How Amazon Became Corporate America's Nightmare (bloomberg.com)

Zorro shares a report from Bloomberg that details Amazon's rapid growth in the last three years: Amazon makes no sense. It's the most befuddling, illogically sprawling, and -- to a growing sea of competitors -- flat-out terrifying company in the world. It sells soap and produces televised soap operas. It sells complex computing horsepower to the U.S. government and will dispatch a courier to deliver cold medicine on Christmas Eve. It's the third-most-valuable company on Earth, with smaller annual profits than Southwest Airlines Co., which as of this writing ranks 426th. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is the world's richest person, his fortune built on labor conditions that critics say resemble a Dickens novel with robots, yet he has enough mainstream appeal to play himself in a Super Bowl commercial. Amazon was born in cyberspace, but it occupies warehouses, grocery stores, and other physical real estate equivalent to 90 Empire State Buildings, with a little left over. The company has grown so large and difficult to comprehend that it's worth taking stock of why and how it's left corporate America so thoroughly freaked out. Executives at the biggest U.S. companies mentioned Amazon thousands of times during investor calls last year, according to transcripts -- more than President Trump and almost as often as taxes. Other companies become verbs because of their products: to Google or to Xerox. Amazon became a verb because of the damage it can inflict on other companies. To be Amazoned means to have your business crushed because the company got into your industry. And fear of being Amazoned has become such a defining feature of commerce, it's easy to forget the phenomenon has arisen mostly in about three years.

Comments

mazon will crumble

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon spreads itself, too fast, to thin

It has lost its focus

If this fast-pace spread does not stop, Amazon will implode from within

Re: mazon will crumble

[Anonymous Coward]

It is already imploding. Just the other day went for an interview there - five SJW buttholes didn't even read my resume. The whole interviewing at amazon is a farce to hide an ulterior motive - outsource jobs.

Re: mazon will crumble

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell would you even want to work there?

Re: mazon will crumble

[lgw]

It is already imploding. Just the other day went for an interview there - five SJW buttholes didn't even read my resume. The whole interviewing at amazon is a farce to hide an ulterior motive - outsource jobs.

That sort of interview normal for technical jobs in general. The point of your resume is to get a phone call, and it really has no value beyond that - it has done its job and gotten past the arbitrary whims of HR. Sometimes a manager will grill you on something specific on your resume just to see if you're blatantly lying, but that's as far as that goes.

The actual interview process for tech in general is "OK, now prove you've got the chops". There are no end of pretty resumes, but nothing in a resume actually means you can do the work.

That being said, Amazon's interview process for developers seems to err on the side of too many soft-skill questions and a lack of deep probing of actual coding talent. It's the opposite of the problem Google has, in my experience, with Google interviews being 100% technical and not so much as a back-and-forth design discussion to measure soft skills (Facebook was the same extreme as Google, but I last talked to them over 5 years ago, so maybe they've changed).

Re:mazon will crumble

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon spreads itself, too fast, to thin

I seem to recall that you can never be too rich or too thin. So I think they are OK as they have both in spades.

Re: mazon will crumble

[Anonymous Coward]

It is already imploding. Just the other day went for an interview there - five SJW buttholes didn't even read my resume. The whole interviewing at amazon is a farce to hide an ulterior motive - outsource jobs.

"I can't get a jerb because oh evil SJWs everywhere"

Fucking beyond pathetic.

Re: mazon will crumble

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation:

You fucked up on your interview.

Relentless

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, I think a lot of this is because of Bezos himself. As soon as I heard over a decade ago that he owns relentless.com, I often tongue-in-cheek wondered if he would end up being the richest man in the world. Well, surprisingly it came true.

Like Sears

[Anonymous Coward]

In its heyday, Sears Roebuck was a powerful mail order house on the American landscape. Now, Amazon has taken over that role on a more global scale with more up-to-date technology. Yet, back then, Sears didn't become a verb, despite its size.

Re:Like Sears

[Anonymous Coward]

"sears" was already a verb.

What else would you expect?

[sehlat]

Bezos clearly does NOT subscribe to the "maximize shareholder value" religion, and is not running Amazon as the typical modern "paper clip maximizer" that so many corporations have become. Instead, he emphasizes quality service, low prices, and acts (horrors!) as if customers are people and not simply cows to be milked.

The result is, if I need something, I check Amazon FIRST, and frequently last, as well.

Modern corporations would do well to learn from Amazon, instead of quaking in terror.

Re:What else would you expect?

[jenningsthecat]

Bezos clearly does NOT subscribe to the "maximize shareholder value" religion, and is not running Amazon as the typical modern "paper clip maximizer" that so many corporations have become. Instead, he emphasizes quality service, low prices, and acts (horrors!) as if customers are people and not simply cows to be milked.

The result is, if I need something, I check Amazon FIRST, and frequently last, as well.

Modern corporations would do well to learn from Amazon, instead of quaking in terror.

I had difficulty deciding whether to mod you up or reply instead. At first I wasn't sure why you were modded down; but on re-reading your post it does seem just a little bit trollish. Nevertheless, I think you're making a valid point. Maybe the downmod was a response to your implicit support for ruthless sharks. But as far as I'm concerned the other corps that are so afraid of Amazon, are all ruthless sharks themselves. And since I can't fight the ruthless sharks, I'm happy to grab a bag of popcorn and watch the show.

FWIW I try to support local bricks-and-mortar stores; but increasingly I simply can't find the stuff I'm looking for anywhere BUT Amazon, at ANY price. And among the few companies from which I've ordered stuff on the Web, Amazon's customer service is hands-down the best. I mistrust them because of their size and power, and because of what I've heard about how they treat their employees. I'd love to hate them, but somehow I just can't. Some ruthless sharks are just a bit lovable, I guess...

Re:What else would you expect?

[darkain]

They're all sharks, but Bezos at least is a multi-disciplinary trained shark. This is where Amazon is succeeding where others are faltering. For instance, Bezos and other managers at Amazon take a 2-day call center training class annually. This puts the CEO and management much closer to the customers than pretty much any other major company in America. And this really does show. Sometimes things go wrong. How long does it take to fix them? If a Prime shipment is late, contact Amazon, no questions asked, and you'll get a free month of Prime. Due to a bug in Google's Profile Fi web site, my name was showing up wrong and was not editable. Contacting customer service, it took SIX WEEKS to get this resolved. There was a bug in geolocating about 6 miles of road in my city, this issue took over a year to resolve. And these are just some quick example, the list however really is endless. Other companies make it impossible to resolve disputes, whereas Amazon tries to resolve things as effortlessly as possible. This makes a world of difference.

Re:What else would you expect?

[lgw]

Bezos clearly does NOT subscribe to the "maximize shareholder value" religion, and is not running Amazon as the typical modern "paper clip maximizer" that so many corporations have become. Instead, he emphasizes quality service, low prices, and acts (horrors!) as if customers are people and not simply cows to be milked.

The result is, if I need something, I check Amazon FIRST, and frequently last, as well.

Modern corporations would do well to learn from Amazon, instead of quaking in terror.

When Amazon was young, they had the best returns policy around and you could actually talk to a human if you had too. They seem to be less friendly these days (no doubt there was tons of abuse of their trust), which is a shame. I still check there first, but I worry about anything that I might need to return.

Sadly, they do seem to view their employees as resources to be exploited - "Dickensian with robots" indeed (wasn't there a Futurama about that?).

Re:What else would you expect?

[micahraleigh]

Amazon has a high share price. Claiming it's the opposite with quotes undermines your point.

Re: What else would you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird. I have come to do the opposite. Amazon usually has the worst prices. Either it doesnâ(TM)t have the item at all or only from those 3rd party sellers that grossly overcharge. Then thereâ(TM)s also the actual proper small or specialty store owner who happens to sell through amazon as well as their own store. Usually on amazon stuff costs more than in their own store because of the amazon fee they pay. Iâ(TM)ve gone to then just ordering directly from those smaller stores leaving amazon by the wayside.

What really pissed me off about amazon is Prime. It used to be possible to get something overnight if you bought early enough (talking Germany here where Amazon has its warehouse smack middle of the country right by one north south Autobahn and one east west Autobahn.

Since the introduction of Prime I now have to pay for prime for that and they artificially delay the sending out of items for non prime customers. I call BS on customer friendliness instead of milking them.

Re:What else would you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

> If a Prime shipment is late, contact Amazon, no questions asked, and you'll get a free month of Prime.

This must be only for certain customers. I've had several late Prime shipment this year (it's only March) and all I get is "we're sorry that happened to you. We do our best to deliver on time." bull$#!T email.

Re:What else would you expect?

[Rob Y.]

The problem with Amazon is that their business model seems to be based on pricing all competition out of the market. Who knows how far down the line it will be before that happens - but nobody can say what happens then. Maybe it's benign - and even Bezos doesn't know where he's heading with this. After all, his loss-leader retail business has built a powerful cloud services business that's as cost-effective as anybody else's. Brick-and-morter retail may merely be collateral damage (see Toys 'R Us bankruptcy story, also on today's SlashDot front page), or maybe the model is to wait for them to fail and then make up for the years of near-non-profitability with big price increases.

