No. of Recommendations: 14
The scale of this industrial behemoth, having come into existence just 30 years ago is/was just amazing. (No great point here, just wanted to tell somebody the story.)
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There IS a great point to make here... The US has utterly failed in enforcing anti-trust regulations for the past forty years. The last key trust-busting effort was the AT&T breakup that took effect in 1984 but had legal roots dating back to 1974. And think of what that breakup did... It broke the monopoloy that ignored newer packet switching technologies in favor of existing time-division multiplexing technologies. It spurred investment in fiber technologies that began pushing their way from the long-distance cores of telecom networks to the edge, increasing customer bit rates far beyond what copper twisted pair and T1 circuits could provide. In short, it triggered a change in markets from a world of $0.44/minute long distance to one where nationwide free long-distance is the norm and even international phone calls can be made over IP networks for free.
The RBOCs were still deluded as recently as the early 1990s that ISDN was state of the art networking technology. "We'll bond TWO 64,000 bits/sec channels together and give you... wait for it... 128,000 bits/sec. Oooooooh."
There is no way a properly functioning economy and a properly functioning judiciary should have allowed Amazon to reach even half its current size in the retailing and distribution of so many products in so many sectors. Its current size provides an illusion of choice but a reality consisting of a world where many of the goods sold are cheap throwaways driving worthless returns that get tossed into landfills or serve their purpose for a few months and still wind up in the landfill. Amazon uses its sales insights to identify products it can make on its own after someone else proves the viability then drives the originator out of business. The very definition of monopolistic abuse of market power.
WTH
