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venuswasaflytrap t1_iu4oy8n wrote

It's obviously not price gouging, the chart is right there.

On $127 billion in revenue, they make $2.9 billion in profit. That's like a 2% profit margin.

They're actually operating on mega-slim margins. The obscene profit amount comes from the fact that they're creating hundreds of millions of transactions that they take a slim cut from (known as salami slcing like is superman 3 or office space).

The cheaper those transactions can be, the more that will occur and the more money they will make. That's why they drive the prices ever-downward, and why they use their bargaining power to create super low-wage positions to make super cheap things.

You can't really fix this with taxes. Even if they paid 50% corporation tax or something that doesn't change the chart above significantly. Just cahnges that 2.9 billion to 1.45 billion with 1.45 billion in taxes. They'd still underpay workers.

I think there is a an argument for a price floor. Minimum wages is one example, but I also think that maybe some of the stuff you can buy on Amazon is simply unethically cheap.

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685327593 t1_iu52teh wrote

We've gotten to a point in our society where people see their political alignment as central to their identity. Having to question their political beliefs is as extremely painful to these people.

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pastafariankiwi t1_iu5a55t wrote

I would be interested in seeing the growth and margins of AWS… it feels like it’s taking over as IaaS for so much software being developed. It’s probably Amazon’s cash cow

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North-Right t1_iu5bs5t wrote

How do you manage 2% profit on 127B?!!!

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Teschyn t1_iu6iyry wrote

It’s about creating a monopoly. Drive normal retailers out of business with convenience and lower prices. Then once there’s no competition, they can gouge their prices with no repercussions. It’s the same strategy Walmart.

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SaltyWithSalt t1_iu70ibm wrote

When people shit on Amazon for not being profitable it’s like… all those costs are going to you! All the stuff is cheap cause their profit margin is low! Lol

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Tordoix t1_iu78tqw wrote

Not to forget that they are using their quasimonopoly as marketplace (and therefore quick access to listed prices) to undercut competitors by just one cent on many products and doing so on just the slightest of margins. This could be regulated, an open marketplace with such high relevance should not be run by an entity who also sells on said market in order to ensure free trade.

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Dalbus_Umbledore t1_iu7j5pp wrote

Representing negative numbers in this kind of graph is ... Kind of counter intuitive isn't it?

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[deleted] t1_iu7w0d5 wrote

Their capital investments are obscene. Think of all the costs of setting up a fulfilment center, then multiply that by a couple hundred centres and that those centers have ongoing costs too, not just their establishment.

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venuswasaflytrap t1_iu86k2j wrote

This is sort of one of the reasons I think a price floor of some sort might help.

It would put a minimum limit on how much vertical integration could benefit.

E.g. if somehow we say a t-shirt needs to cost at least $30, then Amazon can’t sell them for $5, so the small company who makes tshirts can compete with them.

I don’t know exactly how you could sensibly implement that - there’d be a myriad of ways to bypass it depending on how the law is phrased - but just a thought.

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jobeta t1_iu8i1uw wrote

Never realized AWS was subsidizing killing retail. If we all switch to GCP we can have corner stores again?

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Tmaster95 t1_iu91klj wrote

The visualization is shit. How can "other gains" with .4bn be double the size of "net profit" with 2.9bn?

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genericusername4582 t1_iuk3j1h wrote

All this is telling me is that they’re only paying 3% to taxes. I pay 8% tax on a tube of toothpaste.

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