Amazon faces potential break-up as FTC finalizes antitrust lawsuit | The FTC is getting ready for the big one::undefined
I will believe it when I see it.
Yeah remember when they were going to break up Microsoft? That went great.
Yeah, there the FTC was with a clear market that Microsoft would have a monopoly over should the merger go through. They had Microsoft on the ropes, but, before they could finish them, Microsoft pinky promised prices wouldn’t go up. And that was that, no threat of a monopoly and the merger could go through.
… the current antitrust ruling guidelines make enforcement basically impossible.
It was more that George w Bush was elected. And cracking down on monopolies is against the code of fascists. Ideally they want to be in charge of all the monopolies. So he more or less called off the suit just as they were about to close in on Microsoft.
I meant the Microsoft Activision Blizzard fiasco, I guess I didn’t realize.
Oh yes that too. Microsoft is always been bad though. Always will be always has been.
Hell, I won’t believe it even when I’ll see it. Likely some loophole will be found to dodge this in one way or another.
Not to be pedantic, but isn’t that the same as “I’ll believe it when I see it”? You’re just saying it won’t happen
I think they’re saying even if this goes through amazon will find a way to ignore it
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Came here to say exactly this. Not going to happen.
Damn this thread is negative as hell.
I’m one of the most cynical, pessimistic people I know, but not in here.
Kinda wish people’s first reaction were “good,” not “yeah right, remember Bell in the 80’s?”
Maybe I’m naive, but this seems like good news to me. Even if it doesn’t actually result in Amazon being broken up, at least it indicates someone is doing something.
“Don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress” or something like that.
“Don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress” or something like that.
Brings back memories to when Obamacare was announced. Did it go far enough? Hell no. It was a step in the right direction and it was still derided. Those who are ripping down the system brick by brick have a singular vision and understand it’s a series of steps to get to their dystopian hellscape. Why are those primary on the left unwilling to accept anything that isn’t a fully realized picture of their ideal society?
In fact I’d argue a large part of why the system is falling apart is those who want to see it improved are unwilling to do those small incremental changes for good.
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Why are those primary on the left unwilling to accept anything that isn’t a fully realized picture of their ideal society?
Because at this point, it seems more like theater than actual intent.
The right sure seems convinced we’re hurtling leftward with communist dictators like Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden leading the charge with the tenacity of the Bolsheviks of yore. I’m guessing the reality is somewhere in between that and perennial fecklessness.
What came first, people checking out or the system stopping working for us? Or does it even matter?
Makes me think about how cynicism pervades online communities and media. Seems like a lot of people can’t get themselves to hope. People need hope to accomplish anything.
People are becoming less and less able to be rationalized with.
A lot of valid triggers have put us here. Housing. Inflation. Income inequality. Identity politics. But it’s gotten to the point where people are frothing at the mouth. Daily I see a comment about “eat the rich” and anecdotally they’re getting more and more aggressive.
We are tipping toward bloodshed unless things change drastically soon which I doubt will happen.
I think what people are tired of and endlessly pessimistic about is the baby steps of doing something never seems to end. It never gets to the other side of helping the people. People need to see the end goal of where the baby steps are trying to lead us AND see that the likes of Amazon are not able to move faster than those baby steps to nullify the steps.
A lot of the terminally online have been alive long enough to live through multiple examples of how theses kinds of things tend to work. And thus have to ask themselves “why will this time end any different?” Have to do that enough times and it makes you a jaded cynic.
Astroturfing. Amazon has PR teams that come here and sow seeds of “pff it doesn’t even matter” in order to make people cynical and complacent.
Yeeaah nah, I can absolutely promise you that Amazon PR isn’t wasting their time trying to make a few hundred thousand Lemmy users apathetic lol. This is such a crazy level of paranoia
Nice Try, Amazon PR Flunky!
And I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling Lemmings!
Repeat after me: amazon deserves to be broken up!
