Stocks

[Yammer]

Well of course you can make any type of legal case on anything under the sun, but Microsoft had a real monopoly back then, and I don’t think they denied the fact that they were pushing and manipulating people into their browser and stuff, and even then, the conservative right (current congress?) sided with Microsoft.

Fast forward to today, Amazon doesn’t really have a monopoly in retail, again check out Walmarts revenue vs. amazons and tell me who has the monopoly.

They might control online retail, but unlike Microsoft back in the day when they literally slowed down their competitors browsers on a platform they owned in order to push their own, Amazon simply provides the consumer with a better experience on the public web, amazon doesn’t own the web (ask Al Gore!) the way Microsoft owned windows back then.

Macy’s has the same right to operate online, Jet.com actually did that and now that Walmart owns them they’re giving amazon a run for their money,

So amazon doesn’t manipulate nada.

Again, was Apple violating anti trust because they provided a better product and crushed Nokia? No. Same with Amazon.

It’s a leveled playing field.

1) Amazon undercuts their own sellers using the data to sell bestsellers. They then undercut the sellers price since they don't have the Amazon fees.

2) Tax enforcement

3) Alexa war with Google.

4) Amazon web services ( which many have claimed that they were mining the data )

5) Publishing/books. ( There were issues in the past  (a few years ago with a dispute with the  # 3 publisher a few years ago

6) Workers rights.


These are just off the top of my head. Again not to take them out but to make their lives misrable

[Ephraimh]

Until everyone is quashed and Amazon raises their prices to start making money on ecommerce.

How will they then stop you from selling on the open web at a cheaper price? They don’t own the web the way Microsoft owned Windows.

How about comparing apples to apples: Amazon's % of total ecommerce sales vs Walmart's % of total B&M sales.
Percentage wise Amazon blows Walmart away.

Good point.
But do you really manipulate something when you only manipulate a very small portion of an industry as a whole?

Just because someone can open up an online shop in 5 minutes does not mean they can compete. Amazon Prime/FBA is a true force to reckon with. Currently ~50% of shopping searches START on Amazon. If in 5 years from now Walmart does not succeed in its online battle against Amazon I think we will see an anti-trust suit case opened against Amazon.

Maybe.
But again, if Walmart loses the online war it’s because they didn’t please the consumer on the same level amazon did, and that would be their own problem, not because Walmart was unable to compete, the World Wide Web is a leveled playing field unlike windows OS back in the day.

[Ephraimh]

1) Amazon undercuts their own sellers using the data to sell bestsellers. They then undercut the sellers price since they don't have the Amazon fees.

2) Tax enforcement

3) Alexa war with Google.

4) Amazon web services ( which many have claimed that they were mining the data )

5) Publishing/books. ( There were issues in the past  (a few years ago with a dispute with the  # 3 publisher a few years ago

6) Workers rights.


These are just off the top of my head. Again not to take them out but to make their lives misrable

1. What stops the seller from selling on Walmart.com?

2. Ok. But check out GE and their tax situation, it’s the way capitalism is, it’s the way it is, nothing to do with anti trust.

3. Ok. And what now? How about Samsung’s war with Apple?

4. Microsoft is winning the cloud computing war right now.

5. Meh

6. Also meh

[yuneeq]

How will they then stop you from selling on the open web at a cheaper price? They don’t own the web the way Microsoft owned Windows.Good point.

They have an extremely efficient fulfillment network and discounted shipping fees that a startup can never compete with.

But do you really manipulate something when you only manipulate a very small portion of an industry as a whole?Maybe.

Everyone knows that online will not be a very small portion in the future. Why wait for it to become an unstoppable behemoth? From the article I posted: "pegging anticompetitive harm to high prices and/or lower output—while disregarding the market structure and competitive process that give rise to this market power—restricts intervention to the moment when a company has already acquired sufficient dominance to distort competition. This approach is misguided because it is much easier to promote competition at the point when a market risks becoming less competitive than it is at the point when a market is no longer competitive."

But again, if Walmart loses the online war it’s because they didn’t please the consumer on the same level amazon did, and that would be their own problem, not because Walmart was unable to compete, the World Wide Web is a leveled playing field unlike windows OS back in the day.

