So don’t sell on Amazon. There are tons of other options. Amazon is merely the largest, not the only.
At what point is it a defacto monopoly? A huge share of people shop exclusively on Amazon, particularly when compared to 10 years ago. There's no sign it'll stop growing any time soon.
Choosing not to, or being prohibited from selling on Amazon effectively blocks you out of a significant share of ecommerce sales. There's no way around that.
If the argument is that Amazon might become a monopoly in coming years, I can totally see that. But I don’t see how it is one now.
> The first quarter 2019 e-commerce estimate increased 12.4 percent (±1.1%) from the first quarter of 2018 while total retail sales increased 2.7 percent (±0.4%) in the same period. E-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2019 accounted for 10.2 percent of total sales
I don't think e-commerce is the right market. Most companies selling widgets just want to get their goods in consumer's hands. They don't really care how. Amazon makes it easy and does a lot of the work but sets the terms. Otherwise they'd be going after that 87.6% that's not done through e-commerce.
[0] https://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/pdf/ec_current.p...
People should ask why. Is it the prices? No. Is it the discoverability? No. It's because when you have a problem with whatever you bought you get reimbursed. No "call Samsung hotline", no "we'll add this totally not free warranty package in your cart".
Consider for comparison my recent experience purchasing a wedding gift from Bed Bath and Beyond. They had done everything right to capture my purchase: They hosted the wedding registry, kept the new couple's address hidden, and by not allowing me to select "I'm buying this somewhere else" made it difficult for me to get the item cheaper from another retailer.
Despite all of that, I still abandoned the cart and came back to Amazon. BB&B requires Verified By Visa, and I require my credit card provider to not be stupid about security, so my card was declined with no recourse.
Mind you, Amazon has declined my payment before, too. But they only did it once, more-than paid for their mistake, and haven't troubled me since.
Amazon is a monopoly like Visa and Mastercard are monopolies. They enrich themselves while facilitating commerce. While I'm uncomfortable with that power they hold, I wouldn't want to be without it.
Whether or not any individual sells on Amazon has absolutely nothing to do with their anti-competitive practices.
But my argument was poor.
Even ignoring that, do you have an example of products that don’t exist outside of amazon (other than amazon labeled products).