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Comment by seydor | Hacker News Reader

Cartel-as-a-service

So if monopolies and price signaling drives prices up, what can be used from the consumer's side to drive them down? Price comparison would work, but inevitably those engines will discover their own power to fix prices. What is better

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Separate marketplace and merchant using regulation.

Separate Amazon the platform/marketplace from Amazon the merchant. Two different companies.

Imagine a duopoly where NYSE and Nasdaq Inc. operate the marketplace and are the only stockbroker in their marketplace. That's what Amazon is for stuff they sell.

google is the same for ads

Yes it is.

What’s to stop a split business operating on a nod and a wink?

Competition ?

I’m not sure you understand how running a business at a loss works.

You mean something that is illegal to do ?

I’m not sure that it’s illegal to run a business at a loss?

That might depend on the jurisdiction ? See the recent news about France allowing exceptionally to sell vehicle fuel at a loss.

It is if the intention is to drive out competitors. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/predatory-pricing.asp

Two separate companies, two separate interests.

Also. Anticartel enforcement between separate companies is settled law and straight forward. Feds do that every day. So do Europeans.

This is already illegal. So, the answer is simple: take every penny from the executives and throw them in gen pop.

I understand that we let our owners get away with worse without doing anything to stop them. Our current government can't even stop Tesla from committing mass murder, chocolate companies from enslaving people, or tobacco companies from deliberately poisoning children. But the laws are on the books and the solution is no mystery.

… government intervention, same as 100 years ago…

that s questionable if it will work. maybe there s a more sustainable solution

You mean like some kind of organisation designed to regulate the behaviours of businesses and individuals over the long term such that the general population isn't exploited or abused by the few, and tragedy of the commons style problems can be avoided?

or some market participants that hedges between the two

> but inevitably those engines will discover their own power to fix prices.

Let the government run the comparison platform, and make it mandatory for shops to report their prices daily?

The goal of such a platform should not be to make money, but to make the market more efficient.

> The goal of such a platform should not be to make money, but to make the market more efficient.

This. Proponents of fully free markets often conveniently ignore that it’s almost always cheaper to sell products of unethical means, absent outside intervention. It’s always cheaper for nestle to sell slavery-produced chocolate than not, and nothing in free market capitalism can effectively address questions of ethics.

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