Walmart rose to dominance because they made their warehouses and distribution centers extremely efficient for B&M retail (similar to why Amazon dominates ecom). Implementing an online strategy on top of the existing infrastructure is extremely difficult, and requires either using inefficient infrastructure or building out completely new infrastructure just to start catching up. That's why you should ignore their B&M sales when discussing online. They're still figuring out online, and will need more than just money to compete.

Amazon is trying to build out the retail infrastructure for every retailer online, which in itself is fine. But since they are competing as sellers themselves, and they give themselves major advantages, it raises questions whether we're heading to a future where Amazon cannot be competed against.

[Ephraimh]

They have an extremely efficient fulfillment network and discounted shipping fees that a startup can never compete with.

Everyone knows that online will not be a very small portion in the future. Why wait for it to become an unstoppable behemoth? From the article I posted: "pegging anticompetitive harm to high prices and/or lower output—while disregarding the market structure and competitive process that give rise to this market power—restricts intervention to the moment when a company has already acquired sufficient dominance to distort competition. This approach is misguided because it is much easier to promote competition at the point when a market risks becoming less competitive than it is at the point when a market is no longer competitive."

Walmart rose to dominance because they made their warehouses and distribution centers extremely efficient for B&M retail (similar to why Amazon dominates ecom). Implementing an online strategy on top of the existing infrastructure is extremely difficult, and requires either using inefficient infrastructure or building out completely new infrastructure just to start catching up. That's why you should ignore their B&M sales when discussing online. They're still figuring out online, and will need more than just money to compete.

Amazon is trying to build out the retail infrastructure for every retailer online, which in itself is fine. But since they are competing as sellers themselves, and they give themselves major advantages, it raises questions whether we're heading to a future where Amazon cannot be competed against.

I didn’t read the article yet, but the way I look at it is, every industry has its leader and then the competitors. some with bigger gaps some with smaller gaps, 3 examples:

Airlines no real leader small gaps.
Visa vs MC medium gap.
Nike vs UA huge gap.

I’d put Amazon vs Walmart and Target in the Nike territory, huge gap, but ability to compete, might be super hard to compete and the gap will always be huge, but so what? Try opening a brand to compete with Nike let me know how that goes.

You couldn’t compete with Microsoft when the only place to run a browser was on their OS. the gap was 99.99 to.01 with those other operating systems.

[ExGingi]

I have no position (long or short) in FB nor am I a user (other than WhatsApp, where I don't see any monetization).

Remember US Robotics? How about Research In Motion?

Those companies had products/platforms that at their time were ubiquitous, and ruled the market. There were other players in the social media space (pun intended) that many can barely remember.

Unlike Google (Alphabet) that is truly ubiquitous, and does everything to get into everyone's life, FB seems to be limited to its platform(s) of which one is either a user, or isn't.

Remember the outcry when people were losing their Google accounts? You think anyone would really care that much if they lost access to FB? Especially now?

I don't know what will happen. I am unfamiliar with the management team. I don't really follow the company. But I will not be surprised if a few short years from now it will be a memory like Palm Pilots (or should I say Pilot 3, which IINM was the last one produced under the US Robotics brand) or Blackberries.

I guess I should have been mentioning Moshiach in my post.

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/3/28/17174080/palm-smartphone-verizon-tcl-android

[yuneeq]

I didn’t read the article yet, but the way I look at it is, every industry has its leader and then the competitors. some with bigger gaps some with smaller gaps, 3 examples:

Airlines no real leader small gaps.
Visa vs MC medium gap.
Nike vs UA huge gap.

I’d put Amazon vs Walmart and Target in the Nike territory, huge gap, but ability to compete, might be super hard to compete and the gap will always be huge, but so what? Try opening a brand to compete with Nike let me know how that goes.

You couldn’t compete with Microsoft when the only place to run a browser was on their OS. the gap was 99.99 to.01 with those other operating systems.

 Bad example - forgot about Adidas? 2nd - Adidas and UA are already successful athletic brands and there’s not much barrier to entry. If Nike decides to hike their prices and become uncompetitive they will lose market share very quickly. OTOH, Walmart is not an online success story yet, and the barrier to entry is extremely high. My argument above was that if Walmart online fails, Amazon will probably get hit with antitrust suit. Not necessarily will they lose though. Dark horse to be aware of: Google with their new Shopping Actions program can hit Amazon very hard if rolled out properly.

