I understand big data. You can not sell something that does not have a value proposition (well, you can, but it normally involves deceit) no matter how much data you have. I'm not sure you can list a product that has a compelling value proposition that failed due to big data use by competitors. You go to every fortune 500 company and ask them what their value proposition is, it's not going to be big data, in most, if not all cases. They will highlight why people buy their product, based on the characteristics of that product, i.e. what makes their product unique.

People who shop based on price alone, have no loyalty. There is tons of research to support this. This is why data is irrelevant when it comes to targeting those folks, and economies of scale for that particular product is the single most important factor to profitability. It's all about getting the product for the cheapest possible price. That's the demand the supplier has to meet. No amount of regulation or data will change that. When you are talking about things other than price, there are innumerable ways to differentiate a product. Amazons Big Data won't and can't overcome a better/unique value proposition by a competing product. The very basics of sales is to sell consumers something they want. Amazons big data tells them what people want. More importantly, it does not tell them what people will want, and that's where competition and innovation occurs.

There is no evidence big data can overcome a superior/unique product offering.

Pretty much everything you've said since I started reading this thread.

So we should spend taxpayer (consumer) money to try to unjustly force a company to conform to how you think they should behave, even though the consumers don't care about this behavior? Got it.

Dude, you're the one who is acting like a child that got hold of a concise pamphlet of economic lexicon for the first time and is throwing a tantrum until someone will agree with you. I shall give you no more attention, as it's obvious you are on another level than those of us that actually understand real economics... in theory and in practice.

@cupee

What you don't understand about big data is, it allows companies to become more efficient. What you don't seem to grasp is, it does not matter how efficient another company is, if the widget maker has a unique value proposition for their product. You think it's all about price, but there's not much profitability in selling to those type of consumers, unless you can do it efficiently, and at scale. If price is the number one factor, the widget maker needs to reduce their cost, and become more efficient. If they can't do that, someone else will. I do not think this is a bad thing, and you've done little to explain what makes it bad, other than the inefficient widget maker going out of business, but you are not explaining why we need to protect inefficient businesses. Why is there value in that?

Ok I am going to start stripping out your strawmen and you can prove they are not by citing who made those argument.
The attempt I am making is not clutter items WE CAN discuss with the needs you create to address strawmen or otherwise it looks like you made a value point or asked a valid question.

Why are you saying the above?

Quote someone, ANYONE arguing that you can sell something with no value prop or even suggesting it, please.

Again you show you do not understand Big Data.

Pre Big Data and a DYNAMIC market place, you would set your pricing based on your Cost of Goods Sold and your desired Margin (profit).

As you rightly say, economies of scale have a big impact on the range you can go within that pricing and still make money.

So you and I both sell Widget XYZ. That is our product.

Our CoG's are mostly similar as the product is commodity but I may have an advantage in the factory but nothing major as we typically compete hard winning customers from one another, back and forth, by adjusting our pricing. Neither of us are winning largely by brand recognition and there are about a dozen other companies also in competition with us doing the same.

The industry and demand for our product XYZ is strong so many of us do well but Amazon is our main market place.

we make our bets, we pick our pricing based on the room within our margins and our historical data on what we think will sell and we compete.

Again you win some and I win some, others win some. That is normal and we mostly all do well.

Now suddenly my company is bought by Amazon who wants to compete against you all as they see the ability to leverage Big Data as a way to crush you all and take your market share.

In real time and right NOW, the newly acquired Amazon Widget Co (my company) no longer has to make bets on pricing as to what will compete.

In markets where the Amazon AI algorithm sees no competition our pricing remains higher. In markets where any competitor, like you seems to have any traction whether it be via you slightly discounting your price (a sale) or other, the Amazon AI automatically adjusts so my product is better in all those categories.

My company, thanks to Big Data, is maximizing profits in areas where we face little competition and hammering your companies with aggressive discounting, which we can do as we are making bigger profits elsewhere, and up and down the value chain as a CHANNEL monopoly.


So yes you can still compete with my prior company (now the Amazon company) but they have one massive tool you do not. Big Data and real time instantaneous AI reaction to anything and EVERYTHING you might try to do to gain a sale or advantage.


So then you default back to 'Brand', 'Brand', 'Brand' which is important, but not everything. Amazon also has a good brand btw. And yes some companies can compete on brand, but that does not mean Amazon does not have a huge advantage over the rest who cannot and its ok to say 'so what... they should have developed a enduring brand then'.

Big Dynamic Data is not everything. But it is one of the MOST important sales tools of all time, along side Brand.

You keep repeating price does not matter. Price does not matter. As long as you have brand loyalty you can sell for any price and price is irrelevant.

That is dumb.

I'm at a loss at why you can't comprehend this. It's not a straw man, it's a rebuttal. I'm saying it.

