We can hope...

[R. C.]

FTC readies lawsuit that could break up Amazon

"The complaint is likely to focus on challenges to Amazon Prime ..."

"Amazon Prime, which began as a subscription for unlimited free shipping, is also expected to be a target, some of the people said. Prime has evolved to include books, music and video streaming. The FTC is concerned that the bundle of services is used to illegally cement the company’s market power."


R.C.

[cecilia_writer]

Oh please, no. I use all these parts of Prime and I'm sure they would cost more if I had to pay for each thing separately (and it would be a lot clunkier).

[Jeff Tanyard]

The salient quote from the article:

The FTC lost its bid to block Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of Activision last week, which came months after another loss in its case to block Meta’s acquisition of a popular virtual reality app. The spate of high-profile losses has amped up pressure on the FTC to bring a successful case against Amazon.

This has all the hallmarks of an agency desperate to save face and grasping at any available straw in the attempt.

That doesn't mean the suit will fail.  It just means that it's probably pretty flimsy and its odds of success are low.

[cuberoute]

France blocked some exclusivity nonsense Apple tried to pull. It's a shame the US can't get their head straight about monopoly and monopsony.

It's so bad that the original AT&T breakup likely wouldn't even happen today. Google has been cruising along with 90% web search market share and barely a whisper from regulators and lawmakers... despite the fact they still have significant powers just sitting up on the shelf.

The destruction of it all came from a perverted ideology of "consumer harm" that pervaded courts, and then lawmakers, and now not even a move can be made unless it fulfils an extremely narrow and ill-defined precept.

We can live in hope of course. Amazon absolutely should be broken into multiple pieces. Google too. So many others. Market concentration is at its root a serious harm to consumers, the sellers, farmers, makers, etc. So much stuff just can't even be made or allowed to exist because of market concentration.

[Bill Hiatt]

Yes, there's been some backsliding from the original intent of the antitrust legislation.

[writeway]

  I have no faith at all this is going to happen and as a Prime Member, I spend too much money a year to have the FTC mucking it up. They're concerned about Amazon's power? Uh, they're about 20 years too late!

[writeway]

Oh please, no. I use all these parts of Prime and I'm sure they would cost more if I had to pay for each thing separately (and it would be a lot clunkier).

This. Yeah, leave Prime alone. The FTC didn't give a damn about Amazon taking over the world for the last 20 years, why now?

[Post-Crisis D]

I dropped Prime when they went from $79/year to $99/year and I haven't missed it.  I'm not paying for a bunch of other stuff I'll never use and I find I get better deals on other websites.  I went from ordering from Amazon on a regular basis to, well, I last ordered something this past May (but nothing since) and, if you exclude paperback copies of my books, my last purchase before that was in early 2020.

So, yeah, Amazon could be sued into oblivion or drop off the face of the Earth and probably the only thing I'd notice is no more Amazon trucks on the roads.

[Bill Hiatt]

Keeping in mind that Amazon made modern self publishing possible, I don't mind if it gets reined in a bit, but I'm not rooting for total disaster.

Say Amazon ceased to exist. In the short term, most of us would experience a drop in sales. Presumably, ardent book buyers would go to other sites. But since most of those sites opened up to self-publishers after Amazon did, not before, presumably as an attempt to blunt one of Amazon's competitive advantages. Would they continue offering self publishing options if Amazon ceased to exist? I'm not at all sure that's the case.

[Post-Crisis D]

Say Amazon ceased to exist. In the short term, most of us would experience a drop in sales. Presumably, ardent book buyers would go to other sites. But since most of those sites opened up to self-publishers after Amazon did, not before, presumably as an attempt to blunt one of Amazon's competitive advantages. Would they continue offering self publishing options if Amazon ceased to exist? I'm not at all sure that's the case.

Would it matter?  Let's say Amazon goes away.  I wouldn't think B&N and similar sites would drop self-publishers.  But, let's say they did.  Amazon's gone then B&N and Apple drop self-publishers.  Would Kobo do so as well?  I just don't think so.  I think someone is going to try to take advantage of Amazon's absence.  But, let's say all the big sites drop self-publishers.

In that scenario, I could see maybe someone like Bookfunnel moving into the void.  Plus, all the smaller sites are going to really push to jump into that space.

The Kindle is gone.  The Nook is gone.  Let's say Kobo too.  Are any of the smaller sites going to sell an ereader?  Possibly but doubtful.  Smartphones, iPads, Android tablets, etc. are all widely available.  The smaller sites would probably just build reading apps.  They don't need to sell a device when devices are readily available.  Now, as they grow, maybe they'll release an eInk reader to fill the gap but who knows.