Anyway, my point is that your points about Amazon's skill at their business and keeping customers happy are well taken, but they don't address the real threat Amazon poses. And that is that in terms of profitability, they've been operating a pyramid scheme with their investors for more than a decade now. Which gives them enormously valuable stock with which to keep expanding. Presumably those investors are counting on that not to continue forever - i.e., for profitability to come into line with the valuation. Do you think at some point they'll reach such a scale that that can happen without sharp price increases? Or will the stock just tank, leaving Bezos as the benign emperor of a giant, self-sustaining megabusiness based on a low-price model forever? I guess that depends on whether this has all been built by siphoning off value from the stock - or whether there's an enormous debt load that would bring the company down if it continued the current business model indefinitely.

Re:What else would you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon doesn't pay taxes. Bezos is a sociopath who would rather station ambulances outside of fullfillment centers to attend to heat stroke victims, than provide air conditioning.

YOUR GRATEST HERO!

Re:What else would you expect?

[koick]

...increasingly I simply can't find the stuff I'm looking for anywhere BUT Amazon, at ANY price.

Not long ago I was looking to get a vogmask (pollution filter mask) before a trip. The trip was less than 2 days away, and so even overnight shipping wasn't an option since I would be leaving before a package would arrive where I live. I spent an hour looking for it locally (Denver, not a small town), but just couldn't. I kinda freaked out thinking about all the other things that are now out of reach of being able to drive to a store and pick up. At least I now know where I'll be heading to loot when the zombie outbreak begins: my local Amazon fulfillment center!

Re:What else would you expect?

[koick]

Due to a bug in Google's Profile Fi...

Google's technicians/support are famous for being incredibly hard to get a hold of. We are not their customers, the advertisers are.... I also recently had issues with resolving things with Google's Project Fi, but due to this reputation I at least expected them ahead of time. In my case I needed a replacement phone shipped. It took 4 days just to resolve their problem that I had ordered from store.google.com instead of fi.google.com (essentially totally different entities). When I asked the tech, due to all the delays, to call down to the warehouse to ship the device via priority, he told me he had "no way of calling them, don't even have a number". I asked for a supervisor, but he told me they would say the same thing. That company's left hand has no idea what its right hand is doing.

Re:What else would you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Due to a bug in Google's Profile Fi...

Google's technicians/support are famous for being incredibly hard to get a hold of. We are not their customers, the advertisers are....

FWIW, I recently became a Google Fi customer. There was a delay porting my wife's phone number in, so I requested a call-back. They called me about a minute later & the issue was resolved in the next minute of two.

Hopefully, they'll continue to improve the scope of their customer service so that you'd receive the same excellent service I did.

Re:What else would you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

they make 'murika greater than drumpf ever wished he's done. i believe thats part of the reason he doesn't like bezos, wapo notwithstanding.

Re:What else would you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe after the 2-day call center training they figure out ways to squeeze their call center employees more. Or the warehouses.

Anyway, your strictly-consumerist attitude is really problematic. Amazon may well develop into "Omni Consumer Products" and, yes, they might be able to outdo every other company, but they'll basically own you.

Re:What else would you expect?

[sehlat]

I can assure you it was not written with trollish intent.
It simply is my evaluation of Amazon as it is currently run.

The thing that's starting to bother me is that he's building an empire.
I worry about who will inherit his throne ... and his desk!

Re:What else would you expect?

[phantomfive]

. For instance, Bezos and other managers at Amazon take a 2-day call center training class annually

Wow, that's actually kind of amazing.

Re: What else would you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Worse, companies like Comcast treat customer service as a sales opportunity. This is like sending around salesmen to the recovery ward in hospitals.

Re: What else would you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Youâ(TM)re not googles customer though. The advertisers are the customers.

Re:What else would you expect?

[azrael29a]

Instead, he emphasizes quality service, low prices, and acts (horrors!) as if customers are people and not simply cows to be milked.

Pity that the same can't be said about his treatment of his employees. (hint: read about the working conditions in Amazon warehouses, TLDR: they're like slave camps)

Re:What else would you expect?

[jenningsthecat]

I can assure you it was not written with trollish intent. It simply is my evaluation of Amazon as it is currently run.

The thing that's starting to bother me is that he's building an empire. I worry about who will inherit his throne ... and his desk!

I believe you - I didn't really think that you were trolling, just that on second reading the thought crossed my mind. I'm glad your first comment was modded up. But I see someone has modded your second comment down, seemingly also without good reason. Maybe somebody has it in for you?

As for 'empire, throne, desk', I totally agree, and it worries me too. Amazon is shaping up to be the monopoly of all monopolies. And because a very large percentage of the people who make the stuff we buy, would have NO problem with a single-company middle man selling everything they make, things could get really ugly.

Re:What else would you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they can become highly profitable any time they want without raising prices. All they need to do is stop investing so much in new businesses.

Re:What else would you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thoughtful response. I probably use Amazon more than I think I do, because they are so all-pervasive. I will say that I shop at Whole Foods less now; I've rediscovered Ralph's, which has better produce than it used to, as a result of WF competition. And, of course, WF treats its employees pretty well (or used to, anyway, pre-buyout) because of competition with Ralph's and other unionized shops.
There are very few things, in fact, that I can't get at Ralph's that I can get at WF.

Re:What else would you expect?

[Ranbot]

...Instead, he emphasizes quality service, low prices, and acts (horrors!) as if customers are people and not simply cows to be milked.

The result is, if I need something, I check Amazon FIRST, and frequently last, as well.

A year ago I might agree, but Amazon has been missing the mark for me and many others lately; in particular their new Amazon Logistics is shipping items slowly, missing deliveries, and the package "tracking" system is a joke. Many Prime members are complaining and canceling because they aren't getting the promised 2-day shipping. On top of that their prices aren't always the cheapest either.

What also makes companies quake in terror are people like you who blindly to go to Amazon without bothering to look elsewhere. They can't compete, if you're not even looking at them. To be fair, Amazon did a lot of things right in the past to get that sort of customer loyalty, but they are making mistakes now and they don't deserve a pass.

Re:What else would you expect?

[RespekMyAthorati]

When Amazon was young, they had the best returns policy around

Well, their current policy is "if you aren't satisfied, click here".
Then a postage-paid return label appears instantaneously.
It's hard to image what would be easier than that.

Know what works for me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Super convenient and over the top customer service. Walmart? Limited selection, though I do check there first. Usually.

Ebay? It's like the flea market at the local dog track.

Logistics

[mentil]

Amazon's core competency is logistics. They're the ultimate middle-man. If you're a middle-man of any sort, then you're likely to fear Amazon entering your industry. I'm just waiting for them to get into brokering finance and real estate, then the economy will REALLY freak out.
Once machine learning gets better, the same software can be redeployed into ANY market, to outcompete humans (think AlphaGo learning Chess recently). Sure, you may not have a robo-realtor better than the best 5% of human realtors. But you don't need to beat the fifth percentile, you only need to beat the 50th percentile. At that point, no human-based operation will be able to compete.

Re: Logistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's break the delivery patterns by cancelling every second random order, and returning every other.

Re:Logistics

[MikeMo]

I am a realtor, and I can tell you that Amazon will be entering the home finance business. Think Quicken's Rocket Mortgage. Now, anything that makes it easier to get a loan and hack through the jungle of requirements and regulations is a good thing. However, I must say that folks in our office absolutely dread transactions involving Rocket Mortgage. They all seem to go horribly wrong.

Also, I can't really see what Amazon can do that others aren't doing already. There's no shipping, no warehousing, no inventory management to make more efficient. Not sure how they would do better.

Re:Logistics

[Solandri]

Actually, the business keeping Amazon afloat is their cloud services (AWS).Yes their e-commerce division pulls in the bulk of their revenue, but most of that is pass-through. Amazon only gets to keep a small portion of it as profit (net operating income). And globally their e-commerce actually operated at a loss last year. Meanwhile roughly a quarter of the revenue AWS pulls in is profit.

• Amazon's North America e-commerce business delivered fourth quarter operating income of $1.69 billion on revenue of $37.3 billion.
• International e-commerce sales were $18.04 billion with a operating loss of $919 million.
• AWS had operating income of $1.35 billion for the fourth quarter with sales of $5.11 billion.
• For the year, Amazon's international e-commerce operating losses eclipsed the company's North American operating profit. AWS had 2017 operating income of $4.33 billion on sales of $17.46 billion.

That's the pairing that should scare any retailer/distributor. Amazon is driving the profit margin for those businesses to zero, and paying for it with profit from their cloud services. A luxury most retailers and distributors don't have.

Re:Logistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Hacking through the jungle of buying a house is a pain, its also a great and valuable learning experience. We felt an amazing sense of accomplishment the first night we sat on the couch in our newly purchased house.

