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This uncaring attitude is directly a result of lack of competition. Amazon won. (Sure, there are some other big names in the game, but the online retail market is in a pathological state. As in case of other "natural monopolies" the network effect is very large, thus barriers to entry is absurdly high, hence no real competition. The incumbents are optimizing and diversifying, participating in meta-games - eg. lobbying, regulatory capture, PR, etc. Not to mention the endless cross-financing between services that muddies the waters. Eg. just as Google Search funds Chrome development, AWS finances the Amazon expansion.)

Basically one oneline retail market participant optimized out almost all competition.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/




Retail is not really a winner take all market though. It has very low barriers to entry. There are multitude of options to use as an alternative to Amazon.

https://www.emarketer.com/content/amazon-dominates-us-ecomme...

To Amazon's credit, they did move fast and bet big on online retail first. But since it is a low barrier to entry business, there is next to profit to be had in it, so they really do not have an incentive to keep pouring into it. Why bother playing for 2% profit margins versus Walmart and Target and Home Depot and Costco when you can earn 15%+ as a platform.

If people stop using you, then oh well, switch to web services or media which have double digit profit margins, but it is not really a big loss. So I would say the uncaring attitude is due to lack of profits margins, compared to their alternative.


Exactly. Once I realized I didn't like Amazon's tactics, I started switching to other sellers. For example, I now buy books on bookshop.org. For every type of product I want, I've managed to find a decent alternative either online or locally.


Do we know if Cliff uses Amazon as a retailer or as a platform?

> There are multitude of options to use as an alternative to Amazon.

Network effects still matter. Sellers won't maintain presence on every retail site.




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