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California Attorney General Rob Bonta last night filed a request for a preliminary injunction in California’s existing case against Amazon for price fixing. Attorney General Bonta’s 2022 lawsuit alleged that the company stifled competition and caused increased prices across California through its anticompetitive policies in order to avoid competing on price with other retailers. New evidence paints a clearer and more shocking picture. The motion for a preliminary injunction comes after a robust discovery process where California uncovered evidence of countless interactions in which Amazon, vendors, and Amazon’s competitors agree to increase and fix the prices of products on other retail websites to bolster Amazon’s profits. Time and again, across years and product categories, Amazon has reached out to its vendors and instructed them to increase retail prices on competitors’ websites, threatening dire consequences if vendors do not comply. Vendors, bullied by Amazon’s overwhelming bargaining leverage and fearing punishment, comply — agreeing to raise prices on competitors’ websites (often with the awareness and cooperation of the competing retailer), or to remove products from competing websites altogether. Amazon’s goal is to insulate itself from price competition by preventing lower retail prices in the market at the expense of American consumers who are already struggling with a crisis of affordability.
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Yeah, IIRC when a bunch of large corporations got away with doing this in the 1980s and 90s, a lot of us just assumed it would keep happening. Some people have tried raising the alarm about this, but have been shouted down pretty consistently.
oh I just cant wait for the highest profile minor slap on the wrist of the century!
Dont worry guys well give one of the richest men in the world a 100k fine!
Yeah don’t worry. They’ll get a small fine and will appeal and drag it out for years
I could see them threatening something absurd like no longer shipping to California.
This is why you shouldn’t buy US
I cannot express enough how angry I am that people still use amazon. Major cringe when friends tell me all the shit they buy on there. I used it 10 years ago a couple times, never once since then. Its shit, slave labor, and enriches billionaires. No one forces you to use it.
It’s cringe because it’s affordable and convenient? Whenever I buy something from there I always price compare online and it’s the cheapest hands-down. Some people don’t have the luxury of constantly considering geopolitics and large-scale repercussions when they’re just simply trying to get by.
“some people don’t have the luxury of considering whether their product is made from death camp body parts when they’re just simply trying to get by”
Unfortunately, they are a master at driving local businesses out of money. Buying a certain pet food at my local retailer (a franchisee) would be about $30. On Amazon, it’s $25 (and sometimes even $15-20, if you do the subscription discount). At the local store, I’d have to pay more and drag the stuff home on my own feet.
It’s the Walmart model. A lot of the frustration is that it’s a systemic problem where individuals are incentivized against their best interests and the best interests of their communities.
Because shareholders. The Line, must go up.
Thankfully (/s) Amazon has enough money that it’s cheaper to bribe politicians than provide a better product. So systemic solutions are that much more difficult.
They’re BUSTED when someone goes to prison.
For now they’re just SLAMMED
Just wait until they get BLASTED in a strongly worded email.
Well, it’s California’s attorney general, so better than even chance for actual punishment.
“Europeans need to be harder on Amazon” Wags greased finger
As far as distractions from the Epstein Files go, this is an exciting one.
Can’t wait for them to be fined one penny for every $20B made.
Hey now, don’t get your hopes up.
Amazon in shambles!
Quickest solution? Stop buying from Amazon. I quit cold turkey and the sky does not fall. I still buy what I need. I am sometimes saved from buying stuff that I don’t really need but was easily available. Just stop buying from them. They are the evil capitalism that everyone complains about.
Not possible for some people, for example I wanted some very basic batteries (LR736), couldn’t find it anywhere in the nearest big town which is already 30km away.
Should I order a pack of them from Amazon for 1.8€, should i drive 160km to go buy them, or should I buy it in another online store and pay 6€ shipping? Easy choice no?
You can pay 6€ for shipping today or help amazon finally become the monopolist, and then tomorrow your batteries will just cost 10€.
Another way is to ask at the next electronics store as I’m sure they can order them with their next routine shipment.