Ps. The Microsoft antitrust was that they bundled their own browser and made it part of the OS, other browsers were still available on Windows.

[Ephraimh]

Bad example - forgot about Adidas? 2nd - Adidas and UA are already successful athletic brands and there’s not much barrier to entry. If Nike decides to hike their prices and become uncompetitive they will lose market share very quickly. OTOH, Walmart is not an online success story yet, and the barrier to entry is extremely high. My argument above was that if Walmart online fails, Amazon will probably get hit with antitrust suit. Not necessarily will they lose though. Dark horse to be aware of: Google with their new Shopping Actions program can hit Amazon very hard if rolled out properly.

Ps. The Microsoft antitrust was that they bundled their own browser and made it part of the OS, other browsers were still available on Windows.

If you consider Adidas when evaluating Nike you should consider baba when evaluating amazon, pretty successful and established as well... I was just focusing on US competition.

And considering what Walmart and target already do in the online space you think that if amazon were to hike their prices and become uncompetitive they will not lose market share to the smaller ones? Of course they will, Walmart is as a competitive stick to amazon as UA is to Nike, in a way even stronger since there’s no brand loyalty involved.

[TBD]

Everything nice said but the maid difference is... That MSFT back than as well GOOG now are cash cows generating billions of dollars in profit so even after the fines on GOOG or the Anti Trust by MSFT they are just slowing down and not continuing full force vs, AMZN which needs to continue full force in order to justify theit stock price trading at 100's of multiples So even if it wont bankrupt them it could have a HUUUUGE inpact on stock price
(I dont predict it but.....)

[aygart]

And here I remember when Adidas and Converse were the $10 sneaker you bought in Caldor or Bradlee's.

[Ephraimh]

And here I remember when Adidas and Converse were the $10 sneaker you bought in Caldor or Bradlee's.

Today you buy the knock off brand on... Alibaba

It was a global economy then and it is one now, just depends what you wanna look at

[Dan]

15% off Amazon with code AMZN

[davidrotts63]

15% off Amazon with code AMZN

Lol. Are you going to put a stop loss now?

[Ephraimh]

15% off Amazon with code AMZN when ordering through DonaldJTrump.com

Ha!
FTFY.

[Mordyk]

 my friend had a TSLA $240 put that he bought last week. i told him he was crazy. he sold it on Monday:o

[Ephraimh]

Everything nice said but the maid difference is... That MSFT back than as well GOOG now are cash cows generating billions of dollars in profit so even after the fines on GOOG or the Anti Trust by MSFT they are just slowing down and not continuing full force vs, AMZN which needs to continue full force in order to justify theit stock price trading at 100's of multiples So even if it wont bankrupt them it could have a HUUUUGE inpact on stock price
(I dont predict it but.....)

AMZNs birth control slipped last quarter and they generated $2 Billion in profits by total accident.

They generated $60 Billion in revenue in 12 weeks, they have no issue to turn on the cash machine if their existence depended on it.

[yesitsme]

so now its prime time to invest in amzn?

[Mordyk]

AMZNs birth control slipped last quarter and they generated $2 Billion in profits by total accident.

They generated $60 Billion in revenue in 12 weeks, they have no issue to turn on the cash machine if their existence depended on it.

love this comment

[avromie7]

Dark horse to be aware of: Google with their new Shopping Actions program can hit Amazon very hard if rolled out properly.

Someone can always come in and offer a better product, if amazon raises prices and their CS goes to hell, someone else will come in. If no one else can come in it proves that they are providing the best service, because there is only so much they can cut their CS or raise their prices before someone else will come in and compete.

[TBD]

AMZNs birth control slipped last quarter and they generated $2 Billion in profits by total accident.

They generated $60 Billion in revenue in 12 weeks, they have no issue to turn on the cash machine if their existence depended on it.

They could but if they stop expanding and have a 20B yearly profit they will get a 10 or 15 P/E ratio with a market cap of 200B-300B and a 7% increase each year .. and they will reach the 1T mark the year Madoff leaves prison.... to justify current valuations and more they MUST continue expansion AND turn in profits