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Elon Musk calls for Amazon to be broken up after Kindle Direct Publishing rejects book for COVID-19 wrongthink
- Thread starter EviLore
- Start date
triplestation
Member
what a fucking amazing picture lmao
lex luthor vs johnny cage
lex luthor vs johnny cage
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Trump wouldHe honestly thinks someone is going to go anywhere near Amazon?
JLMC469
Banned
Is he still hiding in the bunker?
No, he is drone striking looters now
DunDunDunpachi
Banned
Amazon does not have a monopoly on the publishing of books, not buy a longshot.
Register some rando buythisbook.com website and add a paid link with a pdf download. Done.
Register some rando buythisbook.com website and add a paid link with a pdf download. Done.
Unknown Soldier
Member
If Elon really wanted to piss Bezos off he could just ask how Jeff's rockets are doing lately.
godhandiscen
There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Elon needs to stop login on Twitter. The amount of time he spends on it makes him rage at the silliest of things.
Goro Majima
Kitty Genovese Member
There’s an argument to be made that Amazon should be chopped up but I’m not sure if this is it.
fallingdove
Member
Errm, they basically do. They have a majority share in both production and distribution.
I self published a book a few years back and quickly learned how nasty Amazon can be in manipulating available inventory and searchability. To the point I was calling them on a daily basis, begging them to update the product listing to show at least 1 available where I had an unlimited, on demand, supply.
They crippled my marketing campaigns all because I chose not to use their publishing services and didn’t have the significant capital investment necessary to print large quantities myself and sell on my own website or on a marketplace like eBay.
Tenaciousmo
Member
Man can't wait for that Batman Vs. Iron Man live-action movie.
daveonezero
Banned
Yeah this isn’t an amazon problem.
Stiflers Mom
Banned
Well, can you name the second largest book retailer in the world?
-Arcadia-
Banned
Particularly when Amazon has the most popular e-book distribution platform in the world, bar none, and also owns Audible, which is to my knowledge, a very popular (maybe the most) audio book service.
That’s a whole lot of power to make sure information doesn’t end in people’s hands. I have no idea if the Corona book is legit, but I do know that in an optimal, free society, Amazon doesn’t get to make that decision for everybody.
F
Foamy
Unconfirmed Member
I will never use Amazon again.
Dr.Guru of Peru
played the long game
The story is from 2010 and the book was removed the same day that article was posted.
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Dacon
Banned
Way to miss the point.
Spaceman292
Banned
No, he's tweeting about drone striking looters whilst hiding in his bunker.No, he is drone striking looters now
Dr.Guru of Peru
played the long game
Being...?
Dacon
Banned
That they cited freedom of speech in defense of that book then, but now refuse to publish this one obviously.
shoplifter
Member
No, he is drone striking looters now
That wouldn't even make him the first President to drone American citizens!
StormCell
Member
I'm particularly interested in the breaking up of Amazon, among other tech giants, not because they are monopolies but because their sheer size now gives them a clear advantage across multiple industries and markets. Frankly, I don't believe we've designed our government to co-exist with such massive corporate entities as these. It's kinda ridiculous.
Example of ridiculousness: You go to Amazon to shop and ultimately buy something through Amazon but not sold by Amazon. This is how dumb things have gotten. I'd rather there be a more decentralized way to buy that Kayak part than to have to go to Amazon for an easy way to find it at Austin Kayak (as an example). But everybody shops at Amazon, and Amazon is now every store's online storefront I guess.
Screw them. Cut them out of the picture, finally.
Example of ridiculousness: You go to Amazon to shop and ultimately buy something through Amazon but not sold by Amazon. This is how dumb things have gotten. I'd rather there be a more decentralized way to buy that Kayak part than to have to go to Amazon for an easy way to find it at Austin Kayak (as an example). But everybody shops at Amazon, and Amazon is now every store's online storefront I guess.
Screw them. Cut them out of the picture, finally.
DunDunDunpachi
Banned
Why should they be broken up? The companies that transport and sell goods have always had a leg up over the smaller markets that they distribute. We build planet-spanning trade routes based on the whims of merchants and their customers.
Merchants will always be powerful. Anti monopoly laws and corporate breakups will always be a superficial answer to the underlying cause.
StormCell
Member
Instead of spending time providing a strong logical reason for breaking them up, I'd rather see it explained why they should be left whole along with why it was okay for Comcast to buy NBC. It was a big deal a couple of decades ago when the federal government began allowing large corporations to merge. Now, I think that was ultimately a mistake.
The problem with Amazon is they are literally too big. You called them a merchant, but that's not even one third of their identity anymore. Amazon sells everything, yes, and while they're selling everything they're also providing all of the cloud infrastructure for it. So they host all that compute under their site plus all of what's behind Netflix, etc. Oh, and while they were at it they came up with Prime Video on Demand. There's also Amazon the book publisher, and the digital books on their e-readers, oh and the audible books. Annnnnd the doorbell security cams, and Alexa, and what else? Warehouses all over America, uglier than Walmarts. Fully automated stores. Coming soon? Drones that do same-day deliveries while absolutely keeping a 24/7 eye on the public.
