I’m sick of seeing the lazy argument that moves like this are in the best interests of consumers. Yeah, the prices may be a little lower and the buying experience a little easier right now. But those are tiny short term benefits relative to the medium to longer term impact a move like this can have as we allow a massive centralization of commerce to take place. The long term impact is that wealth, power, and control are all centralized in the hands of a small number of people, with fewer and fewer opportunities for anyone else to build a thriving business. Platform capitalism has us headed for a dystopian future and the saddest thing is that few people seem to be able to imagine anything better.
A lot of this depends on how far Amazon takes this.
Online, you have an infinite shelf space. So many people have used that to create those so called "private labels" that contribute nothing of value and just add confusion and cost to the market.
So if those we're gone, it would be great.
But maybe we can be optimistic, given that Bezos thinks long term:
Maybe the goal is to create a thriving, competitive market of brands that only belong to Amazon ? Maybe, as long as you can provide significant new value to consumers, you'd get access, and you'd get all your logistics,customer service,and marketing taken care for you ? And who knows, maybe one day, your supply-chain and a lot of your manufacturing ?
And this would advance us towards a world where most companies are more focused on r&d(similar to what AWS did for software), and many startups will thrive.
Sure, we would have to find ways to decrease concentration for power in certain companies, but it won't be all bad.