I’ve been telling people to stop supporting amazon for years, but everyone seems to have their reason to keep supporting them. This hopefully will be a good enough reason for people to finally stop shopping on amazon.
I haven’t bought anything from amazon in over 12 years. I find everything on the manufacturer’s website or eBay. No need to ever use amazon for anything.
Okay. Here’s my story. I have been looking for a 4K 32 to 43 inch monitor for my PC. TV or monitor, I just wanted 4k 120hz minimum. Didn’t really care about IPS or VA panels. Both have their pro’s and con’s.
So I ended up getting a Philips Google TV 43" 4K Gaming TV with native 144Hz refresh rate. The asking price from Amazon was 450 CAD. everywhere I looked online It was 50 bucks more OR they were the same price, but charged 50 bucks in shipping.
THAT’S why I use Amazon. IF I can find it cheaper elsewhere, I’ll buy it somewhere else. For me price is everything since I’m on a fixed income.
Okay, but have you considered that Amazon is the reason prices are high?
Obviously, none of these other retailers had a hand in it.
Exactly what they got “busted” for
You’re not alone in that. A lot of people’s care for ethics ends where a good deal begins.
What you should know is that these companies offer these good deals for a variety of reasons, but usually involving shady or borderline illegal business practices in one way or another.
I understand you’re on a fixed income - I sympathize with that and I don’t want to be rude to a stranger - but is the deal on a particular item you want worth the cost of endorsing what these companies do and stand for?
That 50 bucks means I only eat rice for a week. I’ve done it before, but I do not enjoy it.
$50 is the difference between having to eat only rice for a week, but you absolutely NEED a gaming monitor thats 32-43 inches with 4K resolution and 120hz refresh rate?
The only person your justifying your continued use of amazon to is yourself, and you’re doing a poor job.
Average Lemmy user 😅
And I’ll keep on doing it!
More power to you I guess. Hogs love rolling in shit.
I only roll in yours, because apparently it doesn’t stink…
I don’t think I’m expressing myself clearly. I understand the fixed income part and what 50 bucks can do to a person’s living situation. No issue there.
On the front end of your decision, you’re starting with “I need X with Y and Z”. None of these variables are negotiable? The “need” isn’t negotiable? Or are they not as negotiable as the care for the company’s awful business practices?
The systemic issues are the primary concern, but it is worth thinking about and examining within ourselves. We are ill-equipped to make informed decisions prior to every purchase. However, once we know how a particular purchase supports degrading the world around us, where is the line we won’t cross for a good deal?
I"m sorry my horse apparently doesn’t go as high as yours… 🙄
That’s needlessly insulting after I’ve been nothing but cordial with you. Me bringing up things that bring you discomfort to think about doesn’t mean I’m the bad guy here. Have a nice day, and enjoy your TV.
clip clop, clip clop, clip clop…
Aren’t most people on a fixed income?
Is such a TV… necessary?
Have you considered saving some for a few months and then buy the TV?What do you think I’ve been doing? That took me four months.
There are a lot of people online who think that 100% abstinence from The Bad is the only way to be good.
But if you can shift 10% of your former Amazon spending, do it. And keep looking for a way to get to 15%, then 20%, and so on.
Like, I’m probably never going to be a strict vegetarian. I love a good burger, or a nicely-cooked steak, or a big bowl of chicken and dumplings. But I eat vegetarian for more than 75% of my meals. And that’s good enough for me.
It was also the implied “Poor people shouldn’t have nice things” That ticked me off.
Aren’t most people on a fixed income?
No, most people are on broken incomes.
Not to leave out they’re easy to return stuff too.
Indeed.
I’ve found the Shop App to be a good alternative along with eBay. Shop App is basically a search engine for retailers who use Shopify, which is a ton of them. From my research it seems to be generally better for retailers.
My biggest problem is that very specific niche products that also have no direct sale options from the supplier / manufacturer tend to only be available on Amazon.
