[HN Gopher] Amazon restricts how rival device makers buy ads on ...
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Amazon restricts how rival device makers buy ads on its site
Author : known
Score : 192 points
Date : 2020-09-27 08:14 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| baby wrote:
| Antitrust?
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/Sf7I5
| nautilus12 wrote:
| How is this not antitrust? When are we going to stand up to this,
| only once its too late and USA stands for United States of
| Amazon?
| harikb wrote:
| Right! of all the atrocities in 2020, amazon blocking ads is
| the most important one.
| ethanwillis wrote:
| It's a good thing not only one person is working on all
| issues at once or we'd have to wait for them to be scheduled
| to work on this far too long from now.
|
| How many Bureaucrats exist? More than enough to handle a
| single issue at a time.
| pc86 wrote:
| You've obviously never met a bureaucrat. One issue is
| pushing it.
| ethanwillis wrote:
| They take as input infinitely many issues and output
| infinitely many issues. The problem you point out is one
| inherent to all turing machine automatons, precisely:
| "When will they, if ever, be done executing?" :^)
| int_19h wrote:
| You should thank Robert Bork for gutting the proper
| understanding of antitrust in US.
| legohead wrote:
| It is antitrust, I don't know why you're getting downvoted.
| Antitrust isn't just about monopolies, people.
|
| You can boil it down to a company having too much power and
| abusing this power to harm competitors which ultimately harms
| consumers; which is exactly what Amazon is doing in this case.
| AznHisoka wrote:
| What's even more concerning is that Amazon is promoting their own
| brands for searches. For example, when searching for "Smart TV",
| placements of their own Fire TV is on top:
| https://www.amazon.com/s?k=smart+TV&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
|
| This is deliberate and not the result of the search algorithm.
| They even label the results: "Featured by own brands"
| Aperocky wrote:
| How is that different from Walmart or Costco featuring their
| own brand at prominent location in shop?
| rbecker wrote:
| Not much. Both behaviors are anti-competitive and should
| probably be restricted.
| amelius wrote:
| If I type "Chrome" into Google search, I also get an ad for
| Google Chrome at the top (I was looking for Chrome, the English
| singer).
| ealhad wrote:
| Just tried typing "browser" in the same Google search (using
| Firefox), it yields interesting results: I have Brave,
| Firefox, Firefox on Google Play, the Wikipedia article for
| browser, and not even one Chrome link.
| [deleted]
| johncena33 wrote:
| Is it absolutely necessary to bring Google into every single
| conversation and then start bashing it?
| ksk wrote:
| Google is the new Trump :P (relax, its a joke)
| dspillett wrote:
| That is understandable due to the over-loaded word though.
| Without other context how does it know which of the two you
| are looking for? I know which of the two I'd be looking for
| information about, given I wasn't aware of the other until
| now.
| mFixman wrote:
| I was about to comment against you but you are right.
| Searching "Browser" on Google shows Firefox first, Brave
| second, and then a bunch of web articles about browsers in
| general.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Surely Target/Walmart would be allowed to display their own in-
| house brands on end-caps and not allow competitors to buy end-cap
| space if they want, right?
|
| (Walmart's retail sales are higher than Amazon's retail sales,
| though that's likely to cross-over sometime in the next couple
| years.)
| rrobukef wrote:
| Sure, but then no product should be able to buy end-cap space.
| Not just disallowing competitors. And in fact, Target/Walmart
| clearly enforce limits on what is sold. They don't advertise
| 'Become an Amazon seller' or open advertising to anybody but a
| specific few. OTOH, just because I haven't heard any complaints
| about this, doesn't mean anything.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Walmart's marketplace seems quite open to me:
| https://marketplace.walmart.com/
|
| Target is indeed gated by a person:
| https://corporate.target.com/about/products-
| services/supplie...
| comboy wrote:
| Supermarkets are a shitshow and from my point of view it's way
| worse than anything that's happening in the digital world.
| There are only a few players and that's where all people buy
| their groceries. If you're not there, you don't exist. And to
| be there, you need a really good deal.
|
| Product placement (whether you need to reach high low or if
| it's front of your eyes) make a bigger difference than a
| packaging which of course dominates over the content. Fancy
| packaging is also something that big brands can allow and
| probably protected by patents. Most of stuff you buy is likely
| from a company which was bought by Nestle. Nestle can
| negotiate, they can't be removed.
|
| Smaller producers must provide the same product that they make
| under the supermarket brand so that market can get customers
| accustomed to good value and then they start looking if
| somebody can make something similar enough but cheaper.
|
| It's much worse than as if Amazon ordered products by how much
| money they were paid from a given company and banned products
| from competitors of those who paid enough.
|
| Free market is long gone in the groceries world.
|
| I did not do enough research, I don't have behind the scenes
| information, I just think about it sometimes when I'm shopping.
| I'd love to be proven wrong or read a good book or some article
| on the topic.
| cwmma wrote:
| target/walmart buy from wholesalers and then sell to customers,
| that's fundamentally different from how amazon works which is
| to facilitate a sale directly between sellers and buyers.
| yyy888sss wrote:
| Seems like 'Company gives preference to its own products on its
| own store' which is hardly surprising.
| josefresco wrote:
| It's a little more complicated than that as Amazon is also
| running a "marketplace" inside it's own store. Amazon isn't
| buying these products and reselling them like a traditional
| retailer, they are providing a marketplace for business and
| consumers.
| sokoloff wrote:
| When Home Depot or Walmart buys a bunch of product with the
| right to return to the vendor any product that doesn't sell-
| through, is it really that bright-line different?
| josefresco wrote:
| As someone who has experience trying to "sell" a product to
| both Home Depot and Walmart no, it's not a bright line
| difference. I guess my point was that Amazon, and others
| like Apple like to argue both ways:
|
| "It's OUR store, we can deny anyone for anything." and
| "It's a MARKETPLACE, we can't be held liable for bad
| behavior or fraud!"
|
| The offline giants would love to have these same arguments.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Correct, and this is why trustbusting is so important. Because
| "Company uses market advantage in one market to force
| competitors out of an unrelated market." is not a healthy long-
| term behavior to allow.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I think "unrelated market" is a tough sell for this case. The
| two markets are "selling things" and..."selling things."
| They're pretty closely related.
| MereInterest wrote:
| I think you are expanding the categories so much as to be
| useless. Selling books (Amazon's original market) is
| entirely unrelated from selling home security systems
| (Amazon Ring). Transportation/logistics (Amazon
| marketplace) is entirely unrelated from server space as a
| service (AWS).
| tshaddox wrote:
| Right, but "selling basically any physical shippable
| goods" has long the primary business of Amazon.com.
| paxys wrote:
| No, the two markets are selling things and making things.
| If Amazon is the sole gatekeeper of getting something from
| a factory to a customer, it will naturally do everything in
| its power to boost its own factories and drive all others
| out of business.
| jedberg wrote:
| This is why Warren's plan included a provision that doesn't allow
| a company that runs a marketplace to also participate in said
| marketplace.
|
| Edit: Since a lot of people aren't familiar with the details, the
| plan only kicks in once the company reaches 25 billion in
| revenue.
| durovo wrote:
| Would love to see how this applies to Apple App Store and Play
| Store.
