The FTC Sues to Break Up Amazon Over an Economy-Wide "Hidden Tax"

tintory@lemm.ee to politics @lemmy.world – 835 points –
The FTC Sues to Break Up Amazon Over an Economy-Wide "Hidden Tax"
thebignewsletter.com
78

You are viewing a single comment

The charges seem to revolve around how Amazon treats third-party sellers on its platform. It would seem, then, that I can avoid being a contributor to that by only purchasing on Amazon items which are sold by Amazon. And because their Prime free shipping costs them more than it does me, my choosing to do so only fucks them harder.

Goddamn the mental gymnastics of Amazon shoppers

Seriously.

"If I just buy more cheap junk I don't need from Amazon it'll hurt them!"

Especially thanks to my Amazon Prime subscription!

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

It may fuck the company harder, but you’re also fucking all the mistreated workers that ensure the shit you ordered gets to you.

Jesus Christ man

Fuck Amazon by buying Amazon.

Are we still letting anyone vote?

If they're losing money by offering free shipping on their own sales, yes.

Would you agree or disagree that they might make up that physical money through things like influence, marketing their brand for free on their delivery vehicles, continuing to hold down market value, etc?

Not all company value is strictly in sales, not so sure I agree that this hurts Amazon in the short term or the long term but I’m happy to continue chatting about it

I guaranfuckingtee Amazon doesn't lose money on shipping. If they were losing money on it they'd raise the price of Prime. Anyone reading this thread who thinks they have it figured out more than a trillion dollar company with armies of logistics departments is foolish.

According to one J.P. Morgan analyst, the actual value of Prime is roughly $1,000 for a customer, which means that Amazon is subsidizing its Prime business to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a year.

the actual value of Prime is roughly $1000

value is different than cost. At market shipping rates, Amazon could be charging their customers more, say $1000, for Prime. But that doesn't mean it costs Amazon that much to operate it. So your statement means they are leaving money on the table, but they still very well may be making a profit off Prime. Just not as much as they could.

And yet they're still able to rake in cash, weird. Almost like some random JP Morgan analyst is telling half a story to slant it how they want.

If Amazon was "losing" money on Prime they'd raise the price. It really is that simple, all the creative accounting in the world doesn't change that.

edit; you know how you can cost Amazon $1k per year? Cancel prime and stop buying so much bullshit.

Those Amazon items are mostly copies. So not really.

Do they still mix inventory so it doesn't even matter who you buy it from?