Like there’s a specific caramel sauce I like to put in my coffee that is made from real caramel and not “caramel flavored corn-syrup” and the company that makes it is great and based out of the US, but they have no direct-sale option on their website nor any place that says “where to buy.”
The only place I’ve found it to be reliably sold from is Amazon, because I’m not a small coffee business. As far as I can tell, unless I order massive quantities via some sort of scheduled contract ordering agreement, I don’t think I can order direct from the manufacturer.
I hate Amazon and would rather not give them money, but they have effectively created a de-facto monopoly for certain products… whether they are the actual only major supplier that has both a web storefront and that will ship around the US… or they are the only web storefront that yielded search results for specific products when consumers are combing the web marketplace for them.
Until the US govt or other entities with regulatory teeth willing to prosecute them for monopolistic practices and maybe even break them up some day, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect even the most savvy consumers to fully remove themselves from purchasing at least some number of very specific goods form Amazon.
Your point is valid and definitely a concern.
But how are people so basic.
You hate Amazon, but just have to have your caramel syrup? Doesn’t really sound like hate.
Sounds more like you do not want to have to make sacrifices to the things you like.
Wonder why bad things continue to happen.
I use Amazon too. Not trying to be too judgy, but come on. Accept some personal responsibility for your actions.
Ah yes - the “personal responsibility” argument… 🙄
Whatever product it is isn’t really the point.
There are certain things that people either need or want and if Amazon is the only place to get them and your solution is, “well, just sacrifice” is fine if it’s a luxury good like stupid caramel sauce, but what if it’s something like vacuum cleaner bags for the vacuum you use are only sold now via Amazon?
What if it’s a specific chewable version of a vitamin your kid’s doctor suggested for your child who has a specific deficiency and can’t swallow pills and the only maker of the kids chewable of it sells on Amazon?
Should the parent just “take responsibility” and not give them that vitamin their pediatrician suggested they need?
…or maybe we should just be okay with criticizing the fucking trillion dollar company that gets to have a monopoly, and maybe think of other suggestions to give other than a “Ben-Shapiro tier” canned response. 😑
Oh gosh. Great 6 paragraph essay countering made up points I wasn’t making.
Choosing Amazon for a dr recommended medicine is definitely the same as choosing it for your coffee flavoring.
Nevermind the part where I said I also use Amazon.
My point is unless you are under duress, you are responsible for your actions.
$1000 says you’re, at best, a college kid. Probably a teenager.
Why? People with actual life experience in this shitty system don’t make the personal responsibility argument because they’ve lived enough to know that’s bullshit.
Companies like Amazon can’t exist if people don’t buy from them. The fact that you think people have to buy from them is the problem.
No one has to spend their money with Amazon. There’s always going to be a personal responsibility aspect when people willingly do something they know is wrong.
How about… you do what you want with your own money and let other people do the same?
I do. It’s just the claim that people aren’t personally responsible for where they choose to spend their money is preposterous.
Yeah, free will sucks like that…
What a facile argument.
So you think people aren’t responsible for where they choose to spend their money? Is Amazon holding a gun to their head?
Lol, I’ll take my $1000.
Sorry that you lack logical thinking. Enjoy your coffee.
But how are people so basic.
I would like a thing. All retail commerce has been monopolized by a handful of big box storefronts. One of those storefronts sucks marginally less than the others, such that I can actually find what I want to buy and expect it to be delivered in a timely fashion.
But I shouldn’t shop there because… ???
Wonder why bad things continue to happen.
Damn, so true. We should never have quit shopping at
TargetWalmartSearsWoolworths. Now we live in Capitalist Hell and its all our own fault.You shouldn’t shop there because of their blatantly anti-consumer monopolistic practices.
Same boat, I cancelled prime 5 years ago. My wife will activate for the holidays but I refuse to use it
I was going on buy some jack stands for my car and saw the exact same models from harbor freight or auto zone on Amazon. Even if you’re not trying to support Amazon, you can’t escape the slop products.