| [deleted]
| Shivetya wrote:
| Just love arbitrary dollar numbers so that they can claim to
| not target specific companies.
|
| How about laws the apply equally to all. Seriously, go across
| the magical threshold and then what? You have to leave your own
| market place? Do we have then a list of exceptions and
| exceptions to exceptions?
|
| Mickey mouse legislation is the reason the system is in such
| shambles and there are legions of lawyers just to navigate it
| all. Government which operates off the petty whims of the
| politicians is subject to abuse by all sides and you just best
| hope you stay on the right side.
| dangero wrote:
| It's funny because some places actually go the other way ---
| they start off only selling their own stuff and then they
| invite others into the marketplace. This is one way to overcome
| the marketplace chicken egg problem of having both buyers and
| sellers. This would stifle that.
|
| Valve launched Steam originally only with its own games then
| invited others to join. Now it's a completely open marketplace.
| kannanvijayan wrote:
| It would stifle the specific marketplaces where, when they
| "open up" to third parties, wish to retain arbitrary special
| privileges for first party offerings.
|
| There's a reasonableness metric there that needs to be
| evaluated. Nothing is simple. If you're giving in-house apps
| special privileges because you've implemented some core
| functionality using mostly generic APIs and just a few
| special hooks.. that's one thing.
|
| If you're giving in-house apps special access to random "nice
| to have" things, or participation in various contexts (e.g.
| sales, promotions, etc.).. in order to boost your stuff
| against others, that's another thing.
|
| The details matter.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Amazon was pretty similar. Selling other people's stuff makes
| financial sense because you don't carry inventory. It makes
| an accounting cost center a profit center.
| ShinTakuya wrote:
| I mean, Valve's games (as few and far between they are these
| days) did and still do get preferential treatment. It just so
| happens that because Valve doesn't really make games anymore,
| Steam works out being mostly fair. But if Valve went and
| released HL3 tomorrow, you can bet it'll be at the top of the
| store for half the year.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| I'm not sure the comparison is apt. There is a lot less
| competition in the space that Steam occupies. If I buy Half
| Life, I'm _more_ likely to buy another similar FPS, not
| less likely.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| The tricky thing is that it would probably be at the top of
| the store even if Valve didn't put it there; a lot of
| gamers would be thrilled to see HL3 released. Teasing out
| the difference between fair and unfair market behavior here
| is non-trivial.
| dubcanada wrote:
| Artifact is a Valve game [1], and on it's release it was
| advertised no more then any other game in the strategy
| category. It has a banner at the top for a new release as
| they do for any other game. And that was about it.
|
| [1] - https://store.steampowered.com/app/583950/Artifact/
|
| Not to say HL3 wouldn't get more attention, I don't believe
| Valve treats their marketplace similar to Amazon.
| kroltan wrote:
| To be fair, Artifact's announcement even before it ever
| got to Steam was met with a literal chorus of "BOO"s [1].
| It wouldn't be [2] the best measure to prove Valve
| wouldn't favor its own game.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0qZTS38cjw [2]:
| 6.4k likes vs 81k dislikes at
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA5mY8XqrHU
| jrockway wrote:
| I think the dislikes came after the initial launch. I
| remember everyone being super hyped about Artifact, but
| then the game came out, and they didn't really like it.
| (I also bought it, played a few games, bought a few
| decks, and decided Hearthstone was better.)
|
| The game lost all of its players (something like 30
| active daily users at one point), and Valve said they
| were rewriting it. They called it "the long haul", and
| that is where most of the dislikes came from. People paid
| for the game, paid for cards, and then were told they
| couldn't play anymore. The community was furious.
|
| Sometime recently they did release a beta of the new
| version. I have a beta key but wasn't all that interested
| in trying it. I imagine most people feel the same way.
|
| Honestly, I think the game was so bad that pushing it on
| everyone on Steam wouldn't have improved their numbers.
| It came at a very bad time -- card games were on the way
| out, auto battlers were on the way in. They gave up on
| Artifact and focused on Dota Underlords, and probably
| made the right decision. (I have not followed the auto
| battlers at all, so I don't know if people like
| Underlords or not. Maybe it's another Artifact, I'm not
| the right person to ask.)
| kroltan wrote:
| Would it? Alyx didn't really overstate its presence earlier
| this year either.
| eropple wrote:
| Alyx is also a VR game. Bit more niche.
| kroltan wrote:
| Steam has a very powerful recommendation engine, and
| knowledge about the hardware of its users. I would be
| surprised if they weren't able to focus their marketing
| to VR owners if they wanted.
| gommm wrote:
| In the past year, I've used my steam account for VR games
| 50% of the time roughly and they still didn't really push
| Alyx all that much.
|
| That said given I mostly only do short game sessions ,
| maybe they figured that I wouldn't be that interested in
| it?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| How short? The chapters in Alyx average a bit over an
| hour each but nothing stops you from only doing half a
| chapter.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| But the same is true for amazon.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| They should spin off at that point. The original inventors
| can holds stock and earn return, but the platform would have
| to operate at arm's length from the original product.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Question for anyone who might know: how does this currently
| work with stock markets? Would it have to change?
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| This is a terrible idea. It's almost impossible to bootstrap a
| marketplace without participating in it. Amazon as a platform
| that people can sell their own stuff on is only possible
| because people were already using it to buy things directly
| from amazon.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _It 's almost impossible to bootstrap a marketplace without
| participating in it._
|
| This is obviously untrue. Walk into almost any store in the
| world, and you're in a marketplace where the owner is not
| also selling his own competing products.
|
| There are vanishingly few exceptions, like garden centers,
| big box stores, and supermarkets.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| There are three different things happening on amazon:
|
| #1 Amazon selling third party products.
|
| #2 Third party sellers selling their products.
|
| #3 Amazon selling their own products.
|
| You're pointing out that #3 isn't necesary, and that's
| true, but my point is that #1 is necessary and is how every
| store starts, then they might expand into #2 and #3.
| amelius wrote:
| #1 isn't necessary if amazon started as a logistics
| company, with smaller shops as their clients.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| And those stores arent as good as Amazon, according to
| millions of customers.
| amelius wrote:
| Ok, perhaps allow for a bootstrap period.
| adambyrtek wrote:
| eBay and many others prove that it's definitely a
| possibility.
| jedberg wrote:
| The plan only kicks in once you have 25 billion in revenue.
|
| So there is a generous bootstrapping period.
| t-writescode wrote:
| This plan seems like it would have a LOT of collateral damage
| that we don't want to have. I still want Valve
| to still be able to sell games on Steam. I want Epic to
| be allowed to make games. I want Costco to still have the
| Kirkland brand.
|
| And so on.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| typical socialist ideas, sounds good to the masses, but with
| potential consequences that are the opposite of what they
| want.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| > typical socialist ideas, sounds good to the masses, but
| with potential consequences that are the opposite of what
| they want.
|
| This has nothing at all to do with socialism. In fact,
| those that support such an argument seem to do so because
| they believe it _increases_ competition. It might actually
| be the polar opposite of socialism.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Well, it isn't a socialist plan. That would be more like
| obligating the employees to all be stockholders
| proportional to the number of employees in the company;
| but, nice try :)
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Spin off the house brand from the house.
| zaptrem wrote:
| What if half the people work on both?
