Amazon may be monopolistic, but I have access to more products through from different brand names than I do through the rest of the local multinational chains. I see your point, but it’s also pretty hard to address without favoring other potential mega-corporations nowadays. The core problem is that there is one country that can realistic regulate it, and it is profit driven. Individually, each country can try to compete by subsidizing the competition in the areas those companies succeed in, by say putting decent refund and customer care into the law, subsidizing insurance to that extent, and making distribution networks accessible to small business. Once those standards are in place, it becomes easier to prosecute Amazon for anti-competitive monopolistic practices if they don’t stick to them. The problem is, each country usually has their own interests that don’t care for that either, and it wouldn’t be international.
Amazon should be divided into different businesses, but if US telecoms have proved anything, it’s that they usually end up working themselves back into the same group. But I see that as a separate more overarching issue than the rights of the workers it employs and the quality of their employment in their distribution warehouses.
Amazon may be monopolistic, but I have access to more products through from different brand names than I do through the rest of the local multinational chains.
That’s the core issue, I think.
Amazon might be the first major case of monopolistic tendencies where the firm’s behavior hasn’t been obviously disadvantageous (or obvious it will be in the not so distant future) to the consumers from the getgo. So you’d effectively be regulating and banning towards a worse consumer experience, as of now…
A good analogue might be the taxi industry, which has fostered an industry accustomed to misleading its clients through a number of means because of an outdated means of charging for fares. In some countries, they require special licenses, and they’ve forced restrictions on companies like Uber and who can work for them. It’s a case of new industries versus the old ones, and once Uber made it through, they also paved the way for their alternatives.
It’s sort of the same with Amazon and e-commerce, except Amazon has much more cash flow available due to the reasons you’ve discussed. Traditional multinational chains say they are threatened, but maybe they should be and should consider innovating and letting the consumer experience they should expect be put into law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_worker_organization#Europe
Here’s some more info about unions in Europe.
Amazon may be monopolistic, but I have access to more products through from different brand names than I do through the rest of the local multinational chains. I see your point, but it’s also pretty hard to address without favoring other potential mega-corporations nowadays. The core problem is that there is one country that can realistic regulate it, and it is profit driven. Individually, each country can try to compete by subsidizing the competition in the areas those companies succeed in, by say putting decent refund and customer care into the law, subsidizing insurance to that extent, and making distribution networks accessible to small business. Once those standards are in place, it becomes easier to prosecute Amazon for anti-competitive monopolistic practices if they don’t stick to them. The problem is, each country usually has their own interests that don’t care for that either, and it wouldn’t be international.
Amazon should be divided into different businesses, but if US telecoms have proved anything, it’s that they usually end up working themselves back into the same group. But I see that as a separate more overarching issue than the rights of the workers it employs and the quality of their employment in their distribution warehouses.
That’s the core issue, I think.
Amazon might be the first major case of monopolistic tendencies where the firm’s behavior hasn’t been obviously disadvantageous (or obvious it will be in the not so distant future) to the consumers from the getgo. So you’d effectively be regulating and banning towards a worse consumer experience, as of now…
A good analogue might be the taxi industry, which has fostered an industry accustomed to misleading its clients through a number of means because of an outdated means of charging for fares. In some countries, they require special licenses, and they’ve forced restrictions on companies like Uber and who can work for them. It’s a case of new industries versus the old ones, and once Uber made it through, they also paved the way for their alternatives.
It’s sort of the same with Amazon and e-commerce, except Amazon has much more cash flow available due to the reasons you’ve discussed. Traditional multinational chains say they are threatened, but maybe they should be and should consider innovating and letting the consumer experience they should expect be put into law.