Will the Government Rein in Amazon?

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Lizza, Wnyc, Wickenden, News, President, Washington, Obama, Barack, Politics

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2023

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In a relatively short period of time, Amazon has exerted an enormous amount of influence over a broad spectrum of American life. From the groceries we buy to the movies and television shows we watch, Amazon has been setting the prices and driving potential competition out of business. Its prices may seem low, but “Amazon has actually quietly been hiking prices for consumers in ways that are not always clearly visible,” the Federal Trade Commission chair, Lina Khan, tells David Remnick, but “can result in consumers paying billions of dollars more than they would if there was actually competition in the market.” Khan, who is thirty-four, published an influential paper about applying antitrust law to Amazon before she was even out of law school; now she is putting those ideas into practice in a suit against the company. “Amazon’s own documents reveal that it recognizes that these merchants live in constant fear of Amazon’s punishments and punitive tactics,” Khan said. “Ultimately, our antitrust laws are about preserving open markets but also making sure people have the economic liberty to not be susceptible to the dictates of a single company.” (The company’s response says that the F.T.C.’s argument is “wrong on the facts and the law.”)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there, I'm Lale Arikoglu, and this podcast is brought to you by Wilderness, a conservation-driven
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0:12.5	Last year, I embarked on two separate solo adventures with Wilderness, one to Botswana and the other
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0:39.0	Your favorite designers, expertly authenticated.
0:42.5	Yeah, eBay. Things people love.
0:49.4	This is the political scene, and I'm David Remnick.
1:05.9	At some point, in the past 30-odd years, you may have contemplated saying no to Amazon.
1:16.3	Maybe you were worried about the brick-and-mortar stores you grew up with, or maybe you were upset about labor practices in the warehouses or tactics described as union-busting.
1:24.1	Or maybe it was just the spectacle of the second richest person in the entire world wearing a cowboy hat to space.
1:28.7	Whatever the case, after having these thoughts, you probably went and clicked add to cart anyway. It's Amazon. It's convenient. The prices are low. The selection is wide.
1:35.2	The shipping is so fast sometimes. It's uncanny. But what if that's wrong? What if Amazon only seems
1:42.2	like the best and singular option because it's squeezed out all
1:45.8	the other options? The FTC's lawsuit alleges that Amazon is now a monopoly, and it's effectively
1:53.6	functioning as a gatekeeper, as a key distribution channel that's connecting millions of
1:59.3	consumers and thousands of merchants that are
2:01.6	dependent on Amazon to reach them.
2:03.8	That's Lena Kahn, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, which has just filed a lawsuit
2:08.7	against Amazon.
	...

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