It's common enough when people are speaking with their words, and less common when speaking with their wallets.
(This is the point where everyone always kramers in with their personal beefs with Amazon)
Like many others, I use Amazon because it's extremely useful, overall it's simply a better experience than shopping at other places. I have nothing against small businesses, but when I shop, I don't treat businesses like charities. If small businesses want my money, they have to actually present a better service. If they can't do that, it doesn't overly bother me that they go away.
I'd rather say, like Starbucks, Amazon provides a consistent and adequate service.
Small businesses might provide a better service or worse service, but consumers can't easily know which in advance - so large conglomerates present less risk and less cognitive load. Amazon is the obvious choice, more than it is the best choice.
Presenting a better service is not enough, for a small business to survive against a monopolist. It's one of the monopoly advantages that Amazon has.
walmart is bigger than amazon.
amazon’s share of retail in the US is around just 5%.
maybe i missed something...
it’s not all retail. it’s retail minus auto sales, travel etc etc basically anything that amazon doesn’t sell.
they have 5% of that pie.
offer a rebuttal if you can instead of attacking the commentator personally next time you leave a reply on this website.
i was actually curios as to why you considered it a monopoly when in fact the numbers are against you.
1. Monopoly (in law and in practice) is not just defined by what percentage of the pie they have; it's also about what power they have and what non-competitive behaviours they can and do engage in.
Claiming that Amazon is not a monopoly based on the technicality that they don't have 100% of all retail is an irrelevant claim.
2. It's possible to estimate Amazon's "addressable retail" in 2019 as a whole number percentage - that is already huge. There are few companies with that percentage in much smaller sectors.
3. You put it in competition with Bricks and Mortar stores in order to get to this figure, which makes your figure artificially low.
4. I understood your figures were from a 2019 estimate, although they were unsourced. Amazon revenue has been growing exponentially. There's now a pandemic on. Year-on-year sales have increased something like 50%.
I've consciously tried using Google Shopping to get around Amazon (an company with obnoxious employees IMO), but the experience is so much worse - no unified shipping, issues with returns, lack of trust... It's just not sustainable.
And as restaurants show, you can win off of a better service/product compared to a big company.
But do these small businesses people champion offer a superior service? Because mostly people just seem to urge you to buy from them for moral/ethical reasons, not because they're better.
Example: a local book chain sells me a book for 10% more money and takes 4 weeks to order it - Amazon sells it cheaper and it's delivered 2 days later.
It feels better and yet its the exact same company.
I still vote for state-wide and local matters and that is where my vote really does count.
People have a limited appetite for friction when they shop too. An ideal store with a better return policy and selection seems to look a lot like Amazon. I'm not saying that it's good for us to invest all of our shopping into one business. It's just what unregulated capitalism breeds over time.
So not a monopoly.
Edit:
Walgreens.com, Costco.com, Honest.com
All 5 of those popped up on Google/DuckDuck before anything from Amazon.
Companies like Amazon are of national interest and cannot be easily regulated by governments.
My proposal is to have a "social responsibility tax". That does not have to be necessarily be a financial thing.
Companies like amazon should provide adequate housing and other perks where they can utilize economies of scale.
> Companies like amazon should provide adequate housing and other perks where they can utilize economies of scale.
Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Why twist Amazon's arm into providing random social benefits, when you can just, y'know, have the government do it? Because that kind of thing is their job?
Imagine if you were like, "hmm, we don't seem to have enough public parks and libraries...I know! We'll force huge private corporations to provide them! I can't wait to go to Jeff Bezos Park, sponsored by Prime Video!" Would that really be an improvement over the local government doing it?
The problem is lack of accountability, corruption, nepotism and lack of vision (shortterm thinking).
It's easier for Amazon to find a way how to construct more efficiently housing that's adequate even for lower classes.
The government just need to set a quality standard for that housing.
Companies (except worker-owned cooperatives) are hierarchical and completely undemocratic, by design.
They are also focused exclusively on maximizing profit, not providing social services.
Replace democratic institutions with billionaire-owned companies and we just reinvented feudalism.
Indeed, unless the government stops them.
If you don't murder your neighbors and seize all their assets someone will do that as well, unless the government stops it.
Your point is less salient than it appears at first glance. It's not actually controversial that without government intervention people acting in their own narrow self interest will destroy society.
Are you not being overly pessimistic of human nature? Even in places and times of extreme lawlessness, generally society continues to function without everyone being murdered. Or perhaps you were being hyperbolic?
granted I'd personally rather not be living in such a time or place.
Typically in a generally lawless environment the prevailing means of social organization is what you call a mafia or warlord state, where small scale tribal sized areas become semi-stable anchored around a strongman type figure who maintains a monopoly on the use of violence.
In those situations survival exists at the discretion of the local warlord, who informally settles disputes and extracts whatever reasources they see fit, distributing the spoils to the militia members that keep them able to maintain their monopoly on violence.
This is easily recognizable as the default state for most of human history, and the state that society returns to when ungoverned. Examples include Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, various narco-states, and so on.
While functional, one very noticeable attribute is that it's not a pleasant way to live for everyone except those who win all the resources. Sound familiar?
Remind me, how many people are declining to wear masks and ignoring stay-at-home directives during this pandemic?