> Diapers.com example: "When Bezos’s lieutenants learned of Wal-Mart’s counterbid, they ratcheted up the pressure, telling the Quidsi founders that [Bezos] was such a furious competitor that he would drive diaper prices to zero if they sold to Bentonville.
How is this not a serious anti-competitive monopolistic practice? Did the Dept of Justice get involved?
It wouldn’t result in a monopoly or near monopoly in any real sense, and it’s also hard to say it would meaningfully result in a restraint of trade. It’s also hard to say the consumer would be hurt by free diapers, at least in any concrete way, and if he didn’t add in ‘and raise the prices later when you’re dead’, it also wouldn’t be an easy thing to provide it wouldn’t just be wasting money out of spite. Which is purely legal.
Is it a strong arm/shitty tactic? Sure. Welcome to the real world.
It's anti-competitive but extremely American/capitalist. The whole premise of our economy is to leverage wealth and advantage to build more wealth and advantage until you're the wealthiest and most advantaged. That Bezos continued to do this is part for the course.
If we want true competition, we need a merit-based society instead of a wealth-based one.
I dunno. Bezos is pretty good at managing a company. A lot of people chose to bet on Jeff Bezos. He delivered phenomenal results for decades. I’m not seeing the societal failure.
The societal failure is the 1.5 million Amazon employees who work horrid conditions for not enough pay to support a family, housing, or healthcare. For the engineers who work at corporate and are underpaid due to salary collusion between tech companies. And the million other net-negatives for society that Amazon and every other billion dollar company has inflicted upon the planet.
Ultimately billionaires (capitalists) are profiting unfairly off the labor of others. This is obviously an unpopular opinion on a website promoting VC.
How is this not a serious anti-competitive monopolistic practice? Did the Dept of Justice get involved?