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Comment by radiator | Hacker News Reader

Reading this, one gets the feeling that Amazon advertise their products on some sort of public place, and that this is perhaps not right.

But in reality they simply own the whole thing and it is perfectly reasonable to do however they want.

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I refer you to the Microsoft antitrust case. Microsoft owned the desktop OS, and was using that to give preference to IE. That... didn't fly. Using a monopoly in one area to gain market share in another area is in fact an antitrust violation.

The antitrust case was about Microsoft giving away a free browser. Every operating system comes with a free browser. My phone comes with a free browser. My kindle comes with a free browser.

No. The antitrust case was about Microsoft using their control of the OS to push users to use Microsoft's browser.

The issue wasn't that Microsoft gave away IE for free. Netscape gave away Navigator for free, too. The issue was that Microsoft tried to "leverage" Windows to increase IE's market share.

Specifically, Microsoft told PC builders (to which MS was a supplier) that they would not sell Windows to them if they intended to pre-install Netscape as well.

Microsoft tried to use their monopoly as the supplier of one piece of software (the OS) to distort the market for another piece of software (the browser).

Netscape did not give Navigator away to PC builders for free originally; selling volume licenses was their business model, and Microsoft illegally destroyed it. Hence the prosecution.

I quit using Netscape because it crashed far more often than Explorer. Nobody tried to stop me from using Netscape. I had no trouble pushing a button and installing it.

Netscape in those days was a borderline unusable product, and trying to blame Microsoft is misplaced.

Have you ever tried to install another browser on your kindle?

Also, much of the drama in the trial was about Microsoft removing Explorer from the distribution, not about barriers to the installation of Netscape.

Sure, that may be true. And Microsoft also engaged in anticompetitive behavior. The behavior is still illegal, whether or not Netscape crashed.

If Microsoft had competed and won on technical merit and/or marketing, that would have been fine. But they didn't.

My point is that Netscape was uncompetitive due to it being nearly useless from constantly crashing. Blaming Microsoft is misplaced.

Today I still have IE on my machine, but I never use it, because Chrome causes fewer problems. Having it sit on the machine does no harm, and doesn't bother me.

That anti-trust battle was the first in history where it was a dispute between one free product and another free product. Nobody ever demonstrated any harm to consumers at all. That was never even an issue at trial. Nobody ever demonstrated that Netscape couldn't be installed.

None of that makes Microsoft's behavior more legal. So what are you arguing endlessly about?

Their predatory conduct is being investigated in the EU [1] and US [2] which suggests it is far from "perfectly reasonable" and may not even be legal.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/17/eu-to-investigate-amazon-ove...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/01/amazon-je...

Oh definitely, if you ignore the whole monopoly aspect.

Doesn't Amazon have like less than 40% of US online retail, and less than 10% of US retail total?

I guess rephrasing, what's the definition of monopoly here?

Monopoly is the wrong word but I think Elizabeth Warren made a good case for why similar regulation is needed for very large, powerful platforms today (regardless if you agree with her proposed solution).

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/9/18257965/elizabeth-warren-...

I see this argument a lot for Amazon.

monopoly: the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service.

Aren't suppliers free to start their own store, drive traffic to it and make money? Aren't suppliers free to list their products on Amazon, Ebay, Craigslist, Etsy, Shopify etc.?

How is this considered a monopoly? I'm actually interested in an answer. I might be missing something.

I think the strongest case I could make is that the advantage of stores like Amazon (and Target) is customer acquisition. They're where customers go to discover products and comparison shop. The limited resource they control is the supply of customers who are there to buy a specific type of good. And buy favoring certain products they can choose the winners/losers in this game and edge their own products in.

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