Also I think amazon is responsible for a measurable spike in inflation
I highly doubt that. Regular people have no real ability to effect the outcome, and the majority of people are saying “there’s no way this absolutely bullshit situation gets fixed” not “what is there to fix? Nothing is wrong!”
No company is paying their PR to say “Yeah [we] are real pieces of shit that need to be hacked up and thrown to the wind but [we] are gonna come out of this just fine so suck our cocks.”
That isn’t how PR works. At least not till they hit dictator levels of power.
PR people aren’t stupid. They know how to muddy the water and make efforts like this seem unimportant because it prevents people from galvanizing. Its the divide and conquer strategy.
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I have 3 children and not only don’t feel regret, I’m quite optimistic. Perpetually-online Doomers are the only ones feeling that way.
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“how dare you be optimistic!” Lol
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Im smarter, more successful, more wealthy, and more involved in climate lobbying than you, so I know I win.
Edit: And more attractive. Oh and my Warhammer 40,000 collection is bigger than yours. Oh and I dont mean to brag but my daughter graduates with honors and got a scholarship to college. Also my wife is a smokeshow with a big ol ass.
Edit: Oh also I have good hair.
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Progress needs actual progress though, a lot of progressive regulation is put up with absolutely no chance (or intention imo) of going through. It’s a bunch of tech regulators with no idea how the tech works throwing out drastic proposals to look heavy handed and tough, because that’s what people want to see.
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It’s “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”
Even if it doesn’t actually result in Amazon being broken up, at least it indicates someone is doing something.
Aren’t they just deciding whether or not to do something via the lawsuit rather than actually for sure doing something yet? ~Strawberry
This is funny, because I literally said “good!” when I read the post title. So I’m right there with you.
Absolutely straight, we need a lot more of this too.
Absolutely. we need a lot more of this too.
Shitting yourself is not better than doing nothing.
Who in the fuck do they think they’re fooling? There hasn’t been any sort of large corporate antitrust breakup since Bell Systems in the early 80s. They expect us to believe that after 40 years of inaction, suddenly they’re going to do their jobs again? This is nothing but pandering to pad approval ratings. I would love to be wrong, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
This smells like fodder just in time for election season
Dude, the 80s wasn’t 40 years ago…
Damn I got old…
The 80s will always be 20 years ago. Y2k was ten years ago, the 2010s didn’t happen and we’re both old.
Damn, there might be a group of us.
The FTC has actually been crazy busy this administration - https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases - they’re really doing far more than at any other point in my lifetime.
I fully support the FTC burning it all down, but then I read this paragraph, and it did not give me confidence: “The FTC has had Amazon in its sights this year. The company recently agreed to a $5.8 million settlement with the Commission over Ring privacy violations that included employees spying on customers. And in June, the FTC sued Amazon over “deceptive” Prime subscription tactics.”
5.8 million is probably Jeff Bezos’s weekly cheese budget. It’s loose change in his car seat.
I fully support the FTC burning it all down
Lol sayin the quiet part out loud
If it’s about burning down the corporate regulatory capture and their stranglehold on markets that killed free market capitalism, then it’s not the quiet part. That’s the literal mission of the FTC that it hasn’t been fulfilling for half a century now.
killed free market capitalism
Citation needed.
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More than half of Amazon’s sales come from third-party merchants who this year started paying an average of over 50% commission on every sale, up from 35.2% in 2016, the result of it raising Fulfillment by Amazon fees every year and increasing storage fees.
While paying for Amazon’s logistics and advertising services is optional, most merchants consider these, especially advertising, a necessary part of doing business. Moreover, the FTC has reportedly amassed evidence that Amazon disadvantages merchants who don’t use the services by giving them lower placements.
Capitalism at its finest… I still remember when Amazon was just a humble online bookstore. How times have changed.
I would be curious if all these influencers pushing FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) where they got paid for the original thought because there is so much junk flowing into Amazon now especially people trying to use Amazon’s logistics.
