Introduction
I remember the early days of internet shopping. It was a terrible experience.
Wading through badly designed websites, each one entirely different, it was often hard to find what you were looking for even when you knew exactly what you wanted.
In some cases, even if you made an account with the site, you would end up having to enter your entire payment details each and every time you used it.
In some cases you would have to then telephone the business to confirm all the details once again.
Then there was the hassle of figuring out how much extra you would have to pay for delivery, followed by the long wait for what you bought.
Next day delivery (UK) was not expected in those days - even if it was available you had to pay a hefty price for it.
In those days many businesses saw internet retail as an extension of mail order catalogue shopping - in that business model it was not unusual to take 14 days to deliver items (sometimes even more).
The whole experience was often the exact opposite of convenient and sometimes enough to make you give up and just visit a physical store.
Then Amazon appeared.
It started as a bookshop that sold books at a discount. I used to use them to buy textbooks and marvelled at how quick and reliable they were.
Most importantly they got the user experience right (at least they did when I started using them).
It was easy to find what you wanted and there was no struggling with the site. The fast delivery was the icing on the cake.
Despite all of that I never imagined that they would grow to be the retail behemoth that we see today.
Dealing with the Devil - the Amazon Tax?
We use Amazon because they give us choice, value and most importantly convenience.
Many people I know use Amazon as their first stop for making any purchase. Often if they can't find something on Amazon they won't even bother checking elsewhere.
Others visit physical stores to look at items and then buy them on Amazon. It is no wonder that regular stores and vendors are struggling.
More and more smaller retailers have found that the only way that they can survive is by selling their items on the Amazon Marketplace and Amazon takes a large cut of what they sell.
If you have ever sold anything on Amazon you will know just how high their fees can be.
Some sellers call it the Amazon tax.
You don't have to sell your items on Amazon, but you may have to if you want to give them visibility.
Sometimes you have to "make a deal with devil" in order to survive.
At What Point Does A Business Become Too Big?
Most people would consider that a monopoly is a bad thing.
Monopolies have a tendency to stifle competition and even if not right away, the eventual result is less choice and higher prices for consumers.
Without any real competition the monopoly has less reason to innovate and improve - after all why bother, when you don't have to?
Amazon is unlike any other monopoly we have previously seen. In the past monopolies were generally confined to one or at most a few product areas or categories.
It simply wasn't feasible for any business to monopolise multiple areas at once.
The internet revolution changed that and Amazon were one of the first companies to understand that and take advantage of it.
The Monopoly of Monopolies - the Next Generation of Search
There are relatively few areas of the market that Amazon has not conquered and they tend to be very aggressive in moving into new markets.
First they sold books, then electricals and household items. More recently they have moved into groceries and TV/movie production.
They also own the main cloud computing platform (AWS) that many other businesses use as a vital part of their infrastructure.
Perhaps of even more concern is the fact that through their Amazon Alexa service they may have fired the first volley in the battle for the future of search with their AI assistant, Alexa.
People are concerned enough about Google's search dominance but it seems in this regard Amazon has the lead on Google.
Through devices like the Echo, Amazon is not just on your desktop or mobile device. Now they are physically in your home listening to everything you say.
How much of your information do they store? What exactly do they do with it? How secure is it?
Ultimately it gives them an even greater level of power over their customers than they currently have - as a recent murder investigation highlighted.
Despite these concerns the Echo devices have been a massive success and companies like Google and Apple are scrambling to catch up - but unlike Amazon, they are much more reliant on others to sell their devices.
Sure Apple has their physical stores but I doubt they can compete with the online selling might of Amazon, particularly when it comes to cheaper items. - The Echo is significantly cheaper than what Apple can offer and for good reason.
This is because unlike Apple, Amazon doesn't have to uphold a premium market image.
They sell to everyone and at all price ranges. Apple can't sell anything that looks even remotely "cheap". That is not their brand.
Google doesn't have the same problem but they also don't have their own stores and their previous attempts at hardware (e.g. Google Glass) have not exactly been successful.
Unless there are some changes it looks like Amazon could "eat Google's lunch" and there don't currently appear to be any viable competitors who can take them on.
Faustian Pacts and Bum Deals
In much of western mythology there is the idea of making a deal with the devil.
No matter what the exact terms are or what you get in return, the ultimate result is that you end up getting the "bum" end of the deal.
When you make a faustian pact, the devil is the only winner.
Whilst Amazon may not dominate groceries, TV/movies or music streaming to the degree that they dominate electricals/home items I think it is entirely possible that they will in the future.
The addition of Alexa based products and the potential for them gaining a big chunk of the (currently Google dominated) search market makes it even more likely.
People may argue about Google favouring their own content in search results but there is no doubt that if you want to buy something Alexa is only going to direct you towards Amazon products.
Conclusion
Even putting aside the business and competition issues, is it right that any one single organisation should have a hand in so many domains of life?
If everything you use, consume, watch, listen to is sold and even created by a single entity then how much power do they have over you?
Should they? Is that a good thing? Can we trust them to have our best interests at heart?
I don't have any answers or solutions to this issue, I just think that it is worth thinking about.
So far most governments have not had the guts to stand up to Amazon (or indeed most other mega-corporations).
At the most they have received a very mild corporate "wrist slap" for anti-competitive practices.
Further it seems most of us are so enamoured of the convenience that Amazon gives us that it makes it hard to turn away. -I know I am just as much a sucker for this as the next person - we are all time limited and have a tendency to take short cuts.
Next time you go to buy something from Amazon ask yourself if you are doing something that is good for you long term.
That short term convenience may cost us a lot more in the long term.
Thank you for reading