You are asserting that big data is hurting competition, forcing people to go out of business. However, I'm saying, data is not the reason people buy things, people buy things because of the value proposition a product presents them. The competition occurs between value propositions of products, not data. I'm explicitly pointing out that your assertion is irrational, as in illogical. They are not going out of business because of data, they are going out of business because people stopped buying their product, or they could not sell their product profitability. The reason that occurs is not because their competitors used data, it's because their value proposition was not competitive, or profitable.

If you can't get it, I don't know what else to say...I'm not the dumb one here. It's 100% a counter argument, not a straw man. I digress, maybe you are part of the toxic cult where your imagination is reality, and there is no arguing with that. Yeah, you are like the rest of them, you can't contend with an argument.

Imagine being Itshot and saying the words 'its not a strawman, its a rebuttal. I am saying it".

A rebuttal means you are countering something someone else said and yet he says he is the one saying it. So his rebuttal is of his own point since he admits no one else said what he is arguing against.

But time and again he creates an argument and then rebutts it as if you said it, and now he admits it.

Hopeless...

I know. But apparently some don't realize they're just rehashing old arguments:
What Is 'Hipster Antitrust?' Why the Newest Antitrust Thinking Isn't Actually New

Wow!

He will call it a straw man, but there is a part of that applies directly to Cupee:

Your line of argument is difficult to follow, at least based on my passing knowledge of antitrust law. I mean on the one hand you seem to understand that the intent of these various laws are to protect the competitive nature of the marketplace, not to protect the various competitors in it. But then to show how the competiveness of the market is suffering you appeal to the effect what amazon is doing has on competitors.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/competit...-2-sherman-act

the 'competitive nature of the market place' entails protecting competitors from unfair practices.

I have no issue with Amazon hosting an Online Marketplace even if they have a virtual monopoly in that area of Market place.

I have no problem with Amazon also being a company that gathers Big Data in real time and sells that data to competitors in that market place as one of the many tools available to them.


I do have a problem when Amazon takes a third step by then using that Big Data to short cut their way into certain target markets. In effect they are having their clients companies pay to do all the early research, suffer any losses during the market building early days, and then launch competitive products against them in an attempt to drive them the client out of business.

The company is both Client, benefiting Amazon with their data and then competitor, trying to fight Amazon off who is using their own data against them.

What I say is reminiscent of one of my prior biggest pet peeves.

Big Banks using their clients own money to screw them so the bank can collect more fees.

Banking has changed over the years due to digital banking. A check clearing, for those on the margins, used to be a physical process that required one bank to actually get physical confirmation from another bank that the check did not bounce and thus the 3-5 day hold.

In todays digital banking the checks clear same day for the banks but the banks still hold the checks the same 3-5 days? Why?

Because the banks have found they get a ton of bounced checks with that hold period and make huge fees from it.

But the fact they do give people access to their own money when it is available is not the biggest offense or scandal.

What is the biggest scandal is that most big banks implemented sorting software for checks and here is how it works.


You - are told you will get a cash payment on Thursday of $300
You - issue checks out to pay people you owe for $130, $80 and $30 ($240 total) dated on Thursday

However on Thursday you only get paid $120 of the $300. You take it the bank and deposit it knowing you have a shortfall.

What does the bank software explicitly do?


It does not process the $80 and $30 checks for a total of $210 and allow the $130 check to bounce. Nope. It purposely matches up the largest check with the funds which then holds the funds. The two smaller checks get bounced immediately and 3 days later the larger check gets bounced.

3 checks bounce instead of 1 and the bank charges fees on all three eating up much of the $120 the guy deposited and yet not one bill was paid.


Banks are using the clients own deposit money to purposely pay for software to screw those clients when they could have instead had the software optimize processing by clearing the maximum number of checks and minimizing bouncing.


Thankfully many States have made this practice illegal in the last few years.

Amazon making money off companies being clients and selling on their Marketplace and then taking that money to launch products to compete against them is not the exact same stink but it stinks nonetheless.

You also have a problem with supermarkets doing the same with their limited sales data. So obviously you'd have a problem with amazon doing just that without access to big data let alone with it. What I'm saying is that since the courts have sided against you in that regard, your argument (in my eyes) boils down to whether or not the introduction of big data makes what the courts have deemed permissible not so. And to that the courts again have ruled that bigness or effectiveness isn't the litmus test for whether or not they're violating the anti-competition clause. They seem to place a great deal of weight on what a company like amazon has done work and innovation wise that allowed them to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace.

I get what you guys are saying but in 10 years or so big data and ai will replace humans as the innovators at least as far as conceptualization and proof of concept goes. So I can't really fault Bezos for wanting to stay at the front of that curve to maintain the competitiveness of his company and I really doubt the courts will either since they've repeatedly said that's exactly what they want.

Links to article that argues net neutrality is bad for the consumer to prove anti trust laws aren't needed.

An article based on one non peer reviewed working paper isn't a straw man.
It's just a random opinion.

All this explains why overpriced Iphones outsell higher quality Chinese phones in the US.

Consumers are prey. Once you understand that it will all make sense.

Not all competitive practices are abusive and I would not make that argument.

