Look, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know anything about anti-trust law that I haven’t read online or see on TV or whatever. But I just read about six articles in the New York Times about Amazon, and all of them have the tone that Amazon is this close to a lawsuit from the Department of Justice or the EU.
I think that’s crazy.
I don’t think it is crazy that governments will be after Amazon — that seems inevitble — I think it is crazy that anyone thinks Amazon is doing anything wrong.
I’m a big fan of Amazon. I shop there. I use their credit card to get discounts on products I buy online and at Whole Foods. Shoot, an Amazon gift card is just about as good as cash as far as I’m concerned. I’m a fanboi, I admit it.
Why? Well, because Amazon is a ridiculously good place to get stuff. It is the first place I go when I want something. It sets the bar for pricing and choice. There’s are reasons for that: It’s cheap. It’s convenient. It’s always there. It’s fast. They deliver to my house, usually the next day. They have terrific user reviews. They deliver great video content into my house. They seem to know what I want before I want it. They give me great, targeted ads for things I’m thinking about buying. It’s just so frigging amazing. Why wouldn’t I feel this way?
Well, some folks don’t agree. One woman, Lina Khan, thinks that Amazon is a monopoly because they are making things cheaper. Huh?
If anti-trust does anything — and I don’t think it should do anything, but that’s another post — it should protect consumers, not competitors. If Amazon provides great products and great services and great prices, everyone is better off.
Amazon is providing incredible value to the marketplace. Sure, they are very likely affecting other retail companies, but guess what: That’s what capitalism is all about. Amazon has built a better mouse-trap, and now the world is beating a path to their door. What a stunning surprise.
I don’t get the angst about what they are doing. They are challenging Google in the advertising space — that is, they are making the advertising market more competitive. They are lowering prices at Whole Foods, while offering discounts to Prime members. They are pressing other retailers like Target and Nordstroms to modernize and provide better service at better prices. This is a bad thing?
Uhm, no, it’s not. It’s how it is supposed to work. Companies compete with each other and make each other better. Competition is the only thing that motivates companies to get better. Amazon is providing a lot of competition, and everyone is better off because of it.
If you want to jump on Amazon about anything, jump on them about the working conditions of their warehouse workers. I don’t know what the overall situation is for sure, but it does seem to be that some workers are not being treated well. If that is the case, then get on Amazon about that, and not with the threat of some government regulation, but with the real threat of not buying from them until things get better and the real threat of bad publicity. That’s what really will motivate them.
They won’t mind government regulation that much as it generally serves merely to make it harder to compete with them. They have the money to deal with onerous government regulation. And upstart competitor does not.
In the end, Amazon provides enormous social value. The company just passed the $1,000,000,000,000 mark in valuation. You don’t get that way buy doing anything other than providing huge social value and giving customers what they want.