I don't know how they should be broken up. I don't even know what other businesses they own or are involved in, but you can bet they have 50 more I just haven't heard of. I also want Facebook broken up. How about that one? Why should I want that? I can think of plenty of reasons why I want them crippled and gone. Do I need to logically explain why Facebook should be #cancelled?
DunDunDunpachi
Banned
I think the market is a far more efficient and cruel tool for breaking up companies than any gov't intervention. I just don't see it the way you do. Automated stores means every city needs trained electricians / technicians to service the machines. That's an upgrade from clerks who stand in front of a cash-register.
By no means am I a corporate defender. And I definitely think some of these companies have a stranglehold on certain avenues, but book publishing isn't one of them. There's a big difference between "monopoly" and "large market player".
StormCell
Member
I know this doesn't refute anything you're saying, but I'd like to add that those electricians and technicians will be employed by Amazon and will no doubt be expected to work under rigorously tough guidelines.
I wish there was a clear, smoking gun legal reason to crush them. So far, the best I can come up with is splitting them apart at the seams. AWS and Amazon would have next to nothing in common when I'm done with them.
Of course, at the end of the day, it's our fault that Amazon does so much business. AWS revenues also likely soared as Zoom exploded in popularity. Figures.
DunDunDunpachi
Banned
Nah, Amazon does plenty of contract work like lots of big companies do.
I'd like to emphasize my phrasing of "every city needs". Whether they're employed by Amazon or not, trade skills like that will pay more. Heck, a guy who drives vending machines around makes more money than a store clerk.
And for the traditional retail stores that hire quality employees and adjust with the times, they'll fare even better. People nowadays are extremely vain and love shopping / buying an "image", so if your store sells local organic food and local brands and Amazon's automated store doesn't, you'll have customers.
To be honest, I'd gladly have Amazon gain marketshare if it also means Wal Mart gets pushed out. Wal Mart is a huge reason why our consumer goods started moving over to China. Fuck em. Amazon might not cut out China per se, but at least it provides a more open platform for third-party sellers to provide an option to customers.
I don't want Amazon to be crushed artificially, even if I have gripes with them as a company.
DunDunDunpachi
Banned
Future headline: Elon Musk announces 'Book Company', a self-publishing service designed to...
diffusionx
Gold Member
It is not though. Capitalism by its very nature tends towards collusion and monopolies, as big companies use their power and reach to stifle competition. this isn’t even in question - Adam Smith talked about it in his writings.
That isn’t to say government intervention is ALWAYS the answer (Blockbuster was a monopoly once) but I would argue it is more often than people think it is.
I think there is a reason why Amazon walked this back quickly.
Super Mario
Banned
Breaking up a company directly is wrong, and actually, dangerous.
But that doesn't mean the current process doesn't need change. Companies like Amazon have too much power. They also get sweetheart deals that make competition even harder for the little guys.
We are too anti-small business here. Heck, look at what small business owners had to ensure so far, this year.
But that doesn't mean the current process doesn't need change. Companies like Amazon have too much power. They also get sweetheart deals that make competition even harder for the little guys.
We are too anti-small business here. Heck, look at what small business owners had to ensure so far, this year.
Dr.Guru of Peru
played the long game
But they actually took the pedophile book down within hours of it being pointed out, and are selling book in the OP.
And its still 10 years old news. Even if that tweet accurately reflected amazon's response at the time, a lot has changed since 2010.
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MilkLizard
Member
Musk is an idiot. Motherfucker really showed his true face in the last few months. Fuck him.
Frito_Pendejo
Member
Why?
MilkLizard
Member
Seriously? The breathing machines he promised hospitals which were useless in the end. The refusal of closing down his factory to protect his employees. Read his tweets. This very thread...etc
Is that not enough?
AlteredForms
Banned
As unorthodox as Elon Musk might be at least he pushing the boundaries of science and doing something new to accumulate wealth. Bezos on the other hand just created an online store which ships stuff out to customers at extremely fast rates.
Ornlu
Banned
Good luck! Your post probably used AWS somewhere along the way.
We could do the obvious and expand current monopoly laws to companies that find themselves with fingers in every pie, like Amazon, who then exert influence to crush competitors who try and grow in any of said pies.
He delivered what he promised in regards to hospitals; sorry you got caught up in angry news coverage. And he wanted the economy to not be destroyed. If that's your list of gripes, that seems kind of petty to get mad about.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Ever since pretty much every game I received from them had loose discs, I switched to eBay.
MilkLizard
Member
I'm not mad and neither were the news I read. And he doesn't give a shit about the economy or human lives, only his own money.
He provided bipap machines, which are non-invasive ventilators, and are being used in COVID treatment.
Dr.Guru of Peru
played the long game
Isn't Bezos also heavily invested in space tech and AI? I think at the end of the day, these guys all have the same goal in mind: world domination.
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