The controversial world of Amazon

When it comes to convenience, you’ll find that we humans are willing to go to any lengths. You’d prefer booking an Uber instead of hailing a cab driver and haggling with him. The same goes for many other aspects of life. So wouldn’t you rather order services online rather than being out and about yourself? Now, you’ve probably heard of various addictions, so this one might be new for you. In fact, you could be a victim of it and not know it. Yes, we’re indeed talking about shopping. Whether it might be out of necessity or for leisure, you know it’s a guilty pleasure, and with topping the market cap in trillion dollars and 100 million subscribers globally, how can we not talk about Amazon.

Did you know nearly 50 percent of online shopping searches start from Amazon? With the way the company is going, we have no doubt that they’ll be taking over the world in no time, and the man of the hour happens to be no one else other than the guy whose net worth at the moment is over a hundred billion dollars; Jeff Bezos. Essays Tigers say you can give the guy as many nicknames as you want over his looks, but you can’t deny the guy’s a visionary.

 

Taking the world by a storm

Over the last few years, Amazon has gained ownership of over 40 subsidiaries, including IMDb, Goodreads, Zappos, Twitch, and many others. Amazon has managed to push even bookstores out of business. As of late, Amazon has become the hub of US e-commerce by accommodating and serving 49% of all online shopping activities. Coming in second place with 6.6 percent happens to be eBay who should change their slogan from “Connecting Buyers and Sellers Globally” to “When you can’t find the thing on Amazon”. The fact that Amazon has expanded to offer services like Prime Video, Web Services, Consumer Electronics, Drive etc., proves how determined the company has been on their quest for the world takeover.

The dark side of Amazon

Sure, Amazon has been quite successful in dethroning retail stores like Walmart, but all this glory comes at a cost. It’s not so sunshine and rainbows if you were to ask Amazon’s workers who have to put up with the most unconventional and unethical working environments. There have been various rumors that Amazon’s employees have to serve rigorous work hours with barely any breaks. It was once reported that they couldn’t even get bathroom breaks and pee in a bottle. Yikes. Of course, Amazon would never admit to something like that; it vehemently denied all such allegations.
On the other hand, Amazon did try doing its employees a solid by stating that they’re going to get a $15 minimum wage hike. But at the same time, they cut down on bonuses and stock awards, so there wasn’t much of an upside to the whole scenario. All in all, you have to admit Amazon’s clever way of giving raises and then costing their employees has been innovative.

 

An attempt to derail the monopoly

However, if you’re a huge company like Amazon, obviously, big people start taking notice. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have voiced out that they fear that Amazon is going to become a monopoly which would mean that it’ll have enough power to control markets, decide the prices and practically get rid of any competition they might have. Sort of like a bully taking over the playground just because there are no parents on the lookout to keep a check on all kids. Pretty much just like that.
Now, in order to deal with monopolies in the past, Antitrust Laws have been put to effect. For instance, the Sherman Antitrust Law and the Clayton Act. However, if only it were that easy to enforce the laws and keep companies in check. Especially the big tech ones. Take the case of Microsoft back in 2001 when it used to automatically install Internet Explorer on Windows 95. Unfortunately, the amount of seriousness they showed at the antitrust hearings was just like a 5-year-old getting told off upon inserting random things into sockets and him absentmindedly nodding.
Most likely, it’ll take eons for Congress to decipher whether Amazon is a monopoly or not and much less its business model.

 

Taking out the competition

Another tactic that Amazon employs to put away its competition for good is through “predatory pricing”. The basic idea is that if Amazon sees another e-commerce site selling a thing, it’ll sell the same thing at lower costs so that more people will be compelled to buy it. You know us, we’ll take any chance we can get at discounts. By undercutting its competitors, Amazon has managed to dominate markets. The fact that it’s not such a major issue is because the prices are low and its services are top-notch; hence, they can’t get in trouble.
As long as Amazon manages to disguise violating antitrust laws using consumer welfare as a shield to gain market shares by keeping their prices low, they can’t be held responsible. The most baffling part of this entire scenario is that the retail side of Amazon is not even its most profitable sector. Consider Los Pollos Hermanos from Breaking Bad, they sell finger licking’ chicken, but the real earning’s through the meth being sold on the side.
So, what’s the meth for Amazon? It’s the Cloud Computing services that are offered at Amazon Web Services. Just last year, AWS turned in a profit of $17.5 billion. Now you’d wonder how on earth that is possible. Well, it’s all thanks to companies like Airbnb, Kellog, Adobe and even the CIA, who utilize cybersecurity and server space using AWS. Even your trusty Netflix relies on AWS for 15 percent of global internet bandwidth.
Any  UK Essay Help would say that antitrust laws need to be regulated and updated on a more urgent basis so that companies like Amazon and its influence can be curtailed.

1 thought on “The controversial world of Amazon”

Leave a Comment