Amazon, in many cases, is not the seller. They are simply an online market. The reason you see the same products across multiple websites is because it is the same product. Doesn’t really have anything to do with shitty products although that’s what a lot of people do. They take advantage of Amazon’s monopoly on the market and sell products for hundreds if not thousands of dollars % mark ups. The reason it’s still cheaper on Amazon is because of the aforementioned price fixing.
Hey pal, do not use shit stores for car work. You are endangering your life. Please get a proper jack from Napa or at least northern tool or something. Harbor freight is for pry bars and shit, not life saving equipment.
Get a carlyle Jack as well. Affordable and lasts a lifetime. Dont skimp.on anything holding a car or an engine. I don’t care how poor you are. You will get hurt.
I would like to remove the word “slop” from common speech for overuse. Sorry for your jack stand experience.
I find the Amazon experience and prices to often be worse than elsewhere
Supposing the prices they charge are still less than what you would pay for the convenience of purchasing a product with no extra effort, why would you switch?
I have myself had aspirations to buy fewer things from Amazon. However. Even including stuff like this, I am happy to pay $10 extra to not have to dick around.
I hope Amazon has to pay money for this and that it hurts their business model, bit as a customer they are still scratching my itch 2 times out of 3.
There was a time when Amazon was not full of scummy rip-off products, when it was not playing games with prices, when it was not a cloud-computing powerhouse, and you know what happened?
That’s right, they crushed their adversaries (retail shopping) and earned billions in profits. They won.
But somehow that’s not enough winning, there isn’t enough winning until all the value has been vacuumed up from the world.
Bezos explicitly undercut the competition for years to drive all of the competition out of business. Amazon took as much time from 1997-2016 to make as much profit as they did in 2017, which is also (not) coincidentally when they hit peak market saturation and were able to start raising their prices.
So what you’re talking about was real, but it wasn’t like, “back when Amazon was good”, they were just preparing for what they are now. Having a huge monopoly on just about everything has always been their win condition, and they’re no where near done winning.
Yeah. It’s the same thing Uber did with pushing cab services out of business.
Not only that, but AWS is the real money maker for them. Not that retail and gaming and prime and whatever don’t also make boat loads of cash, but it doesn’t even graze AWS. The scale of these data centers is unreal and most of the internet runs on AWS.
I’m an industrial electrician with background on what they’re ordering and installing in terms of control panels and if you saw the weekly shipments it’d make you sick. And we’re only one supplier, they have others.
I think it’s worse because Bezos (ex-wallstreet) had his buddies at Bain Capital short-and-distort competing companies into bankruptcy, which has the added bonus of clearing the tax burden from the gains on those shorts.
AKA the Walmart method.
And that is why I no longer buy anything from them. I’m just embarrassed it took me as long as it did to realize what they were really doing.
The frustrating thing is we can’t boycott AWS since so many of the sites we use run on it. But yes, we absolutely shouldn’t buy things through Amazon or any of the other web stores Amazon owns.
we absolutely shouldn’t buy things through Amazon or any of the other web stores Amazon owns.
I try to use eBay as an alternative, though i find every 3-4 orders i place there, i get one in an Amazon box that by all rights appears to have been shipped by Amazon. I swear people are drop-shipping stuff from Amazon to their eBay buyers.
They are doing exactly that for a sometimes hefty markup. I got something like that with a gift receipt, so ultra lazy, looked up the item and it was $11 cheaper. Like that totally defeats the purpose of going elsewhere.
I reported the seller then returned it.
They are. If it has free returns and thousands of feedback it’s probably a drop shipper. Return it and use the eBay label it ends up costing them money.
Go figure the margins are that thin.
Use vercel instead
/s
I have often wondered whether targeted internet boycott days would shake up AWS, but I don’t know enough about their billing structure to run the numbers to see how much that would dig into AWS profits + how much of their income is flat subscription fees vs. billing on number of calls and haven’t had a chance to dig into it yet.
