Firstly, I didn't spot what paper you mean other than 'related to Amazon', but it's plain to see what can happen to an Amazon. Once it's finished destroying competitor businesses the only way it can get more profit is by continuing to get paid, but ceasing to deliver services. And this is already happening in various ways. I'm sure I'm not the only person, even on Hacker News, to have grudgingly written off an Amazon purchase that simply never was delivered, a cheap and trivial thing that didn't pan out, a 'problem with this order' that the system simply ate.
At the point when you're taking consumer money and not having to do anything, that's harm. You can get away with it because your system is invincible. (I also feel like this about the insurance industry: I think it's set up to not pay, and has better legal representation than the consumer does)
To the extent that a business's primary purpose is to make money, these are successes. To the extent that the primary purpose is to hurt competitors, these are still successes, to the extent they're possible and not just undermining your position: you have to be monopolistic or at least in control to be able to pull that stuff off, but then you're wealthier, giving you more power to hurt competitors.
None of this serves a market economy for providing goods and services. It may exist, but it hurts capitalism as a functioning concept.
> I didn't spot what paper you mean other than 'related to Amazon'
Lina Khan (FTC chair) wrote an influential paper called The Amazon Paradox laying out a new antitrust doctrine which argues that rather than consumer harm, the standard for antitrust should be harm to competitors.
> it's plain to see what can happen to an Amazon... you have to be monopolistic or at least in control to be able to pull that stuff off, but then you're wealthier, giving you more power to hurt competitors.
"Can" happen is not the same as "has" or "will" happen. If they are causing consumer harm, they should be punished. But as far as I can tell, there hasn't really been strong evidence of that yet (your example of a bad delivery experience is not unique to Amazon), and I don't think we should punish pre-crimes. Ultimately, it feels like you and many others are starting from a position of "Amazon et al should not exist" and working backwards to a justification.
Firstly, I didn't spot what paper you mean other than 'related to Amazon', but it's plain to see what can happen to an Amazon. Once it's finished destroying competitor businesses the only way it can get more profit is by continuing to get paid, but ceasing to deliver services. And this is already happening in various ways. I'm sure I'm not the only person, even on Hacker News, to have grudgingly written off an Amazon purchase that simply never was delivered, a cheap and trivial thing that didn't pan out, a 'problem with this order' that the system simply ate.
At the point when you're taking consumer money and not having to do anything, that's harm. You can get away with it because your system is invincible. (I also feel like this about the insurance industry: I think it's set up to not pay, and has better legal representation than the consumer does)
To the extent that a business's primary purpose is to make money, these are successes. To the extent that the primary purpose is to hurt competitors, these are still successes, to the extent they're possible and not just undermining your position: you have to be monopolistic or at least in control to be able to pull that stuff off, but then you're wealthier, giving you more power to hurt competitors.
None of this serves a market economy for providing goods and services. It may exist, but it hurts capitalism as a functioning concept.