I think Portlandia covers it best in their escrow scene - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZmO_7JBeao

Re:Logistics

[Anonymous Coward]

What kinds of problems tend to come up with Rocket Mortgage? I used Quicken Loans, before the rebrand, to purchase my second home. Compared to my first experience with a traditional mortgage company it was magnificent. First company did everything through phone and fax (!) with no audit trail and byzantine requests. Quicken Loans was done online, with a clear list of required documents, follow-up, audit trail etc. combined with a person on the phone to discuss when needed. It was great and went through on-time with no holdups.

Re:Logistics

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be more concerned about Alphabet than Amazon getting into real estate.

Anyway, here's a short list of what they could provide:
* Title insurance, with the starting point being circa 1,000 CE;
* Property history: who owned the property, hos long they owned the property, and how the property changed under the ownership;
* Property tax: What affects current property tax rates, including what the historic amounts have been, and requested increases/decreases in tax rates;
* Utilities/infrastructure rates: Vendors, and the current, historical, and projected rates. Spdcific attention paid to cell service type and high-speed (10GBs+ upload/download) Internet service. Coverage reliability being an aspect of the service;
* Mineral Rights Insurance: Who owns the mineral rights and what happens when they are exploited;
* "Known Hazards", possibly also an insurance product. What was the land used for 100 years ago? What effects will that have on it today? Illegal drug distribution point, including manufacture. Trash dump. Burial ground. Historical/archeological site. Fires?;
* Predictable "Acts of God": Floods, lightning strikes, tornadoes, earthquakes, geat waves, cold snaps, etc. that can be expected during the projected ownership of the property;
* Noise, light, and other types of pollution that affects the property;
* Building code conformance: Does the property conform to current building codes? If not, how much will it cost to get the buildings up to code?;
* All legal disclosures that were formerly required, or are currently required, or have been suggested;

* 3D virtual reality walk throughs;

All of the above is provided _before_ the seller is contacted.

As a real estate agent, how would you compete with a firm that provides all that, as a matter of course, during the sales process?

Re: Logistics

[Anonymous Coward]

The future is shaping up to be an amazing place. I dream that the vast majority of earthlings will benefit from the advancement.

Re:Logistics

[MikeMo]

Last-minute changes to the approval requirements, slow, late and no communications, pre-qualifying people and then rejecting them at the last minute. Some of these are not that much different from what we see with the large banks, but most of us steer our clients away from those.

Re:Logistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Assume that they can offer the same service as everyone else in your field, but that they need to make $0 profit on their offering. Amazon has an infinite supply of money via a stock market that doesn't care if they never profit.

That's what has anyone who might go against Amazon is scared spitless. No one else can run a business at no profit and survive. No one can realistically displace Amazon from their favored spot on the stock market and receive infinite free money.

Re:Logistics

[mysidia]

Amazon is using their monopoly in one area to further the process of creating a monopoly in another area.
This ought to be disallowed under antitrust law, then Amazon should be required to split up into Amazon AWS (for their business of selling PaaS services and outsourced IT/compute technologies), Amazon Business Services (for their business of providing call center/telephone services and smart agents for CS), Amazon Retail Unit (for their business of reselling digital physical goods), Amazon Electronics (for their business of creating consumer electronics products such as Book readers, Smart speakers, Tablets), Amazon Publishing (for their businesses of creating E-Books and Audio Books), Amazon Media (Music/Video Streaming services).

Re:Logistics

[pnutjam]

Uber does it.

first amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

or is it third?

Corporate might hate it

[nospam007]

But as long as I can get my wine, clothes and stuff delivered for free to my porch, I'm OK with their fears.

Re:Corporate might hate it

[Anonymous Coward]

This a nation wide version of Walmart moving into a small town and destroying main street.
The only fear you create so gleefully comes from the unemployed enjoy.
Seems like a very American attitude Fuck everyone as long as i am ok.

Re:Corporate might hate it

[YouGotTobeKidding]

Ahhh how cute. You actually think small town main street still exists to any extent. It doesn't. Hasnt since the days of 'cheap crap is better than expensive but good'. Amazon is kicking the shit out of the mega-chain corner of the market - Toy R Us, Wally world, Sears, etc. Small companies either died or learned that customer service is still king long ago. Amazon is good at CS for a large retailer but sucks compared to a small family owned store. The small stores that are still around are not afraid. They already understand what it takes for a mouse to survive in an elephant's world.

Did Bloomberg take a stupid pill?

[swell]

"the phenomenon has arisen mostly in about three years"

If you think that you've been sleeping for a long time. Amazon was never about profits and always about taking over markets. The day they moved beyond bookselling was the day that other retailers (and manufacturers) should have awakened.

Onion nailed it

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.theonion.com/my-advice-to-anyone-starting-a-business-is-to-remember-1819585065

Hook em' early!

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon pop-up tattoo parlors. Bar codes free of charge.

Amazon in 2018

[mwvdlee]

Amazon these days is AWS and a bunch of side projects paid for by AWS profits.

Re:Amazon in 2018

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon these days is AWS and a bunch of side projects paid for by AWS profits.

Amazon makes WAY more money from it's retail sales than AWS, though AWS is growing faster. Retail is a much bigger market in general so that make sense.

It’s hard to hate Bezos

[93 Escort Wagon]

He just looks too much like Elmer Fudd.

Re:It’s hard to hate Bezos

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to hate Bezos

No it's not!

Re:It’s hard to hate Bezos

[Anonymous Coward]

Says you, you wascally wabbit!

Re:It’s hard to hate Bezos

[Anonymous Coward]

I just remind myself that he's getting in bed with the CIA and also owns a major newspaper. Then I'm reminded of a Bond villain.

So?

[war4peace]

Okay, so it's a big company, a monster, a whatever.
What's the news again? This has been known for years.

He just needs a monocle

[rojash]

Bezos is on his way to becoming a Bond/ (or better, Austin Powers) supervillian, armed with his pet Alexa to spy on every home and control all their contents, drones to drop stuff on their heads, they just need to get into automated driving industry now, ha ha ha ha.

Re:He just needs a monocle

[bruce_the_loon]

The question is whether Amazon is Weyland-Yutani or Union Aerospace Corporation.

With Bezos building rockets and not talking about Mars, does that exclude UAC?

Slashdot keep on fucking up

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever since the Arabs took over slashdot, things fell apart

Re:Slashdot keep on fucking up

[Anonymous Coward]

no it wuz wen ur mom took over. u need to be kickt outta the basement closet.

I fear Amazon- but don't fear em taking my biz

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon is a nightmare just like Google and Microsoft and Apple. It's an evil fucking corporation with the power to take your freedoms and rights away and has thoroughly undermined freedom of expression by giving into particular appeals by emotional nut jobs. Amazon censors what books appear and undermined the book industry. While that may have been a good thing in some respects (copy"right" bad and evil as it is) it undermined peoples ability to express controversial opinions. Of course the left and right have also been doing more and more of that with there attacks on "hate speech". And of course to undermine terrorism and destroy "bad" actors we have to control the world's financial system and therefore also created an evil central entity that can and does do bad shit- like destroy the ability of entities such as wikileaks from operating via intimidating financial entities into refusing to do business thus underpinning the organizations ability to raise funds or how about the appeal to emotions (ie it's so easy to manipulate the masses) by making its leader out to be a sex monster???

Fuck amazon and fuck the right/left and fuck the government.

One answer

[Anonymous Coward]

How Amazon Became Corporate America's Nightmare

Gayness

Jeff Bezos also owns Washington Post

[invalid_user]

And now it's a "sensational" news outlet!

Re: Jeff Bezos also owns Washington Post

[Anonymous Coward]

No it isn't.

Biased, probably. Editorial content may be sensationalist due to its nature, which is universal over all media. But regular content still appears to be regular content.

Putting the Customer First.

[thsths]

Maybe that is because Amazon does what others only preach: putting the customer experience first. Whatever Amazon does, it is always motivated by this.

Re:Putting the Customer First.

[Anonymous Coward]

To the detriment of shareholders for two decades, to the detriment of employees daily, and to the detriment of non-corporate owned businesses. But sure, you can get a box of Tide pods delivered without putting on a clean Codeweavers shirt.

Re:Putting the Customer First.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, no. Like everything else: it works until it doesn't.

Re:Putting the Customer First.

[93 Escort Wagon]

Maybe that is because Amazon does what others only preach: putting the customer experience first. Whatever Amazon does, it is always motivated by this.

This is no longer true, as my multiple bad experiences with Amazon’s own crappy delivery service can attest. You can’t opt out of Amazon delivery. ... or, for that matter, as is demonstrated by how frequently my Prime ”2-day” shipments have routinely morphed into 3, 4, or sometimes 5-day shipments over the past year or two.

Re:Putting the Customer First.