| latortuga wrote:
| How does this work for B&M companies? Think Walgreens or
| Target. They have plenty of in-house brands and also major 3rd
| party brands. Are they allowed to continue having in-house
| brands?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I don't think anything good would be lost if store brands
| went away as an anti-monopoly measure. They're usually just
| rebranded from some other company anyways. No need for the
| retail store to be double-dipping.
| bradstewart wrote:
| The inhouse brands are quite often cheaper for the
| consumer. That's worth something.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| The in-house brands are cheaper because they are double
| dipping on margin and can afford to under cut their
| competitors. This is only good for consumers in the short
| term and bad for the health of the market place overall.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| It's also because I'm not paying for a $1 advertising for
| my $3 box of cereal.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| That is also true. It's the other huge advantage the
| store brands have... there is little need to advertise
| Kirkland to get sales.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| They're cheaper because they're not "brand name". That
| doesn't mean the not brand name option needs to be owned
| by the retail store.
| scarface74 wrote:
| And then they would be more expensive because they have
| to advertise and have their own supply chain. How does
| that help consumers?
| p49k wrote:
| There are grocery stores which sell cheaper off-label
| products that aren't their own. The makers of those
| products don't advertise and thus pass those savings to
| the consumer. It's a system that's already proven to
| work.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Are we trying to protect consumers?
| Cerium wrote:
| I'm not sure about this. I think a lot of why store
| brands work is because you trust the store not to cheat
| you. If the product is bad you know who to blame. The
| store wants the product to be good because they will
| loose customers of they make bad house brand products.
| p49k wrote:
| A store that sells third party off-label products can
| still do quality control on those products and can take
| responsibility for what they sell, just as they would
| remove faulty brand-name products to protect their
| reputation.
| scarface74 wrote:
| They could remove it.
|
| But if consumers have a choice between Advil and CVS
| brand Ibuprofen, they must trust the CVS brand but not
| some other brand.
|
| But the question remains - is the consumer being harmed?
| Store brand OTC drugs have existed for decades and have
| been cheaper than brand names.
| delfinom wrote:
| A long time ago, in organic chemistry we had a lab where
| we decomposed multiple brands of acetaminophen pills
| including tylenol to measure the content of acetaminophen
| . And well, Tylenol is the only drug that 20 or so
| independent groups that was even close to its labeled
| dosage. The off brands were as bad as 60%.
|
| But there's alot of shady as fuck shit that goes on in
| the OTC and generic market where they are produced
| largely overseas in labs that intentionally cut corners
| and the FDA doesn't give a shit. In fact, the FDA
| announces their inspections ahead of time which allows
| the labs to cheat.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
| shots/2019/05/16/7235458...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/11/opinion/sunday/generic
| -dr... (One FDA inspector ended up quitting because of
| his consistent findings in unannounced inspections he
| made and the FDA not giving a shit and reducing
| violations)
| scarface74 wrote:
| So are you saying that _pharmacists_ are making a bad
| decision when they buy OTC products? Are they that
| uninformed?
|
| https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-save-1-billion-
| witho...
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| No, pharmacists know the precise dosage is not very
| important. But domestic companies are held to a higher
| standard than imports.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Given the margins it might be that the only reason
| they're cheaper is they any discount from selling it
| under a store brand isn't reversed by having to pay
| profits to a pointless middleman.
|
| I don't see a problem with them selling their own banded
| stuff, or even if it's cheaper, in most senses.
|
| I do see a big problem with using what most people
| consider to be an open market that you can get anything
| on (even whole computers!) and specifically using that
| power to inhibit competition by having different
| advertising policies. It's not like those products were
| pulling an epic and refusing to give Amazon a cut of the
| sale, or doing something illegal -- just being banned
| from visibility is ridiculous abuse of monopoly power.
| triceratops wrote:
| I always thought store brands are cheaper because they
| don't need any marketing spending like the name brands
| have to keep doing.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Every little bit helps... these margins are tiny.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Part of the reason they are cheaper is they are owned by
| the store and thus get cross-subsidies.
|
| This is probably bad for the brand name products but very
| good for consumers.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So now we are going to pass laws that disallow _cheaper_
| house brands to "help" consumers?
| yourapostasy wrote:
| With the rare exception like Costco, cheaper house brands
| often imply they're equivalent to brand name goods, but
| take unadvertised shortcuts in process and/or feedstock,
| misleading consumers who don't take the time to carefully
| compare to weigh whether the shortcut is worth the value
| to them.
|
| I wouldn't mind house brands as much if supply chain
| information and process information was transparent
| across all companies, but that supply chain information
| is a pseudo-trade secret (and for real-time supply chain
| information, definitely a trade secret) [1], and you can
| forget about obtaining process information. I do use
| house brands for some goods personally, but this is the
| result of many years of a lot of careful vetting and
| monitoring ingredient lists that I know is not
| commonplace nor even feasible with many retail consumers.
|
| House brands can be a useful tool in the market, but they
| can be abused in too many ways for me to relax my
| vigilance as a consumer. They also can be abused in too
| many ways in their distribution channel role to obtain
| highly-granular, time-sensitive competitive information
| that normally wouldn't be available in the open market,
| for me to completely accept their unregulated deployment.
|
| I wouldn't go as far as to say ban house brands by law.
| But I wouldn't want to keep them completely unregulated
| in all contexts like we are currently doing, either.
|
| Happy to change my mind with any new information anyone
| cares to share though, as this isn't an area I keep a
| close eye upon.
|
| [1] https://www.importyeti.com/
| scarface74 wrote:
| Housebrand OTC drugs in particular are the same as the
| name brand equivalent. There was a Freakonomics episode
| where they said pharmacists overwhelmingly choose house
| brand OTC products.
|
| House brands of any product have to pass the same
| relevant regulations.
| yourapostasy wrote:
| Yep, likely because OTC pharma is a tightly-regulated
| market? However, there are still gaps I haven't found
| explanations for yet, so I must be misunderstanding how
| house branding works. For example, house brands have not
| materially impacted the insulin market [1] even though it
| is quite regulated to my best understanding. Even when
| insulin patents expire, there haven't been house brands
| introduced on more modern formulations [2] [3]. Nor have
| house brands moved into vaccine production.
|
| There is probably much, much more than meets the consumer
| retail eye to house branding, and I'd love to get an
| insider's look at the factors and considerations around
| the decision to roll out a house brand product.
|
| [1] https://insulinnation.com/treatment/why-walmart-
| insulins-are...
|
| [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4955122/
|
| [3] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/insulin-market-
| shakeup-p...
