I think you hit upon a really important idea. Amazon has been investing in itself for years, and focusing on longer term growth and success even at the cost of short term profit maximization. Which is... exactly what we as a society want. We want companies to think long term, to be investing in innovative new ways to succeed and relying on growing outward and always trying to be on the cutting edge.
All that stuff is great, far better than companies run by finance degree holding businessmen that haven't invented anything in 3 decades and keep existing purely through rent seeking or quarter-to-quarter profit pumping.
To bring Amazon down now, before its had a chance to reap the benefits of its prudence feels like the worst possible signal we could give the market. It'd basically be saying "Don't bother actually focusing on technical improvement, because if you ever do get really big as a result the government will step in and take it away from you".
Though the article does kind of share this sentiment, so kudos to Tom Harford:
>If that is a worrisome state of affairs — and it should be — then Amazon is the shining counterexample. The online retailer’s strategy is driven not by short-term profit but by investment, innovation and growth. If only there were a few more companies like Amazon, capitalism would be in a happier spot.
I suppose the core disagreement then becomes I don't think the threat of Amazon becoming abusive is worth the negative signal going after them would generate, and he does. I'd be interested in reading a 2nd article from him that delves more specifically into this part of the issue.
I don't think the threat of Amazon becoming abusive
The idea of regulating on a hypothetical is insane to me. If Amazon becomes abusive, the US Government will still be able to take them. Let's not start prosecuting pre-crime because Bezos is super rich.
That's because you're papering over the abuse that Amazon already inflicts on workers and rural communities and you need to make up for the the logical hole left by a bad-faith deregulation starting point of your argument.
Has Amazon made it worse for those groups than if Amazon didn't exist? I think generally not. Don't like Amazon's working conditions? Pretend that Amazon didn't exist and stop going to work there.
I note that this is a fully general argument for the permissibility of sweatshops of all sorts (as long as the company hasn't done anything other than set up and run the sweatshop). I also agree with it.
I really wonder why the the exploitation of workers and the immiseration of people who have no hope for economic mobility is acceptable in any circumstance. "Simply" operating a sweatshop in capitalism is by definition an effort to expand it.
The idea is, miserable though the conditions in a sweatshop may be, they are better than the alternatives the workers face, or else they wouldn't choose to be in the sweatshop. If donating $0 to that country is permissible, then surely doing something that makes things slightly better is at least as permissible.
Also, if the company that runs the sweatshop is in fact making huge profit margins from it (I assume that's one thing "exploitation" implies), and if the company isn't especially unusual, then that suggests there's a lot of room for some other company to set up another factory, offer a slightly higher wage or better conditions to attract workers away from the first one, and still make great profits. If there are no artificial barriers to this, then foreign companies competing for workers may end up really improving matters after a while. Contrariwise, if there are significant risks to setting up more sweatshops—e.g. suffering bad PR, running afoul of new or newly interpreted legislation—then the few sweatshops will tend to remain few and miserable, and be run by companies that are more immune to the above dangers (probably large, with good legal departments and/or political pull, and those that don't depend as much on a good reputation).
This implies that people who manage to cause serious problems for companies by protesting their use of sweatshops are probably making things worse for the workers. It is interesting to reflect on.
On the other hand Amazon is notorious for tax shenannigans in Europe and that's something that a small company just can't do effectively, so Amazon can leverage it's size and reach to compete on a field the small retailers can't get on to play on.
That isn't an Amazon problem though, that's a "the smart guys are on the wrong side of the table" problem, big business pays better than government.
Right, except it's the fault of countries like UK and Ireland (among others) for creating the conditions for legal massive tax avoidance. And the EU for not smacking that down as a priority immediately. When I relocated to the UK one of the first things the banks did for me was create an offshore account (Isle of Man, I think it was). I thought to myself, this is strange, who do you think I am, Pablo Escobar ? This was Barclays.
And all my Amazon packages to London had Luxembourg return addresses.
Sorry, Europeans, you can blame big American tech companies for dodging taxes all you want, but it's hypocritical when you legally allowed the conditions for them to do so.
> Amazon is notorious for tax shenannigans in Europe
There are a dozen nations in Europe that are notorious for intentionally encouraging tax shenannigans. What are you planning to do to the nice people of Ireland and Switzerland to correct that situation? Their extraordinary GDP per capita figures are directly related to said tax conditions.
