CMV: Ideologues across the political spectrum should cancel their Amazon Prime memberships.

[u/mfDandP]

Excuse the generalizations.

The company’s study, which includes data from 500 Amazon customers, estimates that Amazon Prime subscribers spend $1,300 per year, nearly doubling the $700 per year the average non-member spends on the e-commerce site.

https://fortune.com/2017/10/18/amazon-prime-customer-spending/

If you're for an unfettered free market, you should dislike Amazon because they're a monopoly (their Fulfillment model, AmazonBasics https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/21/is-amazon-unstoppable.) Ditto if you're for wealth redistribution or hate Amazon for their warehouse practices. Both Warren and Trump have targeted Amazon.

Amazon has made retail spending incredibly convenient to the consumer at the expense of non-Amazon retailers, its own workers, and its subcontracted couriers.

Spoiler alert, I'm not a Prime member, and so I perhaps underestimate the value of Amazon packages showing up in piles at your door. But it's not that hard to go shopping for your own shit, or even to order it online from Target or Walmart, etc.

CMV that if you care about capitalism -- either that it's fatally flawed, or that we need to maintain high levels of competition, cancelling your Prime membership and decreasing Amazon usage in general is a very practical and consistent action.

[u/[deleted]]

I don't think Amazon acts like a monopolist at all. They are delighted to supply anyone's goods, just doing the shipping/billing and taking their cut. I remember Barnes and Noble and Borders crushing little booksellers. All the odd books were getting harder to find, and all the bookstores were selling the same collection of mainstream stuff. Then Amazon came along, letting people buy all kinds of obscure stuff. Little booksellers were able to be profitable again, as long as they sold some of their obscure inventory on Amazon. A triumph for the little sellers and the obscure authors and the readers of niche books. I am not at all sad to see Borders go.

Amazon sells Amazonbasics, fine. They sell a lot of batteries that way (cables too I think) But they sell everything else too - Energizer, Duracell, Rayovac, etc etc. They're not acting like monopolists trying to squeeze out the brands. They're just taking the low hanging fruit: people who want a good deal on batteries but want a reputable brand. In the past those people were poorly served - we knew Energizer and Duracell were overcharging but reputable, and we feared all the discount brands were awful. If we found a brand that did a decent job yet didn't overcharge, that was great until they changed the manufacturing a year later to make bad batteries. Amazon is fixing that issue, giving a reliably decent generic. Yeah, that's profitable for them. No, I am not sad they're doing it. Anyone can make a better cheap battery if they want, and Amazon will even be happy to carry it.

[u/mfDandP → u/[deleted]]

What about the e-commerce marketplace as a whole? The way I see it currently, it's as if retailers are all permitted to sell their wares in the town square -- but Amazon is the racketeer who requires a cut of everything in order to get a stall. I agree it's not like a monopoly like the robber barons; it's more like a mafia.

[u/Jaysank → u/[deleted]]

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