#357: The Amazon Antitrust Case

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2023

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Geoff Manne, president and founder of the International Center for Law & Economics, and host Corbin Barthold, internet policy counsel at TechFreedom, discuss the FTC’s lawsuit against Amazon. https://nypost.com/2023/09/26/lina-khan-ftc-suing-amazon-will-harm-millions-of-consumers/ https://laweconcenter.org/resources/ftc-v-amazon-significant-burdens-to-prove-relevant-markets-and-net-consumer-harm/?doing_wp_cron=1697145445.0413050651550292968750 https://podcast.techfreedom.org/episodes/353-the-google-search-antitrust-trial

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm From its founding down to the present day, Amazon is sought to maintain what Jeff
0:30.6	Bezos calls a day one mentality. The company is always trying to disrupt old ways of doing things.
0:38.9	Some of its biggest bets have flopped.
0:41.4	Remember the fire phone?
0:44.0	Others, such as free two-day shipping and cloud computing, have been transformative.
0:50.6	During the dot-com crash, Amazon nearly collapsed.
0:55.0	By 2017, Bezos was the richest man in the world.
1:00.0	Along the way, the company has been hard on its employees, and it's drawn plenty of criticism,
1:05.7	but it has been a boon to consumers.
1:08.9	In one of his books on the firm, the journalist Brad Stone refers to Amazon's
1:13.7	religious refusal to violate the trust of customers in any way. Late last month, the Federal Trade
1:22.6	Commission sued Amazon for antitrust violations. The suit dresses itself in the garb of contemporary antitrust law.
1:31.9	It makes technical economic arguments about higher prices and lower quality.
1:37.3	Those arguments will be our focus today.
1:40.7	But I can't shake the suspicion that this lawsuit brought by this FTC chair, Lena Kahn,
1:48.1	is at root an attempt to punish Amazon for its zealous commitment to taking big risks,
1:54.3	disrupting markets, and pleasing consumers.
1:58.9	This is the tech policy podcast.
2:02.5	I'm Corbyn Barthold.
2:04.4	I'm joined today by Jeff Mani, president and founder of the International Center for
2:10.5	Law and Economics.
2:13.0	Jeff joined me recently to discuss the Google Search Antitrust trial, and we had so much fun,
	...

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