Traditionally, the market has not supported this. Government parties need funding now not some time in future. That said I do not know about the US. I think if you run a big business, you need to keep everyone happy which includes investors and governments for that you need money today. The easiest way always has been to extract more money from customers.
You ever seen that Swole Bezos picture? He's that doughy, slightly nerdy guy who transformed himself into a hard assed cutthroat. This is Amazon.
Bezos obviously has an incredible nose for business, but he's mainly shown that he's not incompetent and just by being that he's run circles around others.
I've had too many bad experiences with Amazon that it tells me that his genius businessman mythology doesn't extend to the details. Went searching for a new smartphone recently. Was seconds away from spending $300 for what seemed like a new device only to see review after review from people who had been shipped poorly refurbished phones (shipped by Amazon) that would break a few months later.
There's too much stuff like that. That's their own damn site, an Apple product, and it shows that people are getting regularly ripped off and they are powerless to stop it (or won't). I see that and I see them getting into groceries and healthcare and it scares me. How can they possibly keep quality up?
There's too much mythology there, too much obvious greed, and not enough care that they appear to be building the world's greatest monopoly and we're patting them on the back.
Bezos worked on Wall Street for 8 years before starting Amazon. Judging from the early employee stories, if any change happened it was Bezos mellowing after the first 5-10 years of Amazon.
> You ever seen that Swole Bezos picture? He's that doughy, slightly nerdy guy who transformed himself into a hard assed cutthroat
Except Bezos provided an extremely logical explanation for that. He transformed himself physically because he wants to live as long as possible and be physically fit enough to travel into space when it becomes possible. Bezos is 54, which means his window is closing physically, he's attempting to delay that as long as possible.
Cutthroat, with what? The way he's taking on Walmart? The way he's taking on Apple? The way he's taking on Google? The way Amazon routinely gets voted as one of the best customer service companies?
Their customer service ratings might be high, but those ratings are inflated by the same people who, if they managed to notice that their new phone was actually refurbished will get a quick turn around on it, nevermind that they shouldn't have to deal with that at all.
The customer service is also inflated because they'll screw over sellers to do that. Maybe I'm too vindictive over my really negative experience, but there's plenty of stories of them screwing over sellers. It's also a notoriously bad place to work (friends and HN stories attest to that).
That stuff combined suggests a company that will do what it wants to win, cracked eggs be damned. It's admirable in a way, but it doesn't seem there's much in that company except a desire to dominate.
Your argument rings hollow. You are free to shop anywhere else, right? Also, amazon has provided you the capability to make an informed decision based on the reviews. I shop at amazon a lot - but not blindly. I also use other stores when the deals are right or I can just drive over and get what I want.
It's admirable that Amazon allows negative reviews on its site. But that's the catch, they could change their mind. Or they could be less aggressive about stopping fake positive reviews. There isn't a good, independent source of reviews on specific listing.
EDIT: Typo fixed. And full disclosure, I host reviews of my products on my own site.
Yes it could, but then my guess is that it would reduce traffic to their site quite a bit. That review system is generally the reason that online shopping works. The point is that Walmart has been more anti-competitive than amazon. I believe they have policies which discourage their vendors / resellers from hosting on AWS - http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/06/21/wal-mart-to-v...
Edit: I’m not an amazon fan. I’ve had issues with their delivery and I would definitely prefer ups or fedex to them in that area. I also prefer Apple products to kindle fire series, and so on. I’m not against intelligent regulation either. I’m really against a rush to regulate or calls to regulate in the absence evidence.
All that stuff is great, far better than companies run by finance degree holding businessmen that haven't invented anything in 3 decades and keep existing purely through rent seeking or quarter-to-quarter profit pumping.
To bring Amazon down now, before its had a chance to reap the benefits of its prudence feels like the worst possible signal we could give the market. It'd basically be saying "Don't bother actually focusing on technical improvement, because if you ever do get really big as a result the government will step in and take it away from you".
Though the article does kind of share this sentiment, so kudos to Tom Harford:
>If that is a worrisome state of affairs — and it should be — then Amazon is the shining counterexample. The online retailer’s strategy is driven not by short-term profit but by investment, innovation and growth. If only there were a few more companies like Amazon, capitalism would be in a happier spot.
I suppose the core disagreement then becomes I don't think the threat of Amazon becoming abusive is worth the negative signal going after them would generate, and he does. I'd be interested in reading a 2nd article from him that delves more specifically into this part of the issue.