[MDMurphy]

I'm no stock or other investment guru, so I'm not sure how to understand how Amazon's business has been to the detriment of shareholders for decades. I do see the stock price going from $261 to $1586 since 2013. Is there a downside to that? Houses are view as investments in most places and increasing six-fold in value over 5 years is usually viewed as a positive sign.

Re:Putting the Customer First.

[geoscodin]

For the past couple of years my Prime purchases have been delivered in 2 days every time except one. On that lone occasion I called to inquire, they declared my items lost, and issued a full refund of my $53. And then the package arrived two days later.

Re:Putting the Customer First.

[oh_my_080980980]

Look up ROI...

Re:Putting the Customer First.

[jbmartin6]

Like giving the ability to generate and print your return labels right on the site. I remember when they did that, why were all the competitors sitting on their hands? The story repeats itself many times. Amazon starts doing something and everyone asks why the established competitors never did it. I remember an interview with the then CEO of Best Buy some years ago, he was complaining that people used BB as a showroom to look at things and then went online to buy them. I thought if I were a stockholder I would immediately ask for his dismissal. Really, a businessman complaining that people come into the store? They still haven't done much to try to improve the experience and motivate people to buy there. It's not all about lowest price, especially if you can add value.

Re:Putting the Customer First.

[SickFreak]

This. It's all about the customer. Amazon does many things, but it only does one thing: start with the customer and work backward. Amazon will continue to disrupt until customer morale improves in every industry.

Re:Putting the Customer First.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. If your business model doesn't require profits or community involvement it's much easier to "put customer experience first." It's naive to believe that this is what motivates them. No company is motivated by customer service. Customer service is a required step toward success, but it's not an end in and of itself.

Re:Putting the Customer First.

[Anonymous Coward]

They used to do that, they don't anymore. I take it you have Amazon Prime? If you don't, products you're looking at randomly become Prime-only and you're unable to buy them unless you check on them again a week later.

Re:Putting the Customer First.

[david_thornley]

ROI, from GP, is about a factor of six in five years, which is extremely good. Are you referring to P/E ratio? That's a useful value for a stable company, much less so for a growing company.

Re:Putting the Customer First.

[omnichad]

If Best Buy's own web site wasn't terrible, they'd just be selling to their own showroom customers.

Defining Feature of Commerce

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon is a distribution company, from department style goods, to computing resources, to data, to human labor. they are masters at facilitating buying and selling. What a shock they are a defining feature of commerce (buying and selling).

Re:Defining Feature of Commerce

[oh_my_080980980]

The makes movies and tv shows and streams content, does cloud computing and has defense contracts with the U.S. government....The point missed by morons is Amazon is unwieldy. A behemoth like GE in days past. Amazon will need to divest and spin off businesses in order to grow profits.

It's called progress

[Anonymous Coward]

The future will be three megacorporations ruling over the whole world, which will help the transition from the current unsustainable nankind to an environment-friendly One Percenter Humanity. This is unavoidable. Embrace change.

Re:It's called progress

[Hognoxious]

Will two of them always be at war with the other one?

first

[Anonymous Coward]

Am i first?

Win-Tel over again

[evanh]

It's the logical outcome of "free-market" policies.

Re:Win-Tel over again

[Anonymous Coward]

It's great - better than anything else - from my consumer perspective.

Walking to the store, waiting in line, paying for a card, walking to a counter, waiting in line again, handing the card to the person who gets your bottle of aspirin off the shelf 1.5m in front of you and hands it to you then walking back home will always provide for more employment and at higher costs.

Except phones.

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't have quite a success there. I think the trouble is they aimed for the high-end, when they should have been aiming for the mid- to low-end phone market. Their customers want good value, not the most expensive items on the market.

90 Empire State Buildings huh?

[volodymyrbiryuk]

How much is it in One World Trade Centers?

Re:90 Empire State Buildings huh?

[93,000]

185,000,000 volkswagon beetles

Re:90 Empire State Buildings huh?

[R3d M3rcury]

...or Libraries of Congress?

first!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm first!!

They see everything as their "core competency"

[NoNeeeed]

Something that I've seen happen time and again with a lot of companies is the gutting and outsourcing of anything they don't regard as their "core competency". This reduces their corporate risk (easy to squeeze or drop a supplier in hard times) but it is insidious, and consumes the company from the inside. Eventually they are left with no competencies in anything except outsourcing and financial engineering.

So many of the individuals I work with are from the big outsourcing and management consultancy firms. It's everything from technical specialists, hr personnel, project managers and right up to fairly senior management. Some firms are little more than procurement and accounting departments with a brand, they don't actually have the skills/knowledge to do anything any more.

Amazon goes the other way. It is constantly insourcing things, and building up it's own skills in any field where it thinks it can do better than the existing suppliers. It treats things like the web store and the video service as it's first customer to get things started and drive development, and then spins round and makes it open. AWS is the obvious and most visible one, but their warehouse and logistics arm (certainly here in the UK) and even the web store are increasingly just a service that other people use to sell their stuff. I'd say about half the things I buy on amazon are sold by a third party but shipped from an Amazon warehouse by an Amazon Logistics delivery person.

This is why buying Wholefoods should terrify the entire food industry, and not just their direct retail competitors. Wholefoods is their new "first customer" for the supply chain management and sourcing of perishable goods and groceries, something they've struggled with scaling in the past. Once they turn all the back end systems (tech and people) into a service provided to Wholefoods retail, they will probably once again make it a service that other smaller retailers can tap into, and also use it to juice up other services like Amazon Pantry and Subscribe and Save.

They are prepared to take on almost anything and have a go, even if it ultimately fails (see the Fire Phone). Meanwhile much of the rest of the corporate world is taking the low risk, slow growth route powered by financial engineering where execs are more concerned with pointless mergers and restructuring than about actually doing anything concrete.

Re:They see everything as their "core competency"

[Scarred Intellect]

They are prepared to take on almost anything and have a go, even if it ultimately fails (see the Fire Phone). Meanwhile much of the rest of the corporate world is taking the low risk, slow growth route powered by financial engineering where execs are more concerned with pointless mergers and restructuring than about actually doing anything concrete.

This.

There are (to make everything absolute and binary) two ways to deal with risk. 1: don't do it. 2: do it really fucking well. Amazon seems to prefer number 2.

My own company, now over 50,000 employees, has restructured at LEAST 3 times in the two years I've been here...granted, there have been large acquisitions causing 2 of them...but all that time spent restructuring is time NOT spent doing actual work that pays the bills.

Re:They see everything as their "core competency"

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I hate Amazon and Bezos in particular(who is more smug, Bezos or Zuckerber?), you are absolutely correct 100%.
You analysis of the stark difference between Amazon and the rest is spot on!

Re: They see everything as their "core competency"

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the Fire phone. Two actually i got a spare when they were discounted. Still works. Not my daily phone but it gets about a week in standby mode. I treat it like an answering machine for my old number and leave it on a desk.

Annoying it never got even android 5 update or Alexa Show compatibility though.

29, or 0, comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Top says 29 comments.

Body of page shows 0 comments.

What's up?

Welcome to your psychopathic AI Chaebol, America!

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't the first one by far. Rockefeller wasn't even.
It isn't the first evil one either. Again, same example.

It is the first so heavily automated one though, I guess.

As a German, that makes me think of how it was the industrialization, as a precursor to automation, that allowrd our attacks and certain camps to be so horrifying.

The new Costco

[mveloso]

I got my degree at Amazon.

We also walk dogs....

[mpmansell]

...

Beware the Ides of March (or in this case Amazon)

[Anonymous Coward]

IT is clear to me that Amazon is in it for the long haul. Their aim is to be the 'Last Man Standing' when it comes to retail in most of the western world.
I totally agree about the working conditions. They have been hauled up before the courts here in the UK many times. They don't care. As long as the Amazon behmoth carries on steamrollering everything in its path they won't care.
ToysRUs is just the latest casualty.
Boycott Amazon and buy local (while you can)

Amazon hurts competition

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember how WalMart put a lot of local businesses out of business. Amazon is going to do far worse globally and its going to hurt retail in the long run. In fact Amazon doesn't turn everything into a positive as we have seen with Whole Food purchase, and its business model is taking away the positives of what Whole Foods did. The more areas of retail Amazon reaches into, the more we will see those retail markets change for the worse. Seeing discounters like KMart, Sears, Toys R Us leave the market place means less not more competition. Sure maybe only the strong survive, but if that's only Amazon that won't be a good thing.

Re: Amazon hurts competition

[c6gunner]

and its business model is taking away the positives of what Whole Foods did.

There's nothing positive about what Whole Foods did. It was an immoral corporation like any other, selling overpriced crap to gullible rubes. The kinds of morons who think that buying a couple asparagus stems in a bottle of water for $6 will somehow make them healthier.

Whatever Amazon does with Whole Foods can only be an improvement.

A new kind of monopoly in the making

[GameboyRMH]

What's different here is that Amazon is aiming to become a completely new kind of monopoly, not like the product monopolies we're familiar with, but a platform monopoly. And not just on one platform, but all of them: Online shopping, retail shopping, video streaming, cloud computing, disaster recovery, you name it, they'll eventually go after it. Also, relevant Onion article:

https://www.theonion.com/my-ad...