I imagine a lot of authors will just sell direct from their websites.  Before Amazon, non-fiction authors would sell books as PDFs from their sites (or from marketplaces designed for that).  Clickbank was (is?) a popular one.  Plus it had an affiliate program.  Of course, fiction wasn't a big seller that route but don't sites like DriveThruFiction still sell PDFs?  And, these days, ePub is a popular option.  There are also PDFs sized for mobile.  Project Gutenberg, which does public domain books, offers books in HTML5, EPUB3, EPUB and plain text formats.  Download or read on their website.  You can download and read it in a browser, a reader app that supports epub, or anything that will open a text file.  Bottom line is that there are plenty of options.  Authors could do the same.  Offer epub, PDF and print.  Also, you could let people that bought the book read it directly on your site.

People are more accustomed to reading books on their devices than they were 10 or 20 years ago.  And now there are more options and choices.

Also, I think "self-publishing" has lost a lot of the vanity press connotations over the past several years, so there is less reluctance to buying self-published books.

So, were Amazon to cease to exist for whatever reason, I believe there'd still be ways for self-publishers to get books to readers.

[Jeff Tanyard]

As a customer, I would absolutely miss Amazon.  They don't always have the best prices--for example, Harbor Freight reliably beats them on hand tool prices--but they definitely have the best selection.  If you need the most obscure oddball thing, then Amazon will probably have it.

And, of course, Amazon's customer service is top-notch.  It's a lot easier to buy from Amazon if you know you can return an unsatisfactory product without any hassle.  People will pay a premium for that kind of peace of mind.

As long as the e-commerce store is bundled up with the AWS money-printing machine, the store should continue on even though it loses money.  If the two are ever split off from one another, though, and the store has to stand on its own feet, then the store's days are probably numbered.

[cecilia_writer]

I would definitely miss Amazon both as a customer and a seller. I joined Prime years ago, mostly to cope with the expense of my son' buying books from them for university, and as he still lives with me we still share the Prime benefits (for postage and video, that is, as we have the same address but we do have individual Amazon accounts) and he buys grown-up things like air-friers and doesn't have to pay any postage. They have a great delivery service around here, much better than other companies.
I would find it difficult to browse in a real world bookshop now and I agree with Jeff about the selection available on Amazon, though they haven't necessarily made it any easier to find the book you want recently.
I don't want to spend time (and possibly extra money) buying books on multiple websites, although I do sell on others and actually one month recently I found I made a little more on the non-Amazon sites, though that was a one-off.

[LilyBLily]

In a forced breakup, Amazon sells the bookstore part to one of its current bookstore execs, who starts it up all over again to sell cheap ebooks to a customer base that Amazon also sells to that new company. Amazon might even be the paid provider of server/cloud space to that new company. As well, Amazon might loan the exec the seed money to start the company, too; it's been done before.

Some entity would have to provide continuity for Kindles in any breakup. The customer base is too large to be ignored and left as orphans. Being orphaned has happened with numerous bits of tech in recent years, but never with such a huge customer base.

[Post-Crisis D]

As long as the e-commerce store is bundled up with the AWS money-printing machine, the store should continue on even though it loses money.  If the two are ever split off from one another, though, and the store has to stand on its own feet, then the store's days are probably numbered.

That is, or perhaps should be, part of the FTC's complaint.  As long as Amazon's store is subsidized by AWS, they don't have to be profitable.  They can lose money.  Competitors have to make a profit.  If Amazon can outlast those competitors, when the competition is gone, are we all going to pretend Amazon is going to continue to allow its store to lose money?  Or is it going to jack up prices and get back all those past years of lost profits?

[Bill Hiatt]

The competitive ideal is a level playing field. Certainly, not having to make a profit is a violation of that ideal.

That said, larger corporations, at least if they have greater profit margins, are always capable of of squeezing smaller competitors by selling at lower prices. Amazon is perhaps a more egregious example of that, but it is sadly far from being the only example.

Some of the problems other businesses have also developed from non-Amazon issues. Consumers have been shifting more to online shopping over time. Once upon a time, shopping malls became attractive because of the idea of one-stop shopping, among other things. Online shopping at a store like Amazon has the advantage of one-stop shopping plus the convenience of being able to do it from home. Even if Amazon had never existed, some other retailer or retailers would have moved into that space.

The last time I checked, 1/3 of the malls in America had shut down completely. Many of the survivors worked by converting part of their space from retail to rental space for meetings and community events, as well as office space for various kinds of businesses. Now, instead of one-stop shopping, we often have one-stop errands--some shopping, mixed with banking, a dental appointment, and a quick visit to your lawyer.

80% of new small business fail in the first five years. Amazon is certainly part of the problem, but not all of it.

[Mark Gardner]

*shudder* B&N is so terrible at their printing, I'd hate to have to deal with them printing *all* my books instead of just Erika's hardcover.

[She-la-te-da]

My guess is, it's too late to break it up. Should have done it decades ago, as others have said.

I like shopping at Amazon. I like being on my son's Prime account. I like free shipping. I shop around and find the best price, including shipping so Amazon doesn't always get my money.

I find as I'm getting older that I don't like going to multiple stores looking for things, especially craft supplies. And the easiest craft store to get to here is Hobby Lobby, as Michaels is in a mall that was designed with the worst entrance/exit system I've seen. Someday people are going to start having wrecks and running over pedestrians.