Amazon search, A9, was originally meant to take on Google back in 2003 as a comprehensive search solution. It failed spectacularly at that.
The Amazon phone, a shot at Apple's massive profits. A total failure.
Amazon attempted to take on eBay in auctions, they failed.
Amazon attempted to take on Craigslist in classified ads, another failure.
Amazon has been attempting to figure out a way to dominate the music category for 15+ years, they've repeatedly failed. They're very far behind Apple and Spotify when it comes to stand-alone music services.
Amazon's local daily deals service, Amazon Local, failed (shut-down in 2015). They also burned $175m on LivingSocial during the Groupon mania years as part of that overall sector effort.
They attempted a competing mapping service to Google Maps, that ended up being a mediocre product (with a few technical innovations) that nobody used. They quickly discovered how difficult and expensive it is to build a competing product to Google Maps.
Amazon failed with travel, attempting to go after Priceline's profits, they shut down Amazon Destinations in 2015.
They failed with Local Register, which was some kind of mediocre shot at Square's market.
Amazon essentially takes shots at anything that pops up and demonstrates an ability to make money. They fail overwhelmingly, and then very rarely they get a homerun like AWS which pays for it all many times over.
Amazon search, A9, was originally meant to take on Google back in 2003 as a comprehensive search solution. It failed spectacularly at that.
The Amazon phone, a shot at Apple's massive profits. A total failure.
Amazon attempted to take on eBay in auctions, they failed.
Amazon attempted to take on Craigslist in classified ads, another failure.
Amazon has been attempting to figure out a way to dominate the music category for 15+ years, they've repeatedly failed. They're very far behind Apple and Spotify when it comes to stand-alone music services.
Amazon's local daily deals service, Amazon Local, failed (shut-down in 2015). They also burned $175m on LivingSocial during the Groupon mania years as part of that overall sector effort.
They attempted a competing mapping service to Google Maps, that ended up being a mediocre product (with a few technical innovations) that nobody used. They quickly discovered how difficult and expensive it is to build a competing product to Google Maps.
Amazon failed with travel, attempting to go after Priceline's profits, they shut down Amazon Destinations in 2015.
They failed with Local Register, which was some kind of mediocre shot at Square's market.
Amazon essentially takes shots at anything that pops up and demonstrates an ability to make money. They fail overwhelmingly, and then very rarely they get a homerun like AWS which pays for it all many times over.