<story><title>Amazon will stop selling Nest smart home devices</title><url>http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-wont-sell-nest-products-from-google-2018-3?IR=T</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tyler_larson</author><text>The problem here isn&amp;#x27;t so much that Amazon is going to hurt Google. Google will survive. But we only hear about this story because Google is who Amazon is attacking (today).&lt;p&gt;The bigger problem is that Amazon has set themselves up as the global arbiter of commerce, acting as a relatively neutral marketplace matching buyers to sellers worldwide, replacing many or most of the smaller commerce hubs and marketplaces that used to exist.&lt;p&gt;But once in that position, they exercise control over which products can be sold with the explicit intention of destroying competitors, replacing what would otherwise be a consumer favorite with their own inferior (according to market preference) alternate.&lt;p&gt;Everyone talks about monopolists and moral hazard and market manipulation, but Amazon seems to be the only modern company with the unique combination of dominance, confidence, and poor executive judgment to actually make it a consistent and overt company policy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>philipodonnell</author><text>If you saw the article yesterday about counterfit Nests still for sale and Amazon taking no action, I think it&amp;#x27;s actually worse than that.&lt;p&gt;Banning competition you don&amp;#x27;t like is monoploistic for sure, but intentionally leaving counterfitters versions up and promoting them to searchers for those products so it damages your competitors brand is just straight up evil.</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon will stop selling Nest smart home devices</title><url>http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-wont-sell-nest-products-from-google-2018-3?IR=T</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tyler_larson</author><text>The problem here isn&amp;#x27;t so much that Amazon is going to hurt Google. Google will survive. But we only hear about this story because Google is who Amazon is attacking (today).&lt;p&gt;The bigger problem is that Amazon has set themselves up as the global arbiter of commerce, acting as a relatively neutral marketplace matching buyers to sellers worldwide, replacing many or most of the smaller commerce hubs and marketplaces that used to exist.&lt;p&gt;But once in that position, they exercise control over which products can be sold with the explicit intention of destroying competitors, replacing what would otherwise be a consumer favorite with their own inferior (according to market preference) alternate.&lt;p&gt;Everyone talks about monopolists and moral hazard and market manipulation, but Amazon seems to be the only modern company with the unique combination of dominance, confidence, and poor executive judgment to actually make it a consistent and overt company policy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gordon_freeman</author><text>This is so true! And now as they have bought Whole Foods, they can do the same thing with grocery products by having options such as WF branded ones over the competitors (stocking 365 branded Sugar and dropping Safway Signature branded Sugar) through their Amazon Fresh or Prime NOW service.</text></comment>