Some can be though but even still I would say that not all 'abusive' practices require gov't intervention. Lawsuits can deal with most.

Certain ones, I do think require gov't focus and this use of Big Data, is one.

I don't base what is right or wrong by the gov't view at that point in time. Some States now say the example of Bank Abuse i gave is abuse and they cannot do it in their State. Other States still allow it.

So to me the practice is not both right and wrong. Right where allowed and wrong where not. It is simply wrong.

For me the 'speed of innovation' is arguably the best argument for the gov't to not get involved. Governments will always be slow to understand the changing dynamics and what is abuse or not and by the time they act, a new threat that might dis-intermediate Amazon might arise.

I understand where you're coming from. But nonetheless even if the courts were to side with you against amazon, they won't simply rule that amazon has to stop. They'll abstract from the particulars of what amazon is doing and come up with a general principle which then applies to other business.

For example, it's not hard to imagine a small ecommerce site selling pet toys could do essentially the same thing amazon is doing but to a much lesser scope or degree. Should the DoJ then open an enforcement division to tackle all that? If not, we need some non-arbitrary demarcation line to determine why it's illegal for amazon to do something that's permissible for others. And the courts won't use an ambiguous term like 'big data' in a finding. So outside of a "we'll know it when we see it" sort of answer, where's the tipping point with how much data constitutes big data?

It's also possible that amazon would have never invested in developing all that tech, which will likely be of immense benefit to the marketplace and consumers down the road, if they couldn't get a return on that investment from what they're currently doing.

I'm not unsympathetic to your point because I'm actually in this space and knock-offs are a huge frustration. Can't say I've had the privilege of amazon doing so but other vendors on amazon just look at the number of reviews and do essentially the same. And don't get me started on the other end of the funnel with google.

In both major points here I do not think it is as difficult as you think for the government to deal with this.

Legislation that says you cannot be both the Market Place and a Competitor in the Market place utilizing turning your clients into competitors whom you use their own data and money against them, could be drafted.

it would not keep companies from Amazon from innovating. You do so but once launching you spin the other company out as a separate company. It starts with a mirror shareholder list of the first company so they lose no benefit. But once separated that company must compete with the same rules as the other competitors. Meaning if others have to buy data, so too do they.

This takes away the 'unfair' advantage but still lets them compete (fairly).

Some may say 'even if you separate them, if they have the same shareholder list (even if only at the start) they will still collude and take advantage'. They might but they would face legal sanctions and lawsuit threats if they did.

And this is not new. Big companies, starting or spawning new business from within have historically done this.

IBM is a great example with Watson Marketing, Acoustic and Utopus Insights Inc. amongst others.

The reason they typically do it is because it is often thought as the best way to unbruden them and let them compete without having to think about what is best for the Parent Co which in some instances may not be best for the Spin Out or NewCo.

Amazon has basically 3 very different businesses we are talking about here.

The MarketPlace, in which CLIENT companies sell goods. These CLIENT companies to Amazon pay them to be on that platform and Amazon makes a lot of money from them.

The Big Data play, in which Amazon sells Data collected form CLIENT company activities, such as Sales and Marketing as well as Real Time Data based adjustments. They sell that data back to their CLIENTS and anyone else who wants it and Amazon again makes a lot of money from those clients.


The Amazon White Label competitor products Companies - These are companies or products Amazon launches after looking at the CLIENT'S data, and utilizing the CLIENT'S MONEY sunk into R&D, Marketing and Sales efforts to then launch competitive mirror products that have none of the legacy costs to overcome and in fact have money STILL coming in from those competitors who are trying to compete, against them.


It is an absurd and bastardized thing to think about. We charge your widget company to be on our platform based on anything you sell and since we take that 'rake' off your sales, we lower you profit. We can then under cut your pricing as we already start with your money as pure profit for us so we do not need to make as much on the sale to the end user.


If people cannot see what is distorted in that, I don't know what to say. It is a gross distortion that only a near monopoly would ever get away with.

Simply forcing Amazon to spin out the White Label division into its own separate NewCo would fix that.

I'm sure amazon would make a lot of money doing so... until the gov't took it all back and sent both parties to prison for engaging in corporate espionage. Plus, amazon supplying that sort of granular, time-sensitive sales data would allow two competitors to effectively collude on price fixing or market division/customer allocation. So no prudent company would buy that data even if amazon offered it.

Like I've said, I get what you're saying and why you're saying it, but the only avenue I can see towards that end is getting the courts to rule in a fairly broad way that retailers can't go into competition with their vendors and doing that will require a substantial deviation - basically a paradigm shift - from precedent.

You say that as if it's a bad thing:

Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation - but why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped? (Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche)

That ends private labels, and will hurt poor consumers because they then have to buy the more expensive product, or go without. Think grocery stores. It will also hurt those who struggle during economic downtimes who switch to private labels. It's also going to impact employment, becasue manufacture of consumers goods use excess manufacturing capacity to produce private label products. There are far reaching implications of that kind of legislation.