More like dream

[drinkypoo]

Every corporation dreams of having reach like Amazon.

The "how" of it is pretty simple, though: dumping. Amazon has yet to turn a profit, so they are clearly doing literally everything below cost. Last I heard, that was dumping. They're just burning money in order to gain dominance.

Re: More like dream

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon has posted profits for 11 straight quarters. Q4 2017 was 1.9 billion or so.

Re:More like dream

[turp182]

That doesn't appear to be the case. 11 quarters of profit in a row.

https://www.recode.net/2018/2/...

Stock is still overpriced

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but Amazon is cool and all but eBay became a chinese fleamarket within a decade and Amazon is not much better in some respects.

Right now stuff like Walmart is undervalued on a P/E basis in comparison. Think about it. To get into the food business, Amazon had to buy Whole Foods and their $5 polished bell peppers, but how many Americans have access to one? I know two, one is 45m away while the other is 1h15m. I only went to one once (and saw the prices and noped outbof there). OTOH, I know of 12 Walmarts (all Supercenters) around me and they all sell food. I‘ve been to 7 the last 18 months, 5 of them since New Year‘s. I‘m betting that walmart can become Amazon much faster than Amazon becomes Walmart.

I use Netflix instead of Prime Video, unsubbed from Audible, etc. Amazon is a good company but simply far overpriced in Stock just like Tesla is already market capped like a big boy Car company without the capacity to actually make the amount of cars to compete.

It‘s a blind brand name loyalty stock market right now and will end badly when reality hits that the bottom lines can‘t justify it all for many internet enterprises.

Re:Stock is still overpriced

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, you're poor and live in a ghetto. why does your opinion matter?

Noise...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like someone is trying to make "being Amazoned" a thing.

15 years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone was afraid of WalMart 15 years ago. Now it's Amazon. This, too, shall pass.

Re:15 years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is Wal-Mart is afraid of Amazon.

This is not new.

[gdr]

This is nothing new. It's exactly what the supermarkets did to specialist stores like butchers, bakers, etc. Provide one place for the customer to get almost everything they need and specialist retailers get squeezed.

No profit

[stooo]

Amazon makes no or low profit.
Every company should.

Re:No profit

[Anonymous Coward]

How's anyone supposed to pay for a BI if companies aren't making enough profits?

The reason for success is right in the description

[deviated_prevert]

"It's the third-most-valuable company on Earth, with smaller annual profits than Southwest Airlines Co.,

In a nutshell it is an acquisition corporation combined with the fact that how you manage your high tech information technology in service industries efficiently is more important than profits if you are going to serve customers and grow your product lines. Walmart is the next fodder for the Bezos juggernaut they just don't see the importance of information technology and their online presence and service sucks for that very reason. Canadian Tire is another corp that could see problems, Best Buy after screwing up and over expanding brick and mortar in Canada is already in a world of hurt for the very same reasons. Target became a target and shuttered a shitload of stores because of a poor grasp of the growing importance of web tech in retail and service industries. Soon brick and mortar will become cheap so we might even see a slump in commercial real estate that leads to old malls and stores becoming housing. Which in a great many places would not be that bad of an outcome. Especially in places like Vancouver where employees working for minimum wage retail and service industries like Walmart and Best Buy cannot even afford to rent a shit house basement suite!!!

Amazon actually makes sense.

[xpiotr]

They went after to manage all 3, cheap, good (enough) AND fast.
After years of re-investing basically all profit in logistics they are hard to beat.
By inviting other companies to their market place, they basically have all data of all other sellers.
Then they take the high profit products and make Amazon copies, taking the profit.
Amazon entering any market is the online equivalent of Walmart opening next door to your little shop.

Re:Amazon actually makes sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

It only appears cheap because the way you pay the price is diffuse, social and long-term.

Frost Pist

[Anonymous Coward]

Bannanannas in pajammas

amazon is good at self promotion

[Anonymous Coward]

amazon isn't that big, and isn't that powerful, but they're good at self promotion - their press releases are run as news stories by both tech and mainstream outlets - zero critical thinking, just the press release - no other company gets that kind of good press - amazon masterfully controls its image in the press while apple and wal-mart get dinged for every little thing - amazon does showy things to get attention (remember those drone deliveries? no one does because it's no-employee stores now) - but very little amazon does amounts to anything - bottom line, if it wasn't for aws and its profits, amazon would be history

Weird

[BlackPignouf]

50 comments should be here. I don't see any. Weird.

Re:Weird

[Robert Goatse]

Same here. I was looking forward to the 108 comments but the space was blank. A refresh or two solved it. Go slashdot!

Re:Weird

[93 Escort Wagon]

50 comments should be here. I don't see any. Weird.

Yeah, Slashdot was obviously having a new round of major problems yesterday.

What was really funny was links existed on my comments page to a couple “phantom” comments I posted. When I clicked on them, I was told “that page does not exist”... but, after 18 hours or so, those phantom comments finally showed up on the stories where I’d posted them yesterday.

Re:Weird

[HornWumpus]

MySQL no longer needs routine reindexing. That's just a nasty rumor, such a huge database engine couldn't possible be suck in the 1980s.

1st posed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Headline says 50 comments, but comments view is empty?

BNL

[sad_]

We know how it's going to end, Amazon is basically BNL from Wall-E.

Re:BNL

[desdinova 216]

I thought that was Wal-Mart

Re:BNL

[93 Escort Wagon]

We know how it's going to end, Amazon is basically BNL from Wall-E.

That explains Amazon’s press release yesterday announcing the hiring of Fred Willard as Vice President of Strategic Operations.

Betrayal comes around to haunt corps.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The Corporate America does not have any loyalty or fealty to anyone. It is governed by a bunch of managers who don't have any loyalty to anyone. It is owned by investors who don't feel loyal to anyone. Is it any wonder the customer no longer has any brand loyalty? The workers have no loyalty or identification with the employer?

Corporate America systematically reduced its tax burden and transferred it to individuals. It took the liberties and freedom guaranteed to the living citizens. "Corporations are People!". "Spending money is speech!". "Corporations can claim to have religious beliefs!".

There is a border and building a wall to keep out living people enjoys support from a swath of people. There is no border for corporations. Any foreign person, or even the foreign government, can found a company in USA and get all the protections and rights guaranteed by our constitution.

After betraying everyone, and after spending down all the good will, and after looting the middle class to the point of irrationality where they are voting to hurt themselves,.... what do you expect?

What is so complicated ?

[Lennie]

They use profits from one sector to automate and maybe under price in an other until they conquer that sector too. Repeat.

Re:What is so complicated ?

[bluefoxlucid]

Yes, and this is an unfair competitive practice. Amazon takes a loss in many of their market sectors, and has more than 100% of its profits in its AWS platform (AWS produces 100% of Amazon's profit plus enough additional net revenue to offset the loss in other departments). No competitor can enter or remain in this market for the long term unless they also have a highly-profitable business to absorb the loss of their other holdings.

It is the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad, and to share with workers the freedom from unfair labor practices and the right to organize and negotiate on fair grounds for fair terms of employment. This state of affairs worries me.

Re: What is so complicated ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your ideas have always intrigued me good sir. It is bitter sweet to know there are folks who dream of a better life for all; whilst our politicians argue over walls and guns. Your point on rights is something I will pass on to others that care to listen.

Blue Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

The all invasive and powerful company that sells everything from food, clothing, medicines, even spaceships throughout the whole 'verse in the series Firefly is called "Blue Sun". Joss Whedon described it as "the result of the merger between Microsoft and McDonalds", but that was before Amazon became more than just a bookshop.

It's strange...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate facebook because other people use it. I hate Amazon because I use it.

Breaking up is hard to do

[shayd2]

Does anyone remember "Ma Bell", America's phone company?

Amazon will need split but not geographically. Rather by market area.

This will be harder to legislate than the AT&T breakup to Baby Bells

Re: Breaking up is hard to do

[reanjr]

Splitting up Ma Bell was a bad move. It just led to regional monopolies who were more abusive to consumers.

Re:Breaking up is hard to do

[micahraleigh]

Reminds me of the circus in the 90's when the commerce cops tried to break up Microsoft.

Oh yeah ... that's not why you got elected. And it's not what judges are supposed to do.

Breaking up Amazon would just mean people have to chase their tails around extra hard to make sure they aren't too successful so the government doesn't start kicking them around. The easiest way to reduce their sales is charge more.

Re: Breaking up is hard to do

[Mike Van Pelt]

Splitting up Ma Bell was a bad move. It just led to regional monopolies who were more abusive to consumers.

Well...

I recall, before the split-up, long distance calls were expensive. Dollars per minute expensive, in 1960-something dollars. "Quiet, Grandma is calling long distance ." "Make it quick, this is long distance ."

