rbowman wrote
Ralph Mowery wrote

It is not a true monopoly, but Microsoft and the Windows is very close to
it for the desk top computers.

Amazon is working on it too. Here's the problem I have. I'll stick with
Amazon because I'm a Linux user and a little prejudiced but the argument
is really the same.

When they first started, Amazon was mostly books and CDs. They ****ed me
off by taking an order, delaying it, and eventually canceling it when they
couldn't deliver to the point where I mostly used Barnes & Noble.

I mostly used others because of the stupid shipping costs to Australia.

Amazon improved. Vastly. I've got Prime and get a lot of items, most of
which are delivered in two days. For me, it's not even about saving money
as much as I can't buy the stuff locally.

I watch the Prime streaming shows and listen to Prime music.

I don’t bother with either. Don’t have enough time to
watch all the free to air broadcast stuff except in the
slack time over the summer holidays here over Xmas and
this year I am watching Spooks again, which I torrented.

I don’t bother with any music anymore.

Any problems I've had with merchandise has been resolved quickly. All in
all I can't say a bad word about Amazon.

I can. They have only chosen to startup here a year ago and
still are pathetic compared with amazon in the US or UK. They
had organised a very decent deal with our local govt postal
system which meant that the freight cost on stuff like a hard drive
could be as cheap from the US as stuff bought in the country.

But when our govt chose to impose our 10% GST/VAT on all
imports, Amazon decided to make the paperwork easier for
them and only allowed us to buy stuff from our local amazon.

Just recently they reversed themselves on that but even now
you can only buy stuff from amazon.com that’s sold and
fulfilled by amazon, but not stuff sold by third partys and you
still can buy anything from any of the european amazons.

I used to buy quite a bit of the specials of the Philips Hue stuff
from european amazons, whoever had the best specials. I don’t
buy much of that stuff from amazon.com because its 115V.

And now the catch... Should Bezos have become a billionaire? He certainly
should be well rewarded for having a vision and making it work,

And for hanging in there when it took a very long time to make a profit.

but when does the reward become too much? More importantly, where did all
the money come from?

From the amount of Amazon stock he owns and price that has gone to.

I can't say they overcharge; the prices are as good or better than
anybody's.

I get a lot of cheaper stuff from aliexpress and wear the 4 weeks delivery
time
you get with most stuff. And still find ebay cheaper at times than amazon.

Even if they're a little higher to offset the shipping, I've been well and
truly raped by 'S&H' to complain about a buck.

Sure, but I normally save a lot more than a buck when shopping around.

The people providing the goods must be happy.

That’s less clear given that many like you don’t even look anywhere else
now.

They're not exploiting Chinese peasants, at least not directly, since
they're not making sneakers or iPhones.

Some claim they do exploit those working for them.

There has to be gravy in the system someplace.

That’s not why Bezos is stinking rich.

Gates is the same deal. He built on his vision and while I'm not the
biggest fan of the OS the programming tools have been excellent since long
before Windows. Still, where did all the money come from?

Same place, the stock he holds and the price of that.

And amazingly they have returned to being the highest earner too,
essentially by the move to the subscription system for office etc.

otoh, you have people like Richard Sackler who made billions pushing
poison and knowing exactly what he was doing as much as any skel on the
street corner. Or Madoff the crook, and Soros who profited by almost
destroying the Bank of England. I'd happily throw them to AOC to squeeze
every drop of blood she can.

But even Bezos total wealth is pretty small beer in the
total US tax take and you only get to grab it once.

As I said, I'm a little conflicted...