The Evil Side Of Amazon’s Unchecked Monopoly
Amazon's dark side defines its business.
February 3, 2022, Los Angeles, CA - Amazon -- same bad dog, same bad behavior. Consequences don't deter the e-commerce juggernaut's retail apocalypse; the unchecked monopoly draws lawsuits and fines while leaving a tsunami of destruction on Amazon third-party sellers, bullied retail partners, crushed manufacturers, and deceived consumers.
Amazon is a destructive mercenary with a strategy to own the infrastructure that other businesses rely on to get to market through three channels: Amazon's retail marketplace, Amazon Prime, and Amazon Web Services. Amazon's practices create a stranglehold on retail business that destroys competition and erodes jobs.
As retailers go out of business, small businesses feel they must use Amazon to sell their goods while Amazon charges them fees for advertising and for selling. Amazon can treat sellers in this manner because it knows that sellers have no other realistic alternatives to using its platform.
Amazon isn't just listing products on its website; it's on a quest to sell all things to all people through merchandise and pharmaceutical sales, personal data mining, entertainment, and company takeovers. The allegations against Amazon range from the individual (the mistreatment of workers and differential pricing to customers), the market (anti-competitive behavior including the suppression of competitor products), and social (tax avoidance) -- suggesting an organization that not only lacks a moral compass but could be well on its way to a state of ‘profound immorality’ says Professor Sarah Kaine.
Marketplace practices
Amazon recently published its chest-pounding and self-congratulatory "Comprehensive Brand Protection Report" and spokesperson comments. Amazon claims they prevented over 6 million new selling accounts, stopping bad actors before they published a single product for sale, and blocked more than 10 billion suspected bad listings before they were published. This is not a sign of efficacy but a call for Amazon (and lawmakers) to review what business Amazon is actually supporting.
Business practices
Amazon's self-preferencing predatory pricing and exclusionary conduct exploit their power to become even more dominant and unaccountable to anyone but themselves, while ravaging dozens of businesses. Undeterred by pending legislation, executive orders, hundreds of lawsuits, and just plain common sense and ethics, the website grabs the retail dollars previously injected into local economies.
Amazon tops the list of "Most evil" tech companies -- those doing humanity the most harm, e.g. unauthorized surveillance, data dumps, and secretly selling us -- yes, you and me -- as a commodity to other companies. (observer.com)
Amazon is aggressive about dodging taxes and getting everyone else to subsidize its inevitable growth through tax breaks. Amazon’s original business model involved legally dodging the obligation to collect sales taxes, and then using the resulting price advantage to gain market share. It did this by locating its first warehouses in very few states, most of which do not have a sales tax, and then shipping its goods to customers in all the other states that do tax retail sales. This enabled Amazon to not have “nexus” in sales-tax states, so those states could not compel it to collect the tax; Texas alone came after Amazon for $269 million in uncollected sales taxes. Gizmodo
The powers that be at Amazon have often attempted to sweep these stories under the rug, but with social media and the Internet, squashing the stories has become difficult. After all, with all the really shady things going on inside Amazon, the public ought to know! Whistleblowers, step forward.
The House Judiciary Committee recently published its bipartisan investigation into the state of big-tech competitive practices, including Amazon. The results of the investigation are shocking, concluding, "Our economy and democracy are at stake." By controlling access to markets, the tech giants can pick winners and losers throughout our economy. They not only wield tremendous power, but they also abuse it by charging exorbitant fees, imposing oppressive contract terms, and extracting valuable data from the people and businesses that rely on them. They have surveilled other companies to identify potential rivals, and have ultimately bought out, copied, or cut off their competitive threats.
Regulators and politicians say its tactics are unfair for a company its size and potentially illegal. Amazon executives often initiated efforts like these on their own, though in some cases examined by The Wall Street Journal, Jeff Bezos himself was involved, according to former Amazon executives and internal emails. Jeff Bezos has stepped down as Amazon CEO amid the biggest regulatory challenges in Amazon's history and multiple federal investigations into its competitive practices. Senior VP Jeff Wilke and several other executives retired.
Amazon is not a better marketplace that serves consumers; Amazon is an arena of creative destruction, leaving consumers on their own to sort the legitimate, honest sellers from all the bad actors under an umbrella of legal immunity. They are voracious churners of counterfeit, fraudulent items, and scams, indifferent to the damage they cause to consumers, legitimate sellers, and manufacturers while fulfilling their desire to be the sole source of items for purchase. There is no incentive to clean up their website -- they make too much money.
While Congress is engaged in partisan bickering, America is being destroyed by China, unregulated e-commerce, and big tech. Amazon may be just another massive corporate entity to feel a vague sense of guilt about giving your money to, but consumers have a choice.
Additional research material:
The Heavy Hand of Amazon: A Seller Not A Neutral Platform
Edward J. Janger & Aaron D. Twerski,
14 Brook. J. Corp. Fin. & Com. L. 259 (2020).
How Amazon Wins: By Steam Rolling Rivals and Partners
Dana Mattioli, The Wall Street Journal
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