Comment by adamandsteve
1 day ago
Between these I think Amazon is less bad. It's a monopoly & monopsony which causes a lack of innovation and (eventually) higher prices but it's also a much more efficient way to sell things and it doesn't destroy the fabric of society or anything. Meta though is just as bad if not worse than any gambling site out there. Its products are optimized to destroy your attention span, feed you polarizing content, destroy your mental health and waste hours of your time every day all while ironically making you less connected to other people because users won't get off their phones and have a conversation.
Amazon is not a monopoly. See Walmart, Ebay, etc. Lots of companies sell products online.
> (eventally) higher prices
I have not noticed Amazon charging higher prices than others. The difficulty in charging higher prices is competitors emerge.
Amazon extracts a lot of the value of a purchase from the seller's take. Sellers risk sanctions if they sell a product cheaper thru their brand website.
It's normal for wholesale prices being at 50% to 60% of what the retailer will sell it for. It's always been like that.
And those wholesalers would not do business with you if you undercut their retail price.
Amazon's practice is normal throughout the industry.
I know this because my business in the 80s would wholesale my products through mail order retailers.