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _Even when insulin patents expire, there haven 't been
| house brands introduced on more modern formulations [2]
| [3]. Nor have house brands moved into vaccine
| production._
|
| This is because house brands are made by the name brands.
| In order to maintain their competitive edge for their
| name brands, they don't offer the modern formulations
| white label to the stores, and vaccines generally are not
| permitted by FDA regulations to be sold white-label.
| yourapostasy wrote:
| Thanks, I didn't know that about vaccines, where can I
| find out about this? For DT, there is one generic label
| [1]. I don't see the commonality of the few others that
| are generic as well [2]. So the FDA regulation will be
| interesting to see. Combined with the daunting financing
| challenges with vaccines [3], that might explain why
| there are no white label vaccines?
|
| In a couple of my previous links, some of the more modern
| formulations like Humalog came off of patent protection
| in the US around 2017, but no one outside the
| manufacturer has picked up white label manufacturing. A
| lot of times house branding just seems like market
| segmentation to me based around packaging when the
| original manufacturer is making the same product, but
| many times I've picked up a house brand and a name brand
| packaged food for example, and find sugar is higher up in
| the ingredients list in the house brand (and the
| nutritional panel reveals it is a significant ranking
| change).
|
| Thus house brands seem like an obfuscation of the market
| to my uninformed eye so far. They seem to act in the
| macro scale as a way to prevent real competitors from
| arising and taking away real revenue and margin, by
| stuffing the distribution channel with SKU's that give a
| slightly larger cut to the distributors in exchange for
| maintaining the same vendor count (thereby making it much
| more difficult for a competitor to gain shelf space).
|
| Those incentives probably all change around with an
| ecommerce site like Amazon. I just find this aspect of
| free markets fascinating as a layperson.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/dtap-tdap-
| td/hcp/about-vacc...
|
| [2] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/vaccines-list.html
|
| [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK221811/
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _some of the more modern formulations like Humalog came
| off of patent protection in the US around 2017, but no
| one outside the manufacturer has picked up white label
| manufacturing._
|
| For drugs, generics still need to prove that their own
| product meets safety standards and is the equivalent to
| the drug coming off patent protection. It's not cheap.
| For biologics like insulin, it's even more expensive.
|
| _Thus house brands seem like an obfuscation of the
| market to my uninformed eye so far. They seem to act in
| the macro scale as a way to prevent real competitors from
| arising and taking away real revenue and margin, by
| stuffing the distribution channel with SKU 's that give a
| slightly larger cut to the distributors in exchange for
| maintaining the same vendor count (thereby making it much
| more difficult for a competitor to gain shelf space)._
|
| That's not how retail works. Stores are more than happy
| to put new products on the shelf, especially if they sell
| well. They don't "maintain vendor count," they allocate
| shelf space based on actual sales. If a product doesn't
| sell well, it loses space to better-selling products on a
| daily or weekly basis (depending on the store). New
| products show up all the time, and depending on the
| arrangement with the manufacturer have between a week and
| a month to show their selling power. (New products are
| usually on a consignment basis so the manufacturer only
| gets paid if units sell.)
| yourapostasy wrote:
| _> That 's not how retail works...they allocate shelf
| space based on actual sales._
|
| Thanks for explaining what goes on behind the scenes! I
| don't have the terminology for this since I'm not in the
| domain, so what is it called when a Wal-Mart or Home
| Depot or grocery chain purchasing department selects a
| vendor for a product, but will not consider another
| similar vendor, because physical shelf space is finite?
| For example, I see Lincoln welding machines, but not
| Miller, Fronius, or some white label from China at Home
| Depot, and every Home Depot has the same amount of shelf
| space set aside for welding machines, but all Lincoln.
| There isn't even experimentation with an alternative
| brand with one model.
|
| Based upon your description, that finite physical
| limitation is not able to be strategically used by
| incumbents to take the oxygen out of the room for other
| vendors. One way to suck the oxygen out is to sell more.
| But if I'm an incumbent, and I get a chance to sell
| exactly the same product in house brand packaging for
| slightly less margin with a greater chance that a
| competitor won't get to see the same shelf, I'll take
| those reduced margins all day long. For a marginal loss
| in profit, I block shelf space without having to grow my
| sales by some commensurate amount to take up the same
| blocked shelf space. So why won't that work in the real
| world?
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _With the rare exception like Costco, cheaper house
| brands often imply they 're equivalent to brand name
| goods, but take unadvertised shortcuts in process and/or
| feedstock, misleading consumers who don't take the time
| to carefully compare to weigh whether the shortcut is
| worth the value to them._
|
| This is not true. I used to have a number of consumer
| products clients when I was at a firm. Store-brand
| products are all made for the stores by name brands as
| part of their white label programs (excepting clothing,
| since the transaction flows are different for that
| industry).
|
| Usually the way it works is that the white label product
| is the same as the standard product, but with store-
| selected packaging. In most cases, the differences are
| purely cosmetic (as with cereals, which are made for most
| stores by General Mills and its competitors.) In a few
| instances, the store brand is usually a white label
| version of the brand name's discount brands, such as the
| store-brand products at the 99 Cents Only and Dollar
| Stores.
|
| _I wouldn 't mind house brands as much if supply chain
| information and process information was transparent
| across all companies, but that supply chain information
| is a pseudo-trade secret (and for real-time supply chain
| information, definitely a trade secret) [1], and you can
| forget about obtaining process information._
|
| This information is known within the industry. As
| 99.99999% of customers don't care about the supply chain
| of a store brand product, they don't include that
| information on the packaging. But then again, neither do
| the name brands. In some cases, you can the name of the
| manufacturer by asking the store's corporate office, and
| they'll usually tell you. Generally, they don't have
| access to "process information" for how the product is
| manufactured because they're just buying the product from
| the manufacturer. Whether the manufacturer will tell you
| depends on the product.
|
| _I wouldn 't go as far as to say ban house brands by
| law. But I wouldn't want to keep them completely
| unregulated in all contexts like we are currently doing,
| either._
|
| House brands are subject to the same regulations as name
| brands.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| It's absolutely trivial and cheap to buy two boxes of
| cereal and open them up to see that the store brand
| version is quite different from the name brand.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| You'd lose Costco's Kirkland brand, which is one of those
| rare instances of the store brand often being _better_ than
| the name-brand.
| mtgx wrote:
| > one of those rare instances
|
| You said it, not me. We can't have policy revolving
| around a single company. The net positive would be
| greater in the market if platforms wouldn't be able to
| double-tip.
| codegladiator wrote:
| Why can't they still sell it at stores which they don't
| owe?
| triceratops wrote:
| One of the reasons I keep a Costco membership is for
| access to Kirkland products. And I think they know that a
| lot of their customers feel this way.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Bear in mind, I have no idea how wholesalers work in this
| day and age. But once upon a time, a wholesaler like
| Costco sold stuff _at cost_ (e.g. they charge what they
| paid the supplier for the product), and their revenue
| derived from the annual membership fees. So it 's not in
| Costco's interest to start selling Kirkland Brand Extra
| Virgin Olive Oil at Safeway, because it wasn't a profit
| center to begin with. The whole point of selling their
| own branded product was:
|
| a) To reduce costs by controlling the entire means-of-
| production
|
| b) To ensure quality control on the product and build
| faith in the brand, which in turn
|
| c) Pulls people into the store, forcing them to buy a
| Costco membership if they want the product.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| With regards to (a), Costco doesn't do that. Their entire
| Kirkland line is white-label products, excepting their
| pizzas which use dough made by regionally locally
| bakeries. They do have employees oversee (b), but they
| don't oversee the actual production; they conduct random
| inspections of shipped products.
|
| For example, Kirkland coconut water is simply white-label
| Vita Coco, and the made by label indicates it is packaged
| for them by the same company that produces Vita Coco.
| Miraste wrote:
| Better to cancel the line than supply competitors with
| better cheaper products than your own store.
