates this way.

These manufacturer fulfilled network (MFN) orders cost the manufacturer a
premium in shipping fees over FBA orders (orders sold/fulfilled through
Amazon), but don't carry the referral fee (8-40%).

Given this, it is almost always cheaper for the manufacturer to sell off
Amazon and ship MFN... if you ignore customer acquisition cost.

~~~
afjl
Why is there such a large range for referral fees? And I wonder how the
referral fee itself is calculated.

~~~
CamelCaseName
I apologize, the referral fee range I previously stated is a little
misleading.

Referral fees for the vast majority of items is 8% to 15%, which in and of
itself is a massive range. I believe this is mostly due to the typical margin
on each item. Perhaps the typical cost of customer acquisition also plays a
role.

The minimum is 6% for personal computers, which historically have super slim
margins anyhow, and 45% for Amazon Device accessories, probably because Amazon
wants to maintain a major advantage over third party accessories (and possibly
because they dominate the market for Amazon device accessories, so they're
able to charge a major premium)

------
lazyjones
Mom and pop are drop shipping these days, it's much cheaper but less fun (and
less work) for them.

~~~
barbecue_sauce
While I have not looked into drop shipping in any extensive way, the flaw in
the premise to me is that there are seemingly huge lead times (at least with
regard to when sourcing from AliExpress or similar). Any idea how people who
actually do this professionally mitigate that?

~~~
hayksaakian
1 way is to work with US based manufacturers

------
Ididntdothis
I find that a little sad too. I am also starting to wonder if big companies
are actually creating wealth like it usually is said. Or maybe they just
concentrate wealth that could have gone to a lot of smaller players towards
themselves and in the end it's just a zero-sum game.

------
wenbin
Shopify enables new generation of Mom & Pop E-Store :)

~~~
technotarek
It's hard to see Shopify resolving the issues at hand. The costs associated
with mom n pop e-commerce are ultimately too high (eg investments in SEO). The
same could be said for similar platforms like SquareSpace or Wix that offer
e-commerce.

I have a side project that monitors mom n pop sites -- take for example
vintage clothing store sites in New York City. The landscape has become a
ghost town, with hundreds of previous sites now abandoned. They've largely
moved to platforms like Etsy or Instagram.

~~~
CamelCaseName
I don't understand why Shopify doesn't create a search engine for Shopify
products. Overnight they would become a powerhouse akin to Amazon and solve
the #1 issue faced by sellers -- product discovery.

The #2 issue Shopify sellers face is fulfillment, but IIRC they are investing
$1B+ in building out their own FCs across the US. (Which is peanuts, but a
step in the right direction)

~~~
thirdsun
> I don't understand why Shopify doesn't create a search engine for Shopify
> products. Overnight they would become a powerhouse akin to Amazon and solve
> the #1 issue faced by sellers -- product discovery.

I don't see the appeal. I really, really like Shopify as a seller and would
always recommend it to someone looking to sell online, regardless of volume.
However as a customer I couldn't care less about a Shop's backend as long as I
have a pleasant shopping and ordering experience. And Shopify alone doesn't
guarantee that.

A general search engine and price comparison for online stores/products,
regardless of platform, is more appealing, but I think we already have that,
at least here in Germany with Idealo, Geizhals or Google Shopping.

Of course, when Shopify can provide fast, Prime-like shipping with their new
fulfillment plans that's an actual appeal worth searching for.

------
siruncledrew
It’s some deja vu that Walmart was branded as the place that killed mom and
pop stores some 10+ years ago, and now Amazon is the place killing online
stores (and partly Walmart) since ecommerce has taken off in recent years.

Amazon’s golden goose has been their logistics. It creates a company that is
like ebay+ups together. Mom and pops may have the same wares as amazon, but
the shipping and order efficiency is a tough gap to close against amazon.
Getting an order packaged, to the courier, and in transport for delivery still
takes time and people for most ‘mom and pops’. It’s like trying to build a
faster locomotive to compete with the company that owns the railroad.

------
z3t4
Its big fish eating smaller fish. Most commerce goes like this: Person A buys
from person B who buys from person C. Put yourself in between and take a cut,
or run a service to make the chain more efficient/convenient. Or add a link to
the chain.

------
kart23
I love shopping at smaller retailers that sell great products. In fact, my
main problem is finding them. Does anyone know of a website or something that
promotes niche retailers in different categories?

~~~
mjvolk
This could be a fun project idea. How would you imagine yourself finding what
you are looking for?