I can’t imagine there is great margin for a product listed on Amazon if half of every sale is given to Amazon for commission.
No doubt this is slimy, but does it make Amazon a monopoly? It seems like a tough case for the FTC to win.
Contrary to popular corporatist disinformation, anti-trust law isn’t just for literal control-100.000000%-of-the-market “monopolies.” Any company (or colluding group of companies) large enough to unduly influence the market can be subject to it.
That’s why it’s called “anti-trust” law, not “anti-monopoly” law.
Not sure but giving your own products preferential placement on what you present to the public as an open marketplace is an anti-competitive behavior that they have been caught doing.
I’ll believe it when I see it. I work with (not for) Amazon every day at my job and they are miserable e-commerce partners. One change in a code that suddenly and wrongly flags your entire international product offerings and pulls them? Good luck begging the teams of bots to “help” you.
With Amazon you don’t even have the power to handle your own legitimate brand’s data management – changes to our listings go through maybe 20% of the time-- but somehow ASIN hijackers can make wild and dangerous changes to them with little issue. Not only that, but Amazon buttfucks you with fees on top of fees, like FBA fees we pay to entrust them to handle our products and returns well, but are wasted as our products are often stolen, broken, or return scammed.
If you can help it and you like not crying in the bathroom at work, avoid Amazon.
Easily one of the worst places I’ve ever worked for, and I wasn’t even in a warehouse. Highest turnover I’ve ever seen. The reports about the company culture are no joke!
I don’t think you’re the target customer of Amazon. It seems to all be set up for brand-less dayfly companies/scammers reselling shit from AliExpress, not actual long-standing brands.
They do care if you’re a massive brand, to the point where you have a human point of contact to the company, but unfortunately we weren’t at that size. Anything smaller than massive tends to be ignored. Not even sure if they’re still doing that sort of thing, but they did when I started the job.
Doubt. If it somehow works out, do Google next
So perhaps they’ll fart in Amazon’s general direction?
The FTC is getting ready for the big one
Sounds like it lol
Lol. What a crock of shit. If anyone thinks the oligarchs that run this country will allow this to happen you’re smoking rocks.
This country leads the world in corruption & greed. Nothing will change that but this is great click bait.
You think the oligarchs make more or less money when Bezos has a monopoly?
I think it may well happen because the oligarchs want Amazon broken up. Biden did appoint Lina Kahn as chair of the FTC. Kahn has long been vocal that Amazon needs to be broken up.
God we need a trustbuster
Great news! I hope it happens but I won’t be holding my breath. The US has gotten really bad about this kind of action over the past 20 years.
While I am with you on the frustration, I think it’s important to understand why we got to this point. A ton of those anti-trust rules and laws were written a century ago and were around steel, oil and rail. Industries that provided physical good and services to the country. Tech has been able to skirt all of this as the rules were never written for them. Hopefully we see updates to our anti-trust rules and update accordingly. I’d love to take down Amazon, but I also want to prevent others from getting that big ever again.
Closer to 40 years, sorry to say.
Read similar news about meta , google and even microsoft ! Now it feels like a hogwash !
Would be great if the US started regulating big tech as harshly as the EU, let’s see how they like that.
The FTC hasn’t had a spine in decades, I doubt anything will come of this. It would be nice for once if the government actually gave a shit about monopoly busting, but they don’t care anymore. Not when corporations are legally allowed to bribe the ones making legislation, oh and also companies can be people now
The FTC has had a spine since 2020, they have been really busy - https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases
Yeah I see no way this happens, if they wouldn’t involve themselves in Microsoft being a monopoly /anticompetitive they sure as hell ain’t going to combat Amazon
Wasn’t Microsoft convicted of being a monopoly though? I mean, it was overturned, but they did something.
Does this need to happen? By God yes, a thousand times over. Will it actually happen with a positive effect? Big doubt.
