Establishing a regulatory framework around Amazon that does not address the ability of Amazon to use its power to influence the government would quite possibly take us the way of Dr. Frankenstein. The government’s place is not to run this market but rather to protect the people in it.
Author Archives: Nick Jacobson
TMI?: Amazon’s Journey Through the World of Big Data
Nowhere in this story does Amazon enhance consumer welfare; it neither offers a better product to consumers nor a better service to other merchants. The company takes the data it gets from the small businesses it hosts and weaponizes that data against them.
Unanswered Questions: In Claudia Rankine’s “Just Us”, a Call for Conversation
Our laughter gave voice to the things that words could not, another kind of “two-step,” perhaps, acknowledging the wrongs that cannot be righted without succumbing to them.
Fleeting Ecstasy: Amazon and the American Mind
That Americans have more confidence in Amazon than in the education system or Congress is troubling because Amazon is not invested in the well being of Americans so much as it is invested in convincing Americans that we need Amazon for our well being—and more, that we will never stop needing it.
Primed for Power: America in the Age of Amazon
Amazon won its battle with Quidsi not because it was better but because it was bigger, and it could lose more money, faster.