Is Amazon Too Big?

[pnewton]

I am of the opinion that they are not too big. However, if they continue their path to vertical integration they might cross the line and need to be be broken up under antitrust statutes. But this sort of stuff is over my head.

Part of me wonders if we would even have anti-trust legislation, or action, if companies did not abuse their size in the past. So far, I do not see Amazon as abusing their power.

 

[DENNYINMI]

LOL, Mississippi doesn’t have the tech talent for staffing another Amazon HQ operation.
The board would likely fire Bezos if he started making such irrational decisions.

It was an “example” Theo. You know, kind of like making the point it could be a consideration because even silicon valley was clay at one time. Nothing wrong with inviting our red states to better and reality based forms of working…The paychecks couldn’t hurt and since every place Amazon goes it is well known and makes a hit I say it’d be a win/win…I also say add Alabama to the same dimension as well. Jobs Theo. It’s not as if coal and good manufacturing jobs are helping some of the poorest (yes Theo, the poorest) states in the nation…and I want to invite them to the party.

edited for: I’d be careful about claiming Mississippi has no talent. Just when you think you’ve got a state figured out, they go and change the course of an expectation. Like an election. Just a thought.

 

[FirstFiveEighth]

Well it does account for about 20% of all water discharged into the ocean, moving upwards of 12,000,000 cu ft/s of water. So depending on you definition of “too big”, it may or may not be advisable to divert some of that to other rivers to share the load.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

However, if they continue their path to vertical integration they might cross the line and need to be be broken up under antitrust statutes. But this sort of stuff is over my head.

Part of me wonders if we would even have anti-trust legislation, or action, if companies did not abuse their size in the past.

For the USA I can’t think of many cases where there was anti-trust intervention without instances of abuse. But also as I understand the laws for the USA the laws primarily look at the effects on consumer prices within a market. I don’t think that Amazon has raised these anywhere.

Where things are not so clear for me is in Europe. I don’t have a good understanding of how their laws are designed. Google was fined for giving Google products prominence in search results. Amazon gives it’s own products prominence in results. Does that violate the European law?

 

[Theo520]

edited for: I’d be careful about claiming Mississippi has no talent.

You are misquoting me, to make your strawman.

I never said “Mississippi has no talent”. I said they don’t have enough to staff another Amazon HQ operation.

There is a reason Google etal expand facilities in the Seattle market, in spite of the higher cost of wages and cost of living. They go to where there is a pool of experienced talent they can siphon into their new facilities.

 

[DENNYINMI]

You are misquoting me

I’m misquoting you? Really Theo? Didn’t you say: “LOL, Mississippi doesn’t have the tech talent for staffing another Amazon HQ operation. The board would likely fire Bezos if he started making such irrational decisions”…quote from Theo…

This forum cracks me up sometimes. Occasionally persons will twist the quotes of others, but when persons begin to twist their own quotes? I’ve seen it all.

 

[Theo520]

yes you misquoted me. There is a vast difference between your statement of “no talent” to my claim they didn’t have the many thousand tech workers that would be needed to staff an Amazon HQ.

 

[pnewton]

Google was fined for giving Google products prominence in search results. Amazon gives it’s own products prominence in results. Does that violate the European law?

That is a good question. The reason I do not see this as a problem is that I lived through all the ebb and flow of dominating internet businesses. Google was not the default search engine at first. It took customers away from other search engines that would pile on ads and twist results to promotes sales. If Google was never fined or stopped, I have to think that another product would eventually do to Google what it did to Lycos, Ask Jeeves, Dogpile, etc.

 

[DENNYINMI]

yes you misquoted me. There is a vast difference between your statement of “no talent” to my claim they didn’t have the many thousand tech workers that would be needed to staff an Amazon HQ.

It’s difficult to misquote someone when you quote them word for word…Unless you didn’t mean what you wrote, then the common person would say so and move on!~

“LOL, Mississippi doesn’t have the tech talent for staffing another Amazon HQ operation. The board would likely fire Bezos if he started making such irrational decisions”…quote from Theo…

It is charitable to say, enough is enough and stand by what you say or say it wasn’t what it reads to be, correct it…and move on. Anything less is disingenuous. It’s a Catholic forum, we all say things we don’t mean, it gets corrected one way or the other and we move on!~Try it, you’ll survive. ps: there is actually a definition for tech talent and you won’t change that anytime soon.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Google was not the default search engine at first. It took customers away from other search engines that would pile on ads and twist results to promotes sales.

Before Google was Google it tried to sell its search algorithm to Yahoo. Yahoo didn’t like it because they felt it would get people to what they were looking for too quickly and that would not give them the same opportunity to serve up ads.

MySpace also passed on accepting an offer to purchase Facebook.

I said they don’t have enough to staff another Amazon HQ operation.

Kind of related, we’ve found that people that do “creative coding” in the USA tend to be found more overwhelmingly in San Francisco and secondarily in NYC. We had hired some creative coders in Atlanta. They stuck around for a couple of years but eventually moved to those two cities because there were more opportunities for them out there and they were able to hangout and exchange ideas socially with other people that were into the same thing. Conferences and gathers on the topic tend to take place in those cities also. Eventually we opened a new division of our office in San Francisco and were able to retain such developers out there.

This feels like it is akin to the effect of having a number of fast food places clustered in an area where while they compete with each other their collective presence there draws more customers in and ultimately helps all of them.

 

[DENNYINMI]

This feels like it is akin to the effect of having a number of fast food places clustered in an area where while they compete with each other their collective presence there draws more customers in and ultimately helps all of them.

Although not related if I could make a comment here, please. I’ve always felt that a Starbucks one block from another one is fool hardy, never understood that. Although you’re talking about competing companies the craziness of a Starbucks (best example) in your hotel and one out the back door of your hotel was something I never quite understood.

time for coffee…ciao

 

[sallybutler]

I like amazon. And I suspect small sellers like them too.

 

[Theo520]

This feels like it is akin to the effect of having a number of fast food places clustered in an area where while they compete with each other their collective presence there draws more customers in and ultimately helps all of them.

Exactly, some states and metropolitan areas just don’t have the pool of talent to staff the needs of a major tech company. They wouldn’t be successful if you forced them to relocate to Alabama.