You would basically have to convince a few hundred million people to not use the internet for months at a time with out a single percentage of them breaking the boycott to actually even start to hit aws.
Countless things have to start failing before aws even starts to feel it since it’s not a consumer product. You basically have the drive all the companies using it to near bankruptcy so they can’t afford to pay for aws anymore.
Frustrating, but I appreciate your answer; thank you.
You can’t really compare online book retailer Amazon to global online marketplace Amazon. Your underlying point is still mostly correct, but I would exclude the years that they were primarily focused on books. From my lived memory they didn’t really become the online retail juggernaut until a few years after the launch of Prime. Free shipping turned them into what it is today. So maybe the best comparison would be from like 2006-2016? Or maybe I’m wrong and the distinction isn’t necessary. Idk. I’m just trying to foster conversation
Yeah, I remember Amazon the book store. I still had my mom take me to the local bookstores, cause I knew them and the people, so I was comfortable lol. I remember when Prime launched. I don’t think anyone was expecting that, at the time. Free 2-day shipping on so many products was insane. And all for $89?/yr? Especially, when everywhere else online charged anywhere from $5-10. It was truly the Walmart of the online world. They ate shipping costs, which killed them, and put hurt their competition until AWS became such a powerhouse and they had a monopoly on online marketplaces.
That’s what’s crazy to me, they survived the dot com crash and were so diversified that I have no idea how they stayed afloat. I would think that all of the combined expenses across all of their ventures without a true cash cow would sink them. Instead they survived and became the trash heap of consumer rights violations that they are.
The reason Amazon survived is because they WEREN’T running a dozen different ventures. They were an online bookstore and people kept buying books. Amazon benefited from the crash because that was when they started buying up servers to build AWS. Prime was just free 2 day shipping on books when it launched.
Ehhh not really. They operated at massive losses for a decade or more to eliminate the competition while growing their customer base. This is simply stage 1 of enshittification. You can only do this if you’re unbelievably filthy fucking rich. Then at some point they needed to cash out on all the good will and reputation they developed and that brings us to the shithole economy of today where people are simply too lazy to shop anywhere else.
The other commenters here are right about Amazon’s initial methods, but I’m also going to highly recommend Cory Doctorow’s Enshittification for a detailed explanation of how this happens (including a breakdown on Amazon specifically) and what to do about it.
To quote a favorite singer of mine,
You could fill a man with gold, and still have room for greed.
It’s easy to crush the competition when you purposely take a loss as an investment in future market share.
If America was a serious country they would break up Amazon for this AND arrest Bezos and send him to a random Supermax for corporate blackmail, mass fraud, and unfair competition. But I fear they never were.
America was bought by the corpos a long time ago.
One could argue it’s always been about the wealthy.
it has always been about cheap labor that’s for sure, the united stated was built by slaves, that’s why they love dubai so much
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a stain on America and a threat to all of us now.
I’m being hyperbolic, but I do think every CEO of every company in America worth hundreds of billions should be arrested, have their companies broken up, and said CEOs sent to Supermax prisons for mass fraud.
A nitpick, but America won’t have Gitmo in that scenario tho. Displacing american people to random countries now is deeply rooted in the premise it’s okay to have a torture camp franchized over to places out of everyone’s sight. It wasn’t okay before and it’s not now, and serious country with some sense and a accountability would not employ such tactic.
If you did want to nitpick Bezos hasn’t run Amazon since 2021, so we’d have to check when they were being accused of doing so.
5 years on and most of us think Bezos everytime we hear Amazon still
I mean, how can we be so sure Bezos doesn’t still have influence over Amazon? He sure owns a lot of stocks in it for obvious reasons. He’s bought the Washington Post to spread propaganda. He’s set up Blue Origin to get government contracts. I’ve no reason to believe that he’s not apart of the Amazon problem and their influence over American Markets.
Something about one big club.
He certainly has an influence - he’s still the chairman of the board. He gets to decide who gets fired and when. In some ways, he found a way to have more influence, while being less hands-on.