| codegladiator wrote:
| Sorry I don't get the point. Costco's competitors selling
| Costo's cheaper product would still harm costco ?
|
| Does costco get some extra benefit if the consumer buys
| Kirkland from costco ?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Costco's value proposition is that they make (on average)
| no net income from sales of their products, and that you
| will find no other competitor who can sell the same
| quality products at a cheaper price (because costco's
| already selling them as cheap as possible). In exchange,
| they ask you to pay a membership fee, which is their net
| income.
|
| If they were to give away their reputation to other
| sellers by letting them sell their QC'd products, they
| would be lowering the value of their memberships.
| Miraste wrote:
| > Does costco get some extra benefit if the consumer buys
| Kirkland from costco ?
|
| Yes. Costco positions their store brand as a major part
| of their appeal. This attracts more consumers to their
| stores, which
|
| A. Increases membership, for which there's an annual fee,
| and
|
| B. Increases traffic, increasing sales of high margin
| items as well as the low margin store brand.
| B_ryJenkins wrote:
| If Costco sells their products at other stores they are
| effectively shooting themselves in the foot: It is
| providing the lower price of their products to be accesed
| without paying for a membership; which is how Costco
| makes money.
| indymike wrote:
| That's not always the case. Sometimes the white label
| results in a small decrease to the name brand and
| captures sales to a different market.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Most of the Kirkland brand products are white-label
| products made for them by companies that sell competing
| name-brand products.
|
| Costco has employees that oversee the QC of these white-
| label products.
| true_religion wrote:
| Quality control is basically the differentiator in modern
| manufacturing.
|
| Intels high price chips, and low price chips are often
| the same chip except the low priced one failed quality
| control and had some of its circuits turned off.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| This common process is called binning, in case anyone
| wants to read more on it.
|
| Wikipedia article, as a primer:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning
| JackFr wrote:
| > I don't think anything good would be lost if store brands
| went away
|
| A cheaper alternative for consumers?
|
| Consider some consumer good made overseas produced at the
| same factory for both the name brand and store brand. As a
| consumer why should I have to pay for the huge marketing
| spend the name brand needs to recoup?
|
| I don't see how harming consumers is a useful end of anti-
| monopoly laws.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| No-name brands don't have to be store brands, and aren't
| always.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _They 're usually just rebranded from some other company
| anyways_
|
| This is a common belief, and also mostly false. I think
| it's common because it used to be true, but isn't anymore.
|
| With the economies of scale that a company like a Target or
| a Wal-Mart have these days, plus the ever-declining cost to
| manufacture goods, most store brands are actually run for
| those stores, and not re-labeled big brand goods, or
| seconds that were rejected by the primary contractor.
| delfinom wrote:
| Depends on the product really. Some name brands don't
| even formulate the product themselves but rather just
| stamp their name on it just like the stores would. The
| result is the true manufacturer is able to manufacture
| the same good under multiple brands rather easily.
| pcdoodle wrote:
| Considering Walgreens and Target don't own 50% of the offline
| marketplace, Perhaps that could be a factor.
| [deleted]
| scarface74 wrote:
| Amazon has 5% of retail.
|
| Walmart is still larger.
|
| https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/331054/repor
| t...
|
| Geeks have been complaining for decades that companies
| shouldn't be able to patent stuff because "it's on the
| internet". Why limit the relevant market to "on the
| internet"?
| CarVac wrote:
| I don't think brick-and-mortar stores are operating a
| marketplace the way Amazon is, though.
| notyourwork wrote:
| How are they different?
| darksaints wrote:
| They own the inventory and therefore take the risk of
| selling it. Amazon doesn't own the inventory of its
| marketplace sellers, and they can do anything they want
| to put them out of business at no financial risk to
| themselves.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Walmart very well could drop both Zip Loc's and Hefty's
| resealable plastic bags and not have any drop in sales
| since people will just buy the great value brand that
| replaces their position on shelves.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Some people might have enough brand loyalty to Ziploc
| that they will go to a store that carries them
| darksaints wrote:
| You don't know that they wouldn't have any drop in sales,
| let alone profits, by doing such a thing.
| scarface74 wrote:
| If you follow the CPG space, they spend millions on brand
| advertising that is becoming less affective as newspaper
| advertising and tv advertising is on the decline.
|
| P&G has been on the decline for years. Dollar Stores
| selling no name products have been on the rise.
| [deleted]
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Dollar Stores are on the rise because people can't afford
| quality anymore.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| There is a very noticeable difference between the quality
| of Ziploc and Hefty brands versus Great Value brand.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jlbnjmn wrote:
| Brick and mortar retailers sell third party products but
| they don't allow third party sellers (in their brick and
| mortar stores).
|
| To test this, go to Target and ask if you can put some
| items on the shelf for them to sell for you. If that's an
| option, it's a marketplace.
|
| Everything sold by Target is sold by Target.
|
| Amazon is the online version of a flea market in the
| parking lot of a big box store.
|
| I don't know if that is the distinction lawmakers are
| making, but to me that is the difference.
| scarface74 wrote:
| What's the practical difference? Depending on the terms,
| if an item doesn't sell, they can send it back to
| manufacturer/wholesaler. This is/was especially prevalent
| with media like magazines, CDs, games, books etc.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > What's the practical difference?
|
| One is the liability is much clearer. At least in some
| jurisdictions, if the manufacturer can't be located to
| take responsibility for a defective product, the retailer
| can be sued instead. IIRC, Amazon weaseled out of some
| hoverboard product safety lawsuits by claiming it wasn't
| the actual retailer.
|
| https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/amazon-beats-
| state...
| scarface74 wrote:
| And how does splitting the marketplace up alleviate that
| problem? That does just the opposite. Now Amazon
| corporate can shield itself even more.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > And how does splitting the marketplace up alleviate
| that problem? That does just the opposite. Now Amazon
| corporate can shield itself even more.
|
| In this case, my hope would be that Amazon would shut
| down the 3rd party marketplace in favor of it's own
| retail business. Alternatively, it could explicitly wall
| them off from each other so there's a much clearer
| distinction and the marketplace could be more easily
| avoided unless explicitly desired.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Do you really think that's the outcome any of the people
| who participate on the marketplace want - not to be
| integrated with Amazon.com?
| ardy42 wrote:
| > Do you really think that's the outcome any of the
| people who participate on the marketplace want - not to
| be integrated with Amazon.com?
|
| I'm sure the integration is desired by many sellers [1],
| but my sympathies lie with shoppers, and Amazon
| Marketplace has made my buying experience worse.
|
| [1] To give a slanted example: if I'm a seller trying to
| unload counterfeit or substandard goods, I want a trusted
| brand like Amazon's to hide behind. Even better if burred
| distinctions let me piggyback on any goodwill Amazon's
| first-party sales have created in shoppers.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So you are not concerned with protecting the "little
| guy"? Doesn't that give Amazon _more_ power in the
| marketplace?
