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Comment by patient_zero | Hacker News Reader

I really enjoy the high level of comments here generally, unless there's an article that paints a tech company in a negative light. It's the one time I can always count on a large number of apologists showing up to defend them, and I think that bias is something everyone should look withing themselves and address.

When you get as big as Amazon is, along with the cushy tax breaks and cozy relationship with government that go along with that size, your decisions and business practices need to come under closer scrutiny, the end.

On a slightly different topic, the fact that the seller said he was held to binding arbitration made me very sad. I am super excited for these bullshit "binding" arbitration clauses to get shot down in court, they need to go.

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> It's the one time I can always count on a large number of apologists showing up to defend them, and I think that bias is something everyone should look withing themselves and address.

Funnily enough, I notice the same for intellectually dishonest comments that are _critical_ of big tech companies, or at least certain ones. It seems like the fact that you only notice one side of this dynamic is a bias _you_ should examine within yourself.

Amazon is nowhere near a monopoly in retail. Walmart does almost double their sales.

? neither parent nor GP said they were.

GP says, "When you get as big as Amazon is". The only scenario in which the size of a company has a bearing on which laws apply to them is if the business is a monopoly.

This is false. Amazon doesn't have the same rules as most companies, they have cities paying them bribes to put a headquarters in them.

Many large companies try to extract concessions from cities in this manner. Sports franchises are notorious for this, despite being much smaller than Amazon.

This has been going on since the 80s in my first hand experience. Im sure longer than that as well.

> The only scenario in which the size of a company has a bearing on which laws apply to them is if the business is a monopoly.

I'm sorry but this is not true. There are tons of labor laws, just to give one example, that depend on how many employees a company has.

Aren't the labor laws discriminating at a scale that is several orders of magnitude smaller than Amazon, though? The implied context in the GP is that they're talking about Amazon's size as opposed to, say, Target or Walmart.

Sure, but I was using labor laws as an example to show that there exists precedent to discriminate based on company size.

Further, GP also claims that “being a monopoly” is the only scenario in which size matters, but monopoly power is not about overall company size — it’s about market dominance. You can be a (relatively) small company and still exert complete dominance in a market, and engage in anti-competitive behavior that will attract regulatory scrutiny.

"Need to come under closer scrutiny" is not based on the exact details of current legal enforcement.

Why consider brick and mortar retail and ecommerce to be the same space? They are quite different businesses.

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