This is probably the 10th article that I've written on Amazon, or at least something involving Amazon. Maybe it's a bit less, but that just proves how Amazon is such a dominating figure in our lives today. Many love Amazon for its convenience and relative cheaper prices since they basically cut out the middleman, but many hate it and see it as a growing superpower that must be stopped. So the question is, is antitrust action likely?
We remember how about a century ago numerous conglomerates were broken up, namely commodities companies like steel companies, etc. The best recent example of trust-busting occurred in the 1980s when Bell System broke up into 8 separate companies. Bell System, or AT&T, was an American telecommunications company because they got too powerful and controlled the telephone lines and everything in America. The vertically-integrated corporation that owned Western Electric which manufactured phones and parts was just in too deep that breaking it up would seem too complicated. In fact, it happened before, twice, in the early 1900s and around the 1950s. People went back and forth over the issue as it proved really controversial and really tested the border between government intervention and government stepping out of bounds. Think about it, what should happen when one company controls too much? Pure capitalists would agree that under the concept of "survival of the fittest", it's too bad for those companies. Obviously, the market wouldn't be able to adjust in time, and consumers would only be further drawn to that company. We see similar things now with a lot of companies: Google, all of these merged companies like Time-Warner and DirecTV with AT&T, etc.
The ironic thing is that, today, most of these companies and/or subsidiaries belong to AT&T again and it has grown even bigger, like a cancer tumor. Now it controls a massive cellular network and a satellite cable company. In 1999, 15 years after the 1984 breakup, four of seven RBOC's remain (we leave out 'AT&T'). This just shows that simply breaking it up, without additional regulation or supervision, doesn't lead to anything.
So let's jump back to the question on whether or not Amazon should be handed an anti-trust lawsuit. Amazon has repeatedly been accused by Trump for its practices. Maybe it's also because Amazon owns The Washington Post, which Trump doesn't particularly like? But his claims are right, as Amazon's deals have hurt the U.S. Postal Service and caused it to loose money. Amazon has indeed put "many thousands of retailers out of business". the USPS lost $2.7 billion on $69.6 billion in fiscal year 2017. However, in reality, about $2.4 billion was because of interest rates, which is really inevitable and beyond the power of the Postal Service. If anything, Amazon supports the USPS by using it as package delivery, albeit it seems like now the USPS has become Amazon's letter boy or something. That's one thing, but there's other issues.
Amazon CEO Bezos owns The Washington Post, and while it's not directly Amazon that owns it, you can see a conflict of interest here. This should cause a bit of worry or at least attention. Then there's Amazon Web Services where they create their own servers and cloud systems. Beyond that, they also control consumer products and technology, from Alexa to the Kindle and to everyday items like USB chargers and everything! Then they bought Whole Foods, which has nothing to do with being an online bookstore! Slowly but surely, it's starting to seep in.
In fact, Europe is already looking into the antitrust matter, and is seeking action very soon, which is causing a bit of worry. Those issues involve privacy and data that Amazon gathers, but also talk about how it's unfair that Amazon is beating out rival firms by abusing market power. The thing is, at least in America, current antitrust law looks at competition with a focus on short-term interests of consumers versus producers of health of the market. It seems that Bezos and Amazon have been able to find ways to bypass this network of antitrust laws.
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