Now, the whole concept of "long distance" is pretty much dead; flat rate call anyone in the US. Extra money only comes into it when calling international.

It's like Edward Abbey said:

[hey!]

"Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of a cancer cell."

What makes Amazon a formidable competitor is the will to grow -- not profit, but grow. This is a natural phase that any startup normally goes through, but unlike a regular business Amazon never settled down to the business of maximizing profit; instead it metastasizes into additional business areas.

Re:It's like Edward Abbey said:

[micahraleigh]

"Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of a cancer cell."

-Said the guy who just wants to stay home and flip channels on the TV

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

It is easy to undercut when you treat taxes like the plague.

O/T: Site seems broken

[GameboyRMH]

I posted a comment in this thread a couple of hours ago, no sign of it here or on my user page yet. Thread title showed around 30 posts at that time, now 60. What's going on?

what kind of company is it?

[jbmartin6]

As far as I can tell, Amazon is a logistics and service company. They feel they can apply their techniques to almost any product or service type.

Re:what kind of company is it?

[cascadingstylesheet]

As far as I can tell, Amazon is a logistics and service company. They feel they can apply their techniques to almost any product or service type.

And the problem for other companies is that Amazon does those better than most, for reasonable prices.

Other companies, look to thineselves. If you don't want Amazon taking over, do your business better than them. Surely with all your complaints and accusations again them, it shouldn't be that hard ...

Fascists Wet Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

It is , isn't it. Best CIA front company ever created by the international banking cartel.

WTF

[rukiddingme]

./ $hits the bed again...(403 - Forbidden).

Alibaba-ed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Amazon fear being Alibaba-ed? If folks thought Amazon was sprawling...

Disregard

[bosef1]

This is a test message.

Amazoned? Never heard the word

[alex67500]

But I remember when sites used to get Slashdotted :-)

Market disruption

[GenYGuy]

Maybe all of these companies with higher profit margins than Amazon should be reinvesting more of those profits towards their long term viability instead of fixating on quarterly earnings and shareholder dividends. These companies have the resources to compete, they're just afraid of the disruption it'll cause and investors tanking their stock because their growth was a few tenths of a percent off of what they predicted.

Re:Market disruption

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the obsession with profits? They are pouring that back into the company or simply not gouging customers.

Re:Market disruption

[jbmartin6]

Just look at the Toys R Us story. They spent billions on stock buybacks in the late 90s instead of investing to stay competitive. I'm sorry for their employees, but the company *should* be closed down if that is the extent of their business acumen.

Self-limiting

[cirby]

Amazon is massive, and has been growing fast, and is in a lot of different markets, but they're starting to show some of the limits to sudden growth.

Their Amazon Prime service is getting less reliable. Last year, I could completely rely on two-day shipping for pretty much anything I ordered, but I'm seeing more and more missed or late orders. The search functions for products are, well, inaccurate in many cases. They're also (according to who you talk to) either losing money, or not making anywhere near enough profit margin.

While I enjoy getting things fast and relatively cheap, we're probably going to see some shrinkage of Amazon's power in the physical world - while Amazon Web Services will keep on expanding.

The good news is, they're not Google - who seems to have turned "don't be evil" into "evil is relative." I'd rather have a very powerful company that sells me stuff for low prices than a very powerful company that decides what I need to know, based off of random political beliefs of people I might not agree with.

Re:Self-limiting

[Anonymous Coward]

A Google employee simply dropped the "don't" from the "Don't be evil" slogan.

Re:Self-limiting

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess Amazon's search function works well for Amazon. After the first few matches for your search term, A inserts products A wants you to see because A thinks you might also want them, from previous searches, your wishlists, and other sources. The search function is not broken, it's designed to work that way.

Re:Self-limiting

[cirby]

No, not really.

When I'm searching for "drill press," I want drill presses in my search results, with suggestions as a separate list. I also want actual, relevant results, not "completely unrelated things that happen to have the word 'press' in them." And when I limit my search to "drill presses under $200," I want - and I know this is hard to understand - "drill presses under $200."

When I further say "price low to high," I want the same results, sorted in ascending order according to price, not "here's our four most-profitable items, only two of which are actually drill presses in the selected price range," with a link that goes to a PARTIAL list of all of their drill presses, with a dozen or so of the lower-priced ones dropped off the list.

The worst part? The behavior of their search function changed from day to day, even for the same items. That's just wrong.

Re:Self-limiting

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon is CIA. Google is CIA. Google even renamed themselves Alphabet (as in, Alphabet agencies). Facebook is CIA.
They were allowed to turn into giants because the government was behind them, otherwise, they would have been shoot down.
Your money was spent on making them huge monopolies, but that money is not going back to your pockets.

Equity

[mwfischer]

Making money is for chumps. Growing equity and convincing other people that you're worth a lot is the new way.

If you take the profit and invest, you can throw all sorts of things at the wall and see what sticks. When it sticks, you're stuck with it.

To be Amazoned

[Anonymous Coward]

Death by Snuh Snuh

They stopped caring/innovating.

[0100010001010011]

Nothing Amazon has done couldn't have been done by any other established company, they just refused to do so.

amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want to read the comments, so why do you keep shifting me to the post a comment section??

News for nerds. Stuff that matters.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I imagine that tagline or did it really once apply to slashdot?

Three years?

[Anonymous Coward]

It feels more like a decade since we first considered AWS.
It took years for me to associate it with that similarly-named online shop.
But what are you taking about, "producing soap operas"?

Re:Three years?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you troll or have you really not seen any of the amazon produced original video content from amazon studios (transparent, high castle, grand tour, etc.). I would say they have 3-4 dozen and about that same number in various stages of development. I'm really excited to see what they do with Stephenson's Snow Crash, I hope they don't screw it up too bad.

Not one comment yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

w00t! Frosty!

Don't forget how normal folks see Amazon

[SpzToid]

...they know nothing of the size and scope of its cloud. Putting IBM, Google, etc. to shame.

Consider how normal folks see Amazon

[SpzToid]

They know nothing of the size of its cloud, with it being larger than IBM, Google, etc.

Their monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Has become every citizen's nightmare, as well. Used goods etc. are fine, but we really don't want them encroaching upon less tangible things. The time for regulating them is far past.

you get excatly what you pay for ...

[Anonymous Coward]

we are anonymous we are ... err.....
we are amazon we are legion

My thoughts on Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

AWS is pretty great

The consumer shopping site sucks ass

Huge sprawling monster where?

[magarity]

Amazon got nothing compared to Alibaba / Taobao

No Comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

Article says there are 82 comments however all I see is a submit comment page when I click through to the comments. I'd ask if this is happening with anyone else but of course I wouldn't see any responses. And no apparent link to how to contact or notify the staff.

I wonder what's happening on Reddit.

Get Rid of Regulations and you create monsters.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Anti-Trust laws and Glass-Steagall was put in place to prevent these companies from becoming monsters and eliminating competition.

Re:Get Rid of Regulations and you create monsters.

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have to. The incompetent competition is doing that for them.

Re:Get Rid of Regulations and you create monsters.

[micahraleigh]

Alright !! Let's get some less competitive options out there!

Why..

[Highdude702]

Why did they break the comment section? That was the best part of the site!!!

"It's all about the long term"

[kaizendojo]

If you want an insight into why Amazon is so different and so unlike any other company, you only need to look at their 1997 cover letter to their investors which has been added to every other investor letter since. A quote from the letter: "It’s All About the Long Term We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term. This value will be a direct result of our ability to extend and solidify our current market leadership position. The stronger our market leadership, the more powerful our economic model. Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital." (Source: https://www.amazon.com/p/featu... - 1997 letter is at the end) Unlike most companies, which concentrate on shareholder value or profit or margins, Amazon is focused on one thing and one thing only. BEING THE MARKET LEADER ANY MARKET THEY ENTER. At any cost. Seriously; they care less about profit than they do about being number one in anything they do, no matter what. How do you compete with someone when their only mode is 'full out'? When the only thing they care about is beating you, even if it costs them profit to do so? There's an excellent video that explains this strategy here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:"It's all about the long term"

[q4Fry]

Amazon is focused on one thing and one thing only. BEING THE MARKET LEADER ANY MARKET THEY ENTER.

Just wait until the market is "Government."

Re:"It's all about the long term"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Market" is in no way interchangeable with "government." Libertarians may think it is, but they are very, very wrong.

Test

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this thing on?

Reword it

[ledow]

Reword it:

It lets users buy what they want, when they want it, at a decent price.

Shocking that in this day and age, someone considers that a "scary" business plan.

My workplaces were spending tens of thousands a year on Amazon... ten years ago. And now there's Amazon for Business, they can centrally manage it.

Older people, not necessarily au fait with technology, are always shocked when I say "Have you tried looking on Amazon?" Everything from jars of sweets for a community event to hot tubs to laptops to videos to music to telephones to spare batteries for their old phone to garden houses to board games to new plastic drawers for their freezer to parts for their car to envelopes. They don't consider that one place can sell all that.

But, is it that shocking? I don't remember ever reading in books when I was younger where they discussed a future where "You'd still have to go to ten different shops to buy things". It was always "You can have all your shopping delivered, and parts for your car, and get it all from one place, and be charged automatically for your purchase straight out of your bank account without leaving the comfort of your own home!!!". We knew that that was what we wanted 50 years ago. Amazon delivered it (pun intended).

I think it's only a shock if you never sat and thought about it. To me, though it was surprising to find someone actually doing it, it was more a case of "about bloody time". I work for a school, the Amazon account has no less than 50 different names on it because it's used for every department - from hundreds of iPads down to a box of paperclips.

Rename Amazon to "Global MegaCorp" and you wouldn't notice the difference. We've been talking about it since we ever started imagining the future. And while users benefit, they will win. They can't just ramp up prices now they have the custom, even after everyone else goes. A competitor would still sweep in and remove them if they tried, and it would start in one niche and then grow like Amazon did (remember when they only did books?).

Personally, while it's beneficial to everyone, who cares? So long as they pay tax, I get the product I want cheaply, the seller sells enough to make profit and the middle-men make their money delivering, who cares? Little tiny local specialist shops are dying for a reason. Nobody cares, while they can get the same stuff more conveniently. They may pay lip-service to "supporting the local shops" but they just want the product, really. If they wanted the atmosphere, they'd pay for entry to the shop, not the product they sell.

Re:Reword it

[Anonymous Coward]

Reword it:

It lets users buy what they want, when they want it, at a decent price.

Shocking that in this day and age, someone considers that a "scary" business plan.

I guess no one should have been "shocked" either when Wal-Mart rolled into Smalltown USA and destroyed small business, right?

Personally, while it's beneficial to everyone, who cares? So long as they pay tax, I get the product I want cheaply, the seller sells enough to make profit and the middle-men make their money delivering, who cares?

Much like Wal-Marts dominance, Amazon has destroyed far more jobs than it will ever create. Whenever Amazon feels like they can make even more profit, they cut out the middle-men by selling their own brand (Amazon Essentials). People making money delivering? Yeah, until Amazon's drone army takes that over too.

To give you an idea of what they can do elsewhere, look at their industry dominance as a cloud provider (AWS). I mean shit, Amazon wasn't anything more than an online bookstore a couple of decades ago. I can buy a fucking CAR on Amazon today. What the hell IS Amazon anymore? I'll tell you what it is; whatever the fuck they want it to be.

Bottom line is you should care. It should scare you. As Too-Big-To-Fail mega-corps continue to collapse industries, fewer and fewer jobs will be the end result. You will start to feel this impact with your taxes getting hit more and more to help fund the growing welfare problem. What exactly will global capitalism look like in 30 years? At the rate we're going, you will either be working for one of the 100 trillion-dollar mega-corps left on the planet that own and run everything, or you will be one of millions of unemployed humans stuck in the Global Welfare State.

Re:Reword it

[desdinova 216]

there was a place to get almost everything 50 years ago. It was called Sears. The only thing different that Amazon is doing is "on the internet"

Re:Reword it

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm sure you are right that is was motivated by profit, I think a lot of the amazon essentials and amazon basics stuff was more about improved consistency/quality. It is more profitable to deliver a good product and have a happy customer than it is to frequently deliver shit and then have to try to make the customer happy again.

Re:Reword it

[Rakarra]

Personally, while it's beneficial to everyone, who cares?

But it's not beneficial to everyone.
To put the same in a different light, it doesn't matter if you can get products for a bit cheaper if your job has been eliminated and you're competing with everyone else for the few that are left.
Automation and conglomeration lead to fewer jobs, not more.

Re:Reword it

[k6mfw]

It lets users buy what they want, when they want it, at a decent price.

Exactly. I find many items can easily be purchased through Amazon where other sites either have horribly bureaucratic purchasing methods, websites that work only with certain browsers like IE 4.2.v3, or the buy button simply doesn't exist! Sometimes I get irked because Amazon makes use of "gig delivery services" (a Uber type of business model). But many times I have no choice because other companies seem to go out of their way to make buying from them difficult.

Re:Reword it

[Anonymous Coward]

And eBay existed before Amazon. People have extremely short memories.

Re:Reword it

[Anonymous Coward]

So predatory monopolies turn out to be a Really Good Thing after all!! Who'da thunk it? Oh well, as long as we can keep getting our shiny toys for cheap, nothing else really matters...

Re:Reword it

[ledow]

They are only a monopoly if they are "the only supplier of a particular commodity".

That's not true. If anything, it's the opposite. They are one of many supplier of it, but the only one who supplies it AND does all the other competing products too.

Re:Reword it

[ledow]

It doesn't scare me at all. I won't be around to see it. What scares me is people who buy home-based voice-activated gadgets, not those who want to buy all their stuff (made by millions of different manufacturers around the glove) from one convenient place.

Amazon don't really MAKE products (they have a budget own-brand, but who doesn't? They have a couple of TV series that lose a LOT of money and aren't very popular, but everything else is bought). They sell other's products. As such they are just an interface. In the same way that 10 years ago everyone was worried about Facebook being the only website that could do its job, it's now dying off and the kids use other services entirely.

Remember when MySpace was "the place". Amazon will be like that. There are already Chinese sites that sell way more than Amazon even. I'm not worried about them taking over the world.

Jobs? They have single-handedly revitalised the UK Post Office. They employ four times more people than Apple. They NEED to start paying proper tax, same as everyone else, but apart from that, I couldn't say that they're problematic in my country. If anything, all those manufacturers are benefiting from not having to worry about distribution channels.

And, sorry, but if supermarkets are so evil, why does everyone use them? Why does EVERY town have several? All this "protect local businesses" stuff is only ever lip-service, nobody actually cares about it because they don't want to have to visit 20 different shops like their grandmothers did to get the shopping in. It might have worked back then, it doesn't work now.

I'll happily sacrifice quite a lot for a 24/7 supermarket that sells all kinds of stuff conveniently, and a 24/7 online store with same-day delivery that sells everything. Because the lost productivity of pissing about with anything is more expensive than anything else. I'll happily take supermarkets and Amazon any day, if it gets me several hours a week back, both professionally and personally.

It's about time we stopped spending so much time and money on the basics (buying food, purchasing products, etc.) and actually got shit done instead. Even if that's spending the time with your friends. As far as I'm concerned, Amazon, supermarkets, and appliances like microwaves and dishwashers have changed my life from "50% of free time spent on chores" to "1% of free time spent on chores".

Re:Reword it

[ledow]

Amazon employ 566,000 people. That's 4 times more than Apple, for instance.

Re:Reword it

[Anonymous Coward]

And like in any science fiction story, a large megacorporation is always evil. See Weyland-Yutani, Delos, Standard Oil, and others.

Make unregulated capitalism great again

[Anonymous Coward]

mmmmmm greed.

To simplify a monster

[Provocateur]

Just use the words from Terminator

It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever
 
Except this time, it's not Ahnold -- it's Ahmazon

No comments allowed

[Anonymous Coward]

do not criticize your overlords

It's called innovation.

[cyn1c77]

The best part of this whole thing is that other companies laughed at Amazon for losing massive amounts of money during its first 7 or so years of existence and used its early performance as an excuse why they should avoid moving to internet sales.

Who's laughing now?

(It's almost like Bezos planned it that way, eh?)

/. is broken again

[oldmac31310]

meh

Can anyone else see no comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone else see no comments for any story today?

He asks the room full of people whose responses he can't see...

..a Dickens novel with robots

[cyberchondriac]

Sounds like Futurama. Maybe Bezos is an ancestor of Mom.

In any case, this is an interesting sort of dichotomy; fierce competition among corporations is great for consumers and the general public, as it drives prices down and the availability of services and features up, as these corporations seek to out posture each other for your business; right up until it winds up putting thousands of jobs on the chopping block as smaller corporations fall like dominoes to the juggernaut that is Amazon. Though to be fair and give full disclosure as a consumer, I'm a fan of Amazon and Amazon Prime.

Not quite...

[Sarten-X]

Amazon isn't a retail company. They aren't a hosting company, or a media production company... They are a logistics company.

Amazon follows a loose definition of the term "logistics" compared to most others in the field, but it's what they do best. They handle distribution of high volumes of goods, and they happen to handle order placement as well, just to keep their shipping volumes up. They also handle information logistics, with huge server farms and highly-scalable systems to handle their own information needs... and they just happen to sell off their capacity and capabilities, as well.

They are essentially logistics at scale, which allows them to move in industries at extremely low cost, since a large expense in most industry changes is figuring out the logistics of a new enterprise.

frist prost

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazoned the first post

Wait till it

[Anonymous Coward]

Fails.

Am I the only one unable to see any comments?

[blind biker]

I can't see anything even in Incognito mode.

Re:Am I the only one unable to see any comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

they went away a couple hours ago but they're back now.
Just before they came back I got 404s for comment pages.

