When Amazon started, even in those retail categories it opened up new worlds in terms of rapidly identifying, sourcing and purchasing books or media the moment one heard of them, and of giving one new ideas for purchases one might not have heard of. It was a revelation. But it was that part about new ideas that was the revelatory bit. The retailers I knew before that had quite a lot available, beautifully presented. The late 80s-90s were a revolution in themselves in book and music retail.

(For US equivalents, say Borders or equivalent large bookstores, I forget the other big ones, and maybe Tower or Virgin Records megastores. Not sure what you had back then and memory fades).

A good chunk of those retail palaces are ruins now. Interestingly, I find that Amazon’s recent model of mixing their own listings with those of the independent sellers, and different editions and pricing models, has gotten sloppy and less user-friendly over time. Not everyone will have had this experience, but I also think their recommendations engines have slipped a few notches. Or perhaps the products available in the world have just become less for me. There’s that. The decline of CDs and DVDs has helped that along.

What I wouldn’t give to walk into the classical music floor of HMV on Toronto’s Yonge Street circa 1990 one more time. Any floor, really. Or Sam the Record Man, a far more dumpily organized but equally large and even better stocked independent one block north.

https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/031414/amazon-never-makes-money-no-one-cares-amzn-aapl-wag-azo.aspx

The goal is total market domination and it should be broken up immediately.

Amazon is but one of the many, many scams where the people with favored access to capital are able to buy out other companies, services and sectors of business. Smaller players pay taxes while they write every thing off with debt and pay nothing.

Junk bonds, leveraged buy outs, etc. are nothing but financial scams on the taxpayer.

And yes I’m a hypocrite as I buy stuff from Amazon. It’s also very convenient.

If you go back and look, these were the same things people were complaining about with Sears, back during the opening heyday of Rural Free Delivery, and all that which revolutionized retail sales during the late 1800s.

On the basis that there is nothing new under the sun, maybe Amazon will catch a cold if it starts doing the same. Perhaps in time they might go the same way of Woolworths, but who knows?

My expectation is that at some point in the future an anti-trust lawsuit will force Amazon into separating the ecommerce platform from all other business, but if they get to charge 1-5% overhead for being the nations/worlds premier ecommerce platform that is still a lot of money.

They will have comprehensively destroyed the marketing, distribution and retail channels of entire industries, including eventually brand identification, and will end up doing nothing except being the only recognized retail portal through which customers access all goods and services. The vast spending on the physical side of the business that kept them so long unprofitable, will be simultaneously wholly justified in retrospect and done away with as unnecessary.

Of course, then the US government can nationalize it as a public utility and pay no compensation. Checkmate.