Who said anything about "completely equal"? Of course every market has a leader. But in a healthy market there is at least one other player of comparable size: Coke & Pepsi. Hertz & Avis. Boeing and Airbus.
> You love Amazon but you are shooting craps when you "use them all the time"?
No, not quite. I love Amazon, but they are not a panacea. One of the problem with them is that a lot of the things they sell are counterfeits, and when you order something there is no way to insure that you're not going to get a counterfeit. Hence: crap shoot. A retailer with real competition could never get away with that.
> want to just imagine a world where Amazon has more competition because Jeff Bezos is the worlds wealthiest person.
No. The reason I want Amazon to have competition is not because I want Jeff Bezos to have less money, it's because I want him to have less power. And not so much as a potential buyer, but as a potential seller or potential employee. Amazon is generally pretty good to its customers (unlike, say, Comcast), not so much to its merchants and employees.
And I also want to be clear: I am not saying that I would necessarily use government power to change how Amazon does business. But I do think that this is a legitimate thing for a society to do. Even if Amazon is not the worst example of a monopoly run amok, there is no question that monopolies can be harmful, and that society has a legitimate interest in defending itself against them.
Who said anything about "completely equal"? Of course every market has a leader. But in a healthy market there is at least one other player of comparable size: Coke & Pepsi. Hertz & Avis. Boeing and Airbus.
> You love Amazon but you are shooting craps when you "use them all the time"?
No, not quite. I love Amazon, but they are not a panacea. One of the problem with them is that a lot of the things they sell are counterfeits, and when you order something there is no way to insure that you're not going to get a counterfeit. Hence: crap shoot. A retailer with real competition could never get away with that.
> want to just imagine a world where Amazon has more competition because Jeff Bezos is the worlds wealthiest person.
No. The reason I want Amazon to have competition is not because I want Jeff Bezos to have less money, it's because I want him to have less power. And not so much as a potential buyer, but as a potential seller or potential employee. Amazon is generally pretty good to its customers (unlike, say, Comcast), not so much to its merchants and employees.
And I also want to be clear: I am not saying that I would necessarily use government power to change how Amazon does business. But I do think that this is a legitimate thing for a society to do. Even if Amazon is not the worst example of a monopoly run amok, there is no question that monopolies can be harmful, and that society has a legitimate interest in defending itself against them.