Today’s links How Amazon makes everything you buy more expensive, no matter where you buy it: Most Favored Nation is my least favorite scam. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2103, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading How Amazon makes everything you buy more expensive, no matter where you buy it (permalink) Amazon is very proud of its “flywheel”: at first, the company offered subsidies to customers, which lured in sellers. Then, it demanded that those sellers lower their prices, which lured in more customers. With more customers, more sellers piled in. Faster and faster, the flywheel spins, creating the “everything store”: https://fourweekmba.com/amazon-flywheel/ The flywheel is everywhere – they even teach it in business-schools. But Amazon is not a reliable narrator. It doesn’t tell the truth about the flywheel. To understand what’s really going on with the flywheel, you have apply enshittification to it. First, Amazon is good to its end users. Then it claws back the benefit to those users and delivers them to sellers. Then it claws back from sellers and takes everything for its shareholders. Then, it turns to shit. Enshittification. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys Amazon – like other platform businesses – externalizes its costs onto its suppliers, then harvests the majority of the reward. Uber drivers take the risks – car and fuel payments, unpaid time waiting for a ride – and then it creams off most of the money that riders pay to get from…Pluralistic: How Amazon makes everything you buy more expensive, no matter where you buy it (25 Apr 2023)