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Your solution to anti-competitive behavior is to complete
| eliminate the competition?
| gamblor956 wrote:
| That's different, and the actual transaction doesn't
| occur as you describe.
|
| The stores had already paid for the magazines, books,
| etc. When they returned the physical media to the
| manufacturer, it was because the manufacturer accepts and
| destroys them or attempts to resale them to discount
| retailers. The manufacturer _usually_ rebates the stores
| for the returns because they want the stores to keep
| buying from them, but this usually comes in the form of
| rebates /discounts on _new_ inventory purchases, not as
| refunds on the returned products.
| jlbnjmn wrote:
| Conflict of interest.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Thought experiment. If Amazon had to divest the
| marketplace and not integrate third party sellers with
| their website and decided to sell the most
| popular/profitable products in house, would that help the
| third party sellers?
|
| Who would buyers go to? Amazon.com or the hypothetically
| amazonmarketplace.com?
| jedberg wrote:
| The more likely outcome would be a amazon.com remains the
| marketplace, and they spin out Amazon Basics as a
| separate company that would then sell on Amazon.com
| alongside all the other 3rd parties. Amazon.com would no
| longer have an incentive to feature Amazon Basics as it
| would be just another seller. At the same time, you might
| see Amazon Basics in Walmart or Costco.
| scarface74 wrote:
| And where would the products that Amazon sells as a
| traditional retailer go? And Alexa and Fire products?
|
| Until Amazon Basic gives Amazon virtual "slotting fees"
| to have the best placements...
| spockz wrote:
| They still source their products from the same
| manufacturers as the brand products. It is just the label
| or the fragrance that is slightly different. In Amazon's
| case it sources it's copied product from different
| manufacturers. So once you get a successful product you
| cloned by a powerful Amazon. And Amazon can always do it
| cheaper than you.
| rrobukef wrote:
| As long as I remember there have been no complaints about
| restricting advertisements. (Although plenty of other
| anti-competitive behaviour)
|
| Amazon touts a 'free' marketplace where anybody can sell
| and advertise their product. Yet it uses its monopoly on
| ads within their domain against others.
| CarVac wrote:
| Brick and mortar stores buy from wholesalers and resell.
|
| Amazon facilitates direct transactions between buyers and
| sellers. It also participates as a seller.
| [deleted]
| jedberg wrote:
| Those aren't marketplaces. They have to buy the products they
| sell.
| baskire wrote:
| They actually don't buy all the products they sell.
|
| They often only pay the manufacturers after its sold. And
| sometimes don't return the units which don't sell
| jedberg wrote:
| > They actually don't buy all the products they sell.
|
| This is not true at all. Costco buys everything they
| sell.
|
| > They often only pay the manufacturers after its sold.
|
| This _is_ true, and may be where your confusion lies.
| They buy on net 30 /60/90 terms from their vendors. This
| means they have 30/60/90 days to pay them. Because they
| move inventory so quickly, they have often sold an item
| before they have to pay for it.
|
| But they are still buying it and still taking the risk
| that it won't sell.
|
| > And sometimes don't return the units which don't sell
|
| This is only true because as I said before, they own the
| items.
| cosmie wrote:
| The parent's referring to consignment inventory[1], not
| payment terms.
|
| The model isn't common for general consumer goods retail,
| but it's a fairly common practice once you get into more
| specialty and high-priced inventory.
|
| [1]
| https://www.warehouseanywhere.com/resources/consignment-
| inve...
| gav wrote:
| > But they are still buying it and still taking the risk
| that it won't sell.
|
| I don't know about Costco, but the big box stores don't
| carry any risk. If the product doesn't sell then they
| return it and deduct that off your next invoice. The same
| happens for a customer return.
|
| Depending on the retailer/product category you might get
| charged slotting fees, pay-to-stay, plus a share of
| promotional costs[1]. There are also other fees for use
| of distribution centers, discounts for paying early (even
| if it's not early), fees (or extended terms) for slow-
| moving products, and so on.
|
| "Owning the items" feel less correct than "borrowing
| items with a promise to pay".
|
| [1] https://traxretail.com/blog/quick-guide-shelf-space-
| costs/
| Falling3 wrote:
| > I don't know about Costco, but the big box stores don't
| carry any risk. If the product doesn't sell then they
| return it and deduct that off your next invoice.
|
| That clearly does not apply in many instances, otherwise
| we wouldn't have clearance sections. There are all kinds
| of scenarios where it's either not possible, not
| feasible, or just not economically viable to return
| products to the manufacturer.
| cnst wrote:
| I'm not sure what's your point here is; but the idea is
| that with big B&M stores, it's still the manufacturer
| that is ultimately liable for the product; so, if the
| product doesn't sell, it's probably up to the
| manufacturer whether they want it back or may be
| interested in putting it into clearance and/or straight
| to the rubbish or recycling bins.
| hammock wrote:
| You seem to be speaking only from the perspective of
| Costco, which may be true. But there are many other
| retailers like Walgreens who, even if they happen to be
| buying their stock, force suppliers to buy it back if it
| doesn't sell, which leads to an equivalent outcome. This
| process has nothing to do with payment terms (net 30
| etc).
|
| I'm not making this up. There is an entire cottage
| industry of "product rotators" who work on behalf of
| suppliers to go into stores and "rotate" the product
| that's closest to expiration to the front of the shelf,
| because the supplier has to pay the retailer for any
| product that expires before its sold.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Ohhh. I've always wondered who are these low-English-
| speaking people with clipboards and scammers who seem to
| be stock clerking at the store, but when I ask a question
| they say "I don't work here".
| sib wrote:
| Perhaps, but Walmart (and many other retailers) do not
| pre-buy all the products that they sell.
| notatoad wrote:
| do you have a source for that? because my understanding
| (from my time working in that industry) is that
| everything is sold in exactly the fashion that the parent
| describes - wal-mart purchases from suppliers and sells
| to customers. they purchase a lot on credit, but no
| supplier is giving wal-mart terms like "just hold this in
| inventory for as long as you want and pay us whenever it
| sells"
| HenryBemis wrote:
| I've watched plenty of Shark Tank episodes to learn/know
| that yes many retailers don't buy from you. They let you
| sell in their space, and after they get a hefty cut, they
| give you your share. And if it doesn't sell, you get it
| all back. To enhance the blackmail, they ask up front
| money's for a "better position in the shelves".
| [deleted]
| refurb wrote:
| They have house branded products that they "manufacture".
| notatoad wrote:
| yes, but the point is that a store and a marketplace are
| different things. if you run a store that stocks some
| things that you make, and some things made by other
| people, like most retail operates, then these rules
| wouldn't apply to you. if you want to buy products from
| suppliers and put them on the shelf beside your own-brand
| products and sell them both, that's fine.
|
| we're only talking about a situation where the entity
| running the marketplace is not the seller - they're
| merely the facilitator between buyers and sellers. If you
| want to run a business where you rent a space on the
| shelf to some other seller, and your business is bigger
| than $25bn, these rules would prohibit you from also
| placing your own products on the shelves beside the
| shelves you've rented out.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Does that also mean that Nintendo and the other console makers
| can't produce first party games? Does Roku have to get rid of
| the Roku Channel? Can Epic no longer release Fortnite on its
| own platform?
| jedberg wrote:
| Her specific plan had a lower bound of 25 billion in revenue.
| zepto wrote:
| Her plan is basically a way to dethrone the very largest
| companies, while allowing the next tier down to engage in
| the exact same behavior.
|
| I.e. it targets the most successful companies, but does
| nothing for new entrants who are struggling against the
| market power of multi-billion dollar corporations.
|
| The plan prioritizes the needs of capital over either
| efficient management or innovation.
|
| It's a great way to guarantee the worst aspects of
| capitalism while eliminating its benefits.
|
| From what I hear, she was handed this plan by strategists
| who hoped it would have populist appeal.
| TeaDrunk wrote:
| I don't understand what's being said here. I think what's
| confusing to me is that this post appears to express that
| dethroning the very largest companies isn't prioritizing
| efficient management or innovation. I would think
| regularly churning incumbents at the very minimum
| prioritizes innovation.
| zepto wrote:
| No innovation needed.
|
| If you ban the incumbent from using a business practice
| that other still-big companies can use, those other
| companies will just use that same practice to scale up to
| the threshold size.
|
| This is exactly the opposite of innovation.
|
| Innovation would mean someone coming up with a new
| business of some kind that could actually displace the
| incumbent on its merits.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| A soft cap on company size is at worst orthogonal to
| innovation, not "the opposite".