Kinda suspected they were doing that. Looked at some drywall panel lifts this morning and saw one for $75. Shipping however was $247. Dropped that like a hot rivet
I mean, that makes sense to me at least. Drywall lifts aren’t difficult machines, they’re basically a lifting mechanism on a steel frame.
However, they are heavy and big mother fuckers, and therefore cost a ton to ship. Shipping is damned expensive, even without price fixing and gouging.
True but $240+ just seems excessive if the tool itself is priced 1/3 of that
It depends on a lot of things. Weight, truck availability, packaging size, whatever deal the manufacturer has with the shipping company, warehouse location, etc.
Supply chain management is an absolute unsolvable beast. I used to help out a local warehouse business, and the amount of work that went solely into optimizing their shipping costs was staggering
The guy they had on staff whose job it was to optimize everything was paid more than the owner or co-owner, and it was worth every penny. Dude was making 300k a year + 2% of all cost savings. Dude saved them 4.5 million on shipping costs according to the paper work I saw. And this is pre AI. Dude was doing all of this with scripts and spreadsheets
Astonishing what happens when people are paid what they’re worth
I know but amazon has a policy for non prime users that items over $35 qualify for free shipping. After dropping that deal I looked at some on a couple big box homimprov stores and they have some that are double the amazon item price but ship free so a net savings of around $100 on the deal
Market regulates itself or somthing.
I heard there was an invisible hand that I should trust.
Yeah, that’s what the Health Care CEOs assassin was doing, just a minor self-correction in the Free Market. That CEO’s policies pissed off a customer bad enough that the customer eliminated the problem, and that company, and every other health care company, loosened up their denials significantly as a result.
That’s the Free Market working the way it’s supposed to. That assassin should be celebrated for working within the system to balance the market.
It wasn’t Luigi though.
Bezos was a hedge fund manager. This should surprise nobody.
Bezos was a Senior VP by the age of 30, working for D.E. Shaw, and was a rumored heir for taking over the business after he retires. Bezos would have made billions and managed a major hedge fund. Set for life.
But that was not enough for him, he wanted to hoard hundreds of billions of wealth instead, so here we are. How perfectly healthy and in no way a mental illness.
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I think it was pretty obviously sarcasm
It was not. Poe’s Law.
They’re a complete stranger, and there are actual people who unironically say stuff like that, even on the Fediverse.
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It’s pretty obviously a troll account.
Poe’s law strikes again
When you’re not sure check their overview. That one was obviously sarcasm.
Yourself though, you’re angry and reactionary so it tracks.
Their post history reveals them to be kind of a jerk. If it was an attempt at sarcasm it was a poor one.
yall are exhausting. Hate it or don’t but move on. Nobody wants to check post history
Lol, these mods are a joke.
Can openers is what did it for me.
In 2015 I needed a new manual can opener. The local big-box stores had two basic styles. A cheap, all metal one that was just stamped from a single sheet, and a more expensive one with better handles.
The more expensive one had previously rusted and began to look nasty within a few years.
Amazon had a bunch of different styles at less than the price point of the more expensive one.I bought one. It was fine. I didn’t love the operation. It cut the whole top off from the side, rather than from the top in a downwards cut. The sharp edges were on the can rather than on the lid. It would catch the paper labels and sometimes wad them up into the can while you cut. Cans with no air space would leak when opened.
Anyway. Replaced it in 2019. Amazon still had a broad selection, but all except for obvious crap was as expensive as the local big box store’s expensive option. Wound up going to a smaller local(ish) bulk foods store and bought a cheapo restaurant one for less than Amazon’s/the big box store’s similar offerings. Minimal rusting to date.
I would read your review of various day to day items.
I had a similar experience with a juicer. The hand ones kept breaking so I bought a rack and pinion beast from a restaurant supply company that will be inherited by my grand kids.
It cost me less than half of what Amazon wanted, and it wasn’t cheap