Re:Am I the only one unable to see any comments?

[HalAtWork]

You could see them in mobile mode but not desktop view

Re:Am I the only one unable to see any comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you see the genius in this? Write-only comments. It's the future. You can write absolutely anything you want and not get modded down.

Re:Am I the only one unable to see any comments?

[blind biker]

Don't you see the genius in this? Write-only comments. It's the future. You can write absolutely anything you want and not get modded down.

HAHAHH.. you're on to something, you know?

Re:Am I the only one unable to see any comments?

[blind biker]

Thank you. As one who exclusively accesses Slashdot from the desktop, I am triggered!

Re:Am I the only one unable to see any comments?

[Cro Magnon]

They went haywire, but they replaced the hay with more wire, so they should be okay now.

Re:Am I the only one unable to see any comments?

[HalAtWork]

I use the classic desktop view on mobile and am also upset, but at the same time there are better and more positive things to do than look at Slashdot so if I miss a few hours/days it is probably to my benefit lol

Re:Am I the only one unable to see any comments?

[fafalone]

They're working now but the first thing I did when desktop wasn't seeing them was try the mobile version, over cell data so different IP, and the comments weren't there either. First that crazy downtime, now this... how is it possible for /. of all places to have problems like it was being run by an intern on the first day of his job never having encountered a Linux server rack before.

Anti-Trust?

[Anonymous Coward]

So where are the Anti-Trust lawyers form DOJ when we need them? Amazon is clearly a monopoly ...

Re:Anti-Trust?

[thinkwaitfast]

Why? Other than amazon basic batteries, i can buy everything else they sell a click away.

But wait..

[argStyopa]

....didn enfant terrible Thomas Piketty talk about growing wealth disparities ossifying capital structures making it impossible for anyone to break in or bring about transformative change without some sort of cataclysmic war or revolution?

He was pretty certain about that, as I recall.

Re:But wait..

[Gilgaron]

Even if we were to deny that what has happened with the internet going mainstream was revolutionary (which would be silly), doesn't the internet marketplace appear to be consolidating and ossifying to you? The limitations of printing and broadcasting kept things local and heterodox to an extent, but now those are consolidating while the internet was always easy to consolidate. Social networking has shown the importance of userbase to viability.

kind of like

[doginthewoods]

being Wal- Marted. Only in cyberspace. And I hope Amazon crushes Wal Mart.

Re:kind of like

[Anonymous Coward]

being Wal- Marted. Only in cyberspace. And I hope Amazon crushes Wal Mart.

because all humans should be treated like shit, not just amazon employees

Re:kind of like

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I hope Amazon crushes Wal Mart.

I hope WalMart stays around for a long time. Monopolies are bad. Very bad.

Remember, Amazon is losing money now to develop dominance. The idea is once they developed dominance, they'll cash in.

Re:kind of like

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats like saying you hope Hitler crushes Stalin.
Or vice versa...

Better service

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon still has some of the best costumer service I've ever had. Complete trust of the costumer and inmediate action to remedy the issues.

Profits are small because they re-invest A LOT in growth.

I would not work for them, but damn as a costumer for the stores and AWS they are amazing.

A new natural monopoly

[reanjr]

Amazon is becoming the dominant player in the emerging natural monopoly of retail. Like telecoms, their network of distribution is where their value lies. The bigger you get, the better the network, the less likely to see competitors.

This was a disaster for consumers in telecom.

"Unfair" means "Blessed by a government"

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way to compete unfairly is to use the violent power of government to your benefit.

Is Amazon using the violent power of government to its benefit? If yes, then Amazon is competing unfairly; if no, then Amazon is competing fairly.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

You mean....

[Anonymous Coward]

...that it's "disruptive"?

So when are amazon changing name to BNL

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like wally was a prediction of the future!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsw4AxYRQrU

Get off their shaft.

[Anonymous Coward]

Get off their shaft.

Jeff Bezons: PLEASE SELL CARS!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to see them put all the swindling car dealers out of business

Go Amazon!!

[jwbales]

It's called disruptive innovation and its good for the US.

General Services

[Anonymous Coward]

... We Also Walk Dogs.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Not really always.....

[gosand]

On Amazon.com... yes, definitely. It takes logistics to do that though. To be able to pull off 2-day shipping and really make it work, and have people pay for it through Prime, is quite an accomplishment. But there are cracks in the armor. Notice how you get some of those shipments? Uber-like delivery people, using their own cars and they look quite run down, as if they are just delivering their hearts out. There is a price to those logistics, and I wonder how long it will last.

We will see how it goes with other things. Think of the Amazon streaming service. I have it and Netflix, and Amazon is nowhere near as good in pretty much all respects. But the funny thing is, Netflix runs on AWS. So no matter what, Amazon wins.

I always get a little cautious when I have a single go-to place. It used to be newegg for electronics, but they've slipped in recent years. Amazon has taken a piece of that for sure, but it can be a little overwhelming navigating all the products. And the review system is more than questionable wheras I thought neweggs was great. I have almost pulled the trigger on something on Amazon before, only to check the item's company website to find it available for cheaper. I still try to support websites when I can, and when I am not in a rush and their 1-2 week turnaround is acceptable. I have definitely found places that have a much nicer customer experience than Amazon. Amazon just makes it easy.

Re:Not really always.....

[pnutjam]

Yeah, they "customer experience" stuff is bullshit marketing fluff that this article writer bought into. The real threat and reason the keep customers is low friction. It's so simple to just find it on Amazon, or use AWS. That's the danger.

Amazon pwnd by Ursula K. Le Guin

[epine]

And fear of being Amazoned has become such a defining feature of commerce, it's easy to forget the phenomenon has arisen mostly in about three years.

WTF?

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (2013) lays this entire saga out bare. Already, by then, many of Amazon's core tactics were old news.

But apparently, a lot of people out there were somehow living in their own personal reality distortion clouds: somehow perceiving Amazon through their "ah, it's so cute!" man-eating baby-broccoli peril-impervious sun shades.

Ursula K Le Guin's speech at National Book Awards: Books aren't just commodities — 2014

We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience, and writers threatened by corporate fatwa. And I see a lot of us, the producers, who write the books and make the books, accepting this — letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish, what to write.

Here's the reference:

Amazon and publisher Hachette end dispute over online book sales — 2014

Since early May Amazon has been locked in a standoff with the French publishing house after Hachette refused to give Amazon pricing control over its ebooks, which would have seen most of their digital titles discounted to less than $10 a book.

Amazon came under criticism for its "aggressive" negotiating tactics, which included preventing customers from being able to pre-order Hachette titles, reducing the discounts it offered on Hachette books and even delaying shipment of some of the publisher's titles for up to a month, all which had a huge impact on sales.

In a recent anthology, Words Are My Matter (2016), she talks about how much she anguished over writing that speech, essentially biting the hand that granted her that award. But she decided, in the end, that she meant every last work of it. Amazon actually had themselves their own table at that ceremony, where they sat stiff and thin-lipped during Le Guin's oratory.

Re:Amazon pwnd by Ursula K. Le Guin

[epine]

Whoops, I didn't mean to leave my reference to Little Shop of Horrors quite so oblique. Insert your own Steve Martin / Jeff Bezos gold-filling "maintenance" joke.

We just need the âoeNext Thingâ

[Anonymous Coward]

The âoeNext Thingâ that will distrupt and destroy Amazon just as Amazon is dismantling retailers such as Target and Walmart.

What is is? Who knows, but it probably will come out of left field. Maybe it will be a tech that allows everyone to just cut out he middle man. If no one needs Amazon, if we can get things cheaper, faster elsewhere, then they are doomed.

Imagine this... drone technology has got to the point where anybody with a garage business can deliver within a 100 mile radius. And thereâ(TM)s a free non-profit website where you can list what you want to sell and people can buy it from you for a fee of ZERO. So for example, you go on the website and say you want 10 apples. All the apple sellers in your area (even neighborhood) show you their wares and prices. You pick one and the apples are delivered within the half hour. Zero extra cost involved, zero middle men like Amazon telling everyone how to run their business, zero possibility of Amazon delivering cheaper or faster.. Even Amazon canâ(TM)t sell apples cheaper than a guy who has a few apple trees sitting in his backyard. Apple is already doing this. Everyone else just needs to cut out the middle man. Sell directly to the public. Use tech to lower costs. Sell locally where others like Amazon canâ(TM)t compete as well.

Re:The reason for success is right in the descript

[pnutjam]

Walmart is an IT company disguised as a retailer. They really do good IT, but they did not seem to pivto to web quickly enough. They are more old school IT, databases and automation.

I wouldn't count them out. They seem to be pivoting quickly now and building up momentum.

Out here in the sticks..

[RespekMyAthorati]

For rural residents like me, Amazon is a godsend.
For many items, especially tech, it's Amazon or nothing, and there are tens of millions of people in the same boat.

Phenomenon: Retail apocalypse

[iq145]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...