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I don't really understand your thinking.
|
| Why do you think dethroning the largest companies does
| "nothing" for new entrants? What do you think would help
| new entrants?
|
| And why do you think dethroning companies won't have
| benefits? If nobody has a throne, then you improve
| competition. This increases the benefits of capitalism,
| while diminishing the bad effects of a company taking
| over the market. _How_ could this "guarantee the worst
| aspects"??
| scarface74 wrote:
| Microsoft and Sony both have more than $25 billion in
| revenue. What happens when a company gets above $25 billion
| in revenue? Do they have to divest?
|
| Also, that means that none of the cloud providers could
| have a marketplace where they sell third party solutions.
| ElasticCo, Mongo, and plenty of the open source companies
| sell software through the marketplaces of all three cloud
| providers. Would that be disallowed to?
|
| Do you think any of those companies that sell through the
| cloud provider's marketplace would like that outcome?
| jedberg wrote:
| > Microsoft and Sony both have more than $25 billion in
| revenue. What happens when a company gets above $25
| billion in revenue? Do they have to divest?
|
| That is the expected outcome, yes. That the spin off
| their marketplace business as a separate entity.
|
| > Also, that means that none of the cloud providers could
| have a marketplace where they sell third party solutions.
| ElasticCo, Mongo, and plenty of the open source companies
| sell software through the marketplaces of all three cloud
| providers. Would that be disallowed to? Do you think any
| of those companies that sell through the cloud provider's
| marketplace would like that outcome?
|
| They would probably be ecstatic. Those marketplaces would
| either be spun out or be replaced by a third party
| market, that would have an incentive to feature their
| products above the cloud provider's own products if those
| products brought more money to the marketplace.
| scarface74 wrote:
| No they wouldn't be. (Standard disclaimer I'm a
| consultant at AWS but far removed from the sales side).
|
| I've been a dev lead for a non software company. I was
| trying to get training for my team on AWS. I had to go
| through all sorts of issues and approvals and POs and
| making sure that they are an approved vendor.
|
| Then I just said forget it. AWS was already an approved
| vendor. I signed everyone up for an ACloudGuru account
| through the marketplace using the authority I already
| had.
|
| I needed an intrusion detection and intrusion prevention
| system. Again, I just went to the marketplace and bought
| something through the marketplace.
|
| You think it's hard to get consumers to use third party
| app stores. You have never been through a corporate
| procurement process.
|
| Besides the marketplaces basically let you search the
| AMIs that AWS offers alongside third party AMIs. No
| company is going to trust random third party
| marketplaces.
|
| I assure that every company on the marketplace wants to
| be on the same bill as your AWS bill. Half the reason
| departments go to the cloud is to get away from the gate
| keepers. Once you get approval from the powers that be to
| use AWS, it's much easier to buy off of the marketplace.
| jedberg wrote:
| I've been through many corporate procurement processes,
| so I understand where you're coming from.
|
| But I disagree. First off, if Amazon couldn't offer their
| marketplace, if it were profitable, they would spin it
| off.
|
| Secondly, they would almost certainly work out a co-
| billing deal, where approved marketplaces could bill
| through AWS, because they too know about the value of
| being already approved. It would also be a way for them
| to keep making money off of a marketplace if they
| couldn't run one anymore.
|
| My point is, if AWS could not run their own marketplace,
| I'm sure solutions would come up to enable a 3rd party to
| work as smoothly as possible.
| scarface74 wrote:
| If those marketplaces "billed" through Amazon what is the
| practical difference? Amazon still gets a cut and now you
| have _two_ middlemen trying to make a profit.
|
| Also, wouldn't AWS open itself up to more liability if it
| had no approval process for individual vendors?
|
| I thought the purpose of the internet was to reduce the
| number of middlemen?
| jedberg wrote:
| In this world, Amazon gets an equal cut whether you buy
| one of their offerings or a third party. It also starves
| them of competitive data.
| scarface74 wrote:
| How would Amazon get an "equal cut"? Amazon makes money
| on using their infrastructure. So now are you going to
| also make AWS a dumb VPS and all of the 160+ services
| sold on top of it a separate business? You realize that
| there is tight integration between many of the services.
| So will it benefit consumers if they lose that type of
| integration? What about services that are not just "spin
| up an EC2 instance and pay for an AMI" like S3, Lambda,
| load balancers, etc?
|
| If supposedly technologically literate people on HN can't
| think through all of the negative repercussions, how do
| you expect representatives in Congress - one of which
| grilled Zuckerberg over _Twitter's_ policies to do so?
|
| Why not just get rid of this whole capitalism thing and
| let the state run everything with "5 Year Plans"?
| cwmma wrote:
| at least with roku we're already seeing that conflict of
| interest with them trying to use their position to leverage
| more money out of HBO Max
| scarface74 wrote:
| Ironically, Apple is the most open streaming platform.
|
| - you can pay for a subscription off site
|
| - any app can integrate with the TV app. If you search for
| a movie/tv show and it is available for purchase from Apple
| or via a subscription that you already have, it will show
| you your free options first.
| gnicholas wrote:
| So how would this rule apply to the Apple App Store, for
| example? Presumably it wouldn't prevent them from making free
| stock apps like Mail, Safari, and Maps, right? Would they still
| be allowed to offer these apps, so long as they are free and
| are not privileged over third-party apps?
|
| Or would Apple be prevented from offering any apps whatsoever?
| I would think a rule like this would be bad for consumers, and
| would also lead Apple to draw different lines between what is
| an app and what is a built in OS functionality (i.e., migrate
| app functionality into the OS itself, in order to avoid the
| rule).
| jedberg wrote:
| Imagine a world in which only third party app stores are
| allowed on iPhone. Now imagine Apple having to compete with
| all the other Maps, Mail, and Web Browsers.
|
| Do you think their native apps would be chosen over the
| others in a fair competition?
| altdatathrow wrote:
| It'd be nice if they restricted sponsored ads from all the
| fraudulent third-party sellers.
| darksaints wrote:
| For that to happen, they'd have to identify the third party
| sellers that are fraudulent, and for that to happen, they'd
| have to care.
| julianozen wrote:
| Worth mentioning that Amazon does not allow brands to restrict
| keywords. I.e. Birkenstock knockoffs can buy keywords on the term
| "Birkenstocks" even though Birkenstocks are not on Amazon
| officially.
