this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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Split Amazon into retail and web services and then further split them into multiple different companies. Amazon has gotten way too big and stifling competition along the way.
Do the same to Facebook too while we're at it. Fucking hate speech central.
Amazon, meta, Google, Microsoft, Apple...
Even though I'm not a fan of Apple, I am not sure how it could be split. Unlike other companies mentioned, Apple is firmly in consumer electronics business, except for Apple TV+ which is a recent addition.
Their software products also exist to work only on specific hardware.
Also, only today I figured out that they have their own office suite lol. Don't know why I never thought about it before
They are heavily vertically integrated, even if split, they'd still work together as one company, because they simply don't have any other choice.
There are many products all of these companies have that aren't profitable (f.e. YouTube would either die or get enshitified to hell, can't see Prime Music surviving without the rest of the Prime ecosystem etc.).
Splitting most of these up would not help anyone.
Good.
Companies have been using their profitable ventures to get dominant (or even solo) position in another market segment by undercutting the competition and then degrade their services as there's no other alternative for customers.
This should force them (and customers) to reconsider their offerings and the pricing for it.
Everyone is complaining about services raising prices all the time. YouTube introducing anti-adblock tech has caused an uproar.
Do you know why YouTube is dominant? It's because it's subsidized. Running a service like that is more expensive than you could ever imagine and it's free, thanks to subsidization.
I'm not saying Google's a good company, but consider how much value YouTube has brought into the world - it's not only entertainment, but also education.
It wouldn't survive on it's own.
Splitting up companies makes no sense. They could (and in 99% of cases still would) work together as one. Regulating them and holding them accountable does, much more. Why not start there, instead of wasting your time here?
That's one of the issues with these business models, it's hard to give a consumer something and then take it away later to turn a profit (enshittification).
So what you're saying is that instead of allowing companies to enshitiffy, we just kill all of them instantly?
Do you know why google is ad monopoly? Because they have all youtube info.
There's no way that's true. It's a piece of it for sure, but they are neither an ad monopoly or a monopoly dependent on YouTube info.
Their streaming. Also split software development and hardware development.
But they only develop software for their hardware. Even after splitting, the Apple Software will only have one customer: Apple Hardware.
But Apple Hardware will have multiple suppliers
MAGMA
Alpha, beta, GAMMA
They (technically) already are. I work for Amazon, but I don't get paid by "Amazon". I get paid for the subsidiary I work for.
Splitting is fine, but it's easily dealt with by megacorps. If anything, if the idea is floated, it's probably because they're absolutely fine with it.
If you want to break Amazon apart, do the one thing they hate. Enable their employees to unionize, and empower them to fight the decades-long HR machine that ruins corporate employees lives.
The moment you seperate AWS from the rest, the rest will shut down.
If Amazon (retail) can't survive on it's own without exploiting workers and all the other crap they do, then we'll be better off without it.
I'm not just asking to separate AWS. I want AWS to further split into different companies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System
Why would you think that it isn't profitable?
Because they sell the bulk of their products at a loss. They use their webservices platform to bankroll their retail platform so they can undersell even Walmart. Some years it does turn a slight profit but generally it's fairly negative but no matter what it doesn't offset the pure profit that is the web services division. https://ir.aboutamazon.com/quarterly-results/default.aspx
Serious question, why do they then even bother with the retail platform?
If I had to guess, to achieve the ultimate conclusion of the Walmart plan, squash every other retailer in the nation and then raise prices.
Brand awareness, data metrics, upselling their shitty amazon choice products.
Gotta go further and deeper then that too. There are other, larger and more diverse companies that are hiding in plain site behind the more popular business like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc...