cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6320210
Report: Amazon made $1B with secret algorithm for spiking prices Internet-wide::Report reveals details about Amazon’s secret algorithm redacted in FTC complaint.
Amazing. And we keep letting these massive companies monopolize further. 😑
Capitalism trends towards monopolization and capitalism runs the country
Corruption and weak morals can ruin any system.
The system is working exactly as its core mechanisms demand and in line with what good (corporate) behavior requires. It does so openly.
The current implementation has its flaws but that’s due to unchecked concentration of power, as you stated earlier. The core mechanism of exchange of goods among individuals is just fine.
The concentration of power is the monopolization tendency inherent to capitalism. That’s how it works. It forces those in control of business to attempt any means of increasing the mass of profit and not get destroyed by competition. Monopolization does both of those things and business owners realize this quickly.
Capitalism is not the exchange of goods among individuals. That has existed for a very long time and includes feudal and slave and communal and really all systems we are familiar with where people interact with one another.
Capitalism is an economic system dominated by private businesses that employ wage workers to produce commodities for exchange. This differs from the systems it displaced, which were usually feudal, mercantile, that sort of thing.
That is why I am looking up price trends of more expensive things. Websites often even show you trends in different currencies. It is wild how much prices of everything fluctuate in recent years.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon, alleging that the online retailer was illegally maintaining a monopoly.
People familiar with the FTC’s allegations in the complaint told the Journal that it all started when Amazon developed an algorithm code-named “Project Nessie.”
The controversial algorithm was allegedly used for years and helped Amazon to “improve its profits on items across shopping categories” and “led competitors to raise their prices and charge customers more,” the WSJ reported.
FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar told the WSJ that the agency wants more public access to redacted information in the complaint and continues to "call on Amazon to move swiftly to remove the redactions and allow the American public to see the full scope of what we allege are their illegal monopolistic practices.”
In a press release, the FTC confirmed that it intends to prove that Amazon is “stifling competition on price,” among other alleged consumer harms.
“Seldom in the history of US antitrust law has one case had the potential to do so much good for so many people,” John Newman, the deputy director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said.
The original article contains 627 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