|
| This strategy is used to essentially force companies to bid
| against their competitors on their own branding. By Amazon
| restricting "Alexa" and similar, it is protecting itself against
| such abuse but it implicitly forces its sellers into this race
|
| disclosure: I am a former amazon employee who did not work on
| marketplace at all
| dubcanada wrote:
| Not to take away from your point, as it's a very good one. But
| "Birkenstocks" from Germany are on Amazon.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Birkenstock-Unisex-Arizona-Sandal-Bir...
|
| For example
| julianozen wrote:
| Interesting. I remember Birkenstock's very publicaly left
| amazon a few years ago over this problem. Perhaps that was
| only in the US or perhaps they reached an agreement of some
| kind with amazon
| ce4 wrote:
| It's not sold by official Birkenstock, so it's either grey
| market or knockoffs from what I know. Birkenstock had
| withdrawn their official seller presence from Amazon a few
| years ago due to commingled counterfeit products and Amazon's
| unwillingness to fix it.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Well, to add to his point, the reviews say these are cheap
| knockoffs and, if you search for just birkenstock, the first
| item is a competitor, LAVAU ...
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| The few bad reviews might be due to commingled counterfeit
| inventory
| samatman wrote:
| Try and use the word "counterfeit" in an Amazon review:
| it will be automatically rejected.
|
| That indicates a totally unacceptable level of complicity
| on Amazon's part, and I hope they face criminal sanctions
| for it. But I'm not holding my breath.
| dralley wrote:
| Which is yet another thing that they need to be taken to
| task for. No other mass retailer has such loosely managed
| supply chains.
| dubcanada wrote:
| Oh... I double checked and through it said they were legit
| and came from Germany.
|
| I stand corrected lol
|
| How is that even allowed? 18,000 reviews? They honestly
| look completely legit.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Yeah, it's all down the rabbit hole. If your handle is an
| indicator, checkout amazon.ca, it is worse.
| fataliss wrote:
| Funny how corporations are ok to regulate the heck out of their
| "open platforms" but people see the government enforcing fair(er)
| trade as anti capitalistic and freedom slashing. Is it just me or
| that's cognitive dissonance? That said, it's a dicey subject,
| what's fair and what's not.
| p49k wrote:
| Amazon outright banned the sale of Apple TV and Chromecast on
| Amazon's marketplace for years, until Google/Apple agreed to
| include Prime Video. Amazon faced zero consequences. This isn't
| new behavior.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Apple never banned "Amazon Prime". Apple wanted Amazon Prime
| from day one. Why wouldn't Apple want Amazon Prime on Apple
| TV's when it already existed on iOS devices ?
| p49k wrote:
| I didn't say Apple banned anything? What I'm referring to
| happened in 2015.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/amazon-
| wi...
| wmeredith wrote:
| > until Google/Apple agreed to include Prime Video
|
| Your phrasing definitely implies that had disagreed to
| include Prime at some point.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You still made it sound as if Apple and Google didn't
| "allow" Amazon Prime on their devices. Amazon wouldn't ship
| Prime Video on their devices.
| tyingq wrote:
| If I'm reading it right, the restriction is that 3rd parties
| can't buy branded Amazon keywords like "Alexa". I imagine that
| might come back to bite them if that policy doesn't apply to
| other brands. They also have some brands that are problematic,
| because the brands have really generic names like "Ring".
|
| And this just sounds really unwise: _" Roku Inc., which makes
| devices that stream content to TVs, can't even buy such Amazon
| ads tied to its own products"_
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| > And this just sounds really unwise: "Roku Inc., which makes
| devices that stream content to TVs, can't even buy such Amazon
| ads tied to its own products"
|
| To everyone wondering how it's an antitrust issue, I think this
| quote right here hit the nail on the head.
|
| Edit: On the other hand, I just looked up Roku and it's all
| Roku devices, I guess as long as I don't see an Amazon product
| on that first page that's fine. It's still weird you can't buy
| ads for your own product's very name though.
|
| I can't read the full article due to paywall unfortunately, but
| if they didn't do a more thorough investigation I think someone
| might just have to, to make sure Amazon's not putting their own
| ads where they don't allow competitors to buy ads for products
| they don't actually own themselves like Roku, if they aren't
| then maybe they're just trying to protect the results given
| back.
| Closi wrote:
| Interestingly, if you search "Smart Speaker" though it's
| wholly dominated by Alexa and Alexa-compatible devices.
|
| "Smart Speaker Google" also lists just Amazon Echo devices.
|
| "Google Speaker" just comes back with accessories, and then
| has a 'recommended product' which is the Echo Dot.
|
| "Google Home" comes up with the echo dot as a recommended
| product...
|
| Typing in "Google Home Hub" actually brings up the google
| home hub! Immediately followed by 5 alexa devices...
| r00fus wrote:
| This is why I've essentially stopped using Amazon. I can't
| trust their search, I don't want in on Alexa ecosystem (No
| creepy always-on devices in house), and prices are better
| elsewhere or generally equal.
|
| About the only saving grace of Amazon is shipping speed,
| but even then it's almost easier to pop over to a Target
| etc. So I always check local stores via their app.
|
| I was worried last year about Amazon-geddon, but I think
| most other stores have caught on and upped their game.
| pcdoodle wrote:
| Google is getting a taste of their own medicine in search.
| I wish shopify would do something to compete with
| integrated payments, returns, etc (Opt-in for sellers of
| course).
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| It's funny cause I've looked up Android Tablets in the
| past and gotten Amazon's which I think is a little
| misleading since technically you're not getting Android
| proper. Not that their tablets aren't just as functional,
| but it might trip up someone who doesn't know any better.
| jdmichal wrote:
| Do you mean you're not getting pure AOSP Android or
| Google Play Android? Because you're certainly getting a
| device running the Android operating system...
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| The former is what most people want and expect when
| looking for Android.
| jdmichal wrote:
| I have no idea how you determine that. I suspect most
| have no idea what AOSP Android even looks like. Almost
| every manufacturer has a custom UI layer. AFAIK Google's
| Pixel phones and the Nokia Android One phones are the
| only ones offering something like a "stock AOSP + Google
| Play" experience.
| oefrha wrote:
| > Not that their tablets aren't just as functional
|
| Their tablets certainly aren't as functional when it
| comes to the selection of apps available, unless you jump
| through weird, unsupported, highly fishy hoops to install
| Google Play on them.
| baskire wrote:
| There is no android proper. There's google play services
| and the android os.
|
| The fire tablet is using the android os
| bagacrap wrote:
| I just typed "Alexa" into Google search, and I got:
|
| 1. a shopping carousel entirely full of echo products
| (2nd card is on Amazon.com) 2. a paid ad from Amazon 3.
| several videos about echo products 4. q&a about Alexa
| rest of page: more Alexa related results
|
| So, to your point, no, Google does not do anything like
| this.
| unishark wrote:
| Can't read it either, but my first guess from the parent
| comment's quotes was that the story was saying competitors
| can't:
|
| 1. buy ads for amazon product-name keywords to compete with
| amazon by also selling amazon products.
|
| 2. buy ads for amazon product-name keywords to compete with
| amazon by selling one's own non-amazon products.
| [deleted]
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