Would you see yourself going to a website like "momandpops.com" and choosing
from categories like "Household" "Clothing" "Outdoors" and subcategories like
"Clothing > Men's" "Clothing > Kid's"? When you select the categories, you'd
be shown a listing page of smaller retailers that sell products in that
category.

~~~
kart23
YES! I would love a site dedicated to quality products, with an emphasis on
smaller shops or startups. I just want something curated by people with decent
taste. Stuff that everyone already buys, but want a more quality/special
offering. I love places that don't sell their stuff on amazon and are too
small to get in department stores. I've seen a couple websites that do this,
but it's mostly aimed at a niche(ex. Stuff for artsy moms, or toys for super
single rich guys).

I'll post some links to give you an idea of the kind of stuff I'm into.
Honestly I just want a website curating cool websites that sell physical
products.

[https://ramaworks.store/](https://ramaworks.store/)
[https://ghostly.com/](https://ghostly.com/)
[https://www.muji.us/store/](https://www.muji.us/store/)

------
Theodores
The software side of it has not helped. I blame the state of frontend web
development rather than databases, payment gateways and other backend aspects.

Not every mom and pop store has a six figure sum to throw to an agency for
them to spend six months under delivering a website for them with the 'latest
agile methods'.

We sort of have ourselves to blame, the hubris and pathetic development
approaches that go with ecommerce have killed the market for mom and pop
ecommerce stores.

This is really bad for web development, the customer and the independent
retailer.

~~~
vcoelho
You can put together a Woocommerce with a paid template in 1 day and paying
less than $1000 to a indian guy. And of course there's a lot of middle ground
between mine and yours examples.

------
killjoywashere
There are many edge cases on dimensions other than product.

I live on a small island that enjoys US Postal Service by boat. Amazon will
ship to me. The high number of mom-and-pops that aren't set up to ship to me
creates a situation where, if I need something Amazon doesn't have, I usually
have to send it to someone in the US and once enough stuff builds up, they
ship a package to me. This holds true even for international shippers (e.g. an
Etsy seller in Europe is more likely to ship to the US than to me).

------
guitarbill
I'm not sure this is true as presented. I agree less and less people run their
own sites. But I don't know if this is because customers prefer platforms for
cyber security reasons, or if it's also a value proposition for sellers (e.g.
not having the headache of keeping a site running so you can focus on
selling).

For hobbyist materials, eBay is still great. For bespoke goods, Etsy is
unbeatable and you can even build relationships with the sellers.

------
bdcravens
When was the last time we bemoaned the fact we don't have to call a travel
agent to book a flight, or that we needn't pull out our yellow pages to find a
cab company when we need to go to the airport?

The march towards efficiency is a never ending one, for better or worse. Mom
and pop e-stores were a go-between that except for specific niches are likely
casualties of that march.

~~~
da_chicken
Monopolies _are_ extremely efficient. That doesn't mean they're the best for
the health of the economy.

~~~
xchaotic
Any quote or source for this? I think companies get efficient when they have
to compete and some of that stays when they become monopolies

------
ikeboy
>Many sex toy and adult novelty manufacturers refuse to sell their products on
Amazon, or even offer wholesale products to any vendors who have an Amazon or
eBay presence3. Mostly this is due to the influx of potentially counterfeit
products.

This is incorrect and shows the author does not understand the topic. The
primary reason people don't want to sell to Amazon sellers is that it leads to
price erosion. Amazon sellers compete on price, which has negative effects for
other channels; retail stores will see products selling cheaply on Amazon and
won't be willing to pay your regular wholesale price.

Obviously, selling wholesale to someone who sells on Amazon doesn't make the
counterfeit issue any worse.

~~~
Retric
Due to commingling counterfeiters don’t need to sell to customers as Amazon
will simply substitute real products with fake ones. Effectively, any Amazon
seller becomes a counterfeit channel and the counterfeiters get access to sell
the real products to minimize returns and thus issues with credit cards etc.

This is obviously a horrible deal for the legit producer who also gets saddled
with a terrible reputation.

~~~
ikeboy
This is easily addressed by requiring your Amazon sellers to not use
commingling. I've even seen a handful of companies that require their sellers
not to use FBA.

>counterfeiters get access to sell the real products to minimize returns and
thus issues with credit cards etc.

Not following. Amazon knows which unit was sold by which seller, so they can
attribute returns to the correct seller even if was actually sold by another.

~~~
Retric
Amazon may eventually catch on, but it’s a ticking clock until they get paid
and disappear.

Day A, they ship X fakes to Amazon. Day B, they sell at slightly below market
rates to sell as quickly as possible. Importantly as they have the lowest
price they should get the bulk of orders. Selling off a mix of real units from
others and fake units from themselves.

If they are a fairly low percentage of the market it could take a while for
any significant number of their fakes to be shipped. Now it’s a race if they
get paid by Amazon before Amazon catches on.

Obviously this works best if the fakes are close to the real product so it
takes a while before a significant number of people notice. Think functional
but substandard USB cables etc.

~~~
ikeboy
It's not randomly chosen which units get shipped. It has to do with location,
ownership, risk, and other things.

If a brand new seller is selling they're likely not to commingle their high
risk products until they've proven themselves.

It's not nearly as easy as you think.

Some categories have commingling turned off completely.

~~~
Retric
> It's not nearly as easy as you think.

Sure, but it does not have to be successful to harm the reputation of a
manufacturer. The issue is it’s a cat and mouse game with some actual winners
which get others to try and do the same.

~~~
ikeboy
That's not a reason to avoid selling any units on Amazon. The only brands this
may be relevant to is very high end luxury brands, some of which avoid Amazon
sales for that reason.

------
cm2012
55% of Amazon sales are from 3rd parties, which are largely small businesses.

------
munificent
I like that this article actually takes a nuanced approach and describes the
pros on both sides. Most writing on this I see doesn't.

I believe there is an inevitable tension between centralization and
decentralization. The former gives you:

\- Usability. Look at fifty product pages on Amazon and you can easily scan
each one since they all have the same layout and user experience. You don't
have to hunt through fifty different web designs trying to find the price. You
don't have to figure out if _this_ page includes the shipping in the price
while _this_ one doesn't. Consistency is one of the keys to usability, and
centralization gives you this.

\- Economies of scale. A mom and pop store likely can't afford to roll their
own crypto, fraud prevention, 24/7 support, etc. But when a single
organization moves enough product, these kinds of things enter the realm of
affordability.

\- Predictability. Consumers can accurately predict how their experience is
going to go. Fewer unpleasant surprises because they are likely dealing with
the same branch of one giant organization every time. Walk into a McDonald's
anywhere on Earth and you mostly know what you're going to get. That can be a
real relief when you just want a safe experience.

But you lose:

\- Innovation. If changing the layout of a design affects a hundred million
pages and a billion users, it takes a hell of a lot of work to get everyone on
board to ship it. It's much harder to just throw stuff at the wall and see
what sticks.

\- Resilience. A centralized organization is basically a monoculture, and
suffers the same risks as biological monocultures. A single vulnerability or
bug can take down the entire system because every part of the system is
identical, including having the same weaknesses. When you have a lot of
diversity and redundancy in the system, much like genetic diversity, the
system is more able to respond to a surprising condition. There may be some
winners and losers, but the whole system won't lose, and then can learn and
adapt from the winners that remain.

\- Novelty. When it's all the same, the time you spend interacting with the
system becomes less personally enriching. No one writes an entry in their
diary about the 523th burger they had from McDonald's. The stories people
remember about their lives -- especially when interacting with businesses --
are almost always unique experiences with small enterprises. The family-owned
hole in the wall restaurant, the tiny labor-of-love tabletop game store, the
three-partner law firm that helped them navigate a crisis.

The important part is that each of these pairs of points are diametrically
opposed. Gaining one sacrifices the other, so there is no perfect solution.
Just trade-offs. Which means what we probably need is a meta-diversity -- a
range of businesses at all scales. Accept that some big businesses are good.
Sometimes you just want to complete a transaction or eat a damn burger. But
also support a thriving set of small and medium-sized businesses for when you
want something more lively.

One thing I really worry about the US is that government and incentives today
clearly push towards a mono-scale where almost all successful business are
big. I see few forces to combat the economies of scale and the power that
large corporations wield, so we're heading towards a world where there are
_only_ giant mega-corps.

~~~
hrktb
> Usability

> Predictability

Interestingly as Amazon becomes the front of so many sellers, there is a lot
of edge cases they are supporting that end up breaking these two.

For instance some products are listed and have a price, but only come from
third party, non integrated vendors so you won’t know the shipping price or
conditions until choosing a specific vendor.

Or they’ll list an item and contact you for adjustments after a purchase
attempt (I had that for a business printer, and there was options for
maintenance plans etc.)

Or there will be items that can only be shipped for free above some total
amount, when that limit don’t exist for others.

Basically I think that by absorbing so much of the market, amazon also
inherited the complexity to some point.

------
spinach
He, who has the biggest, fastest computer wins.

------
JohnJamesRambo
And the birth of the Mom and Pop E-girls.

