Amazon.com used a series of illegal strategies to boost profits at its online retail empire, including an algorithm that pushed up prices U.S. households paid by more than $1 billion, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission detailed in a new court filing on Thursday.
Why? Isn’t this just capitalism? They’re just using algorithms to squeeze us further.
Well, as you’ve likely noticed, capitalism only works a theoretical construct. It makes the assumption of an ‘ideal’ market, which very much violates the laws of physics. As a result, no country actually employs unregulated capitalism.
Adam Smith wanted regulated capitalism.
Free market capitalism was never his idea. That’s robber barons like Jeff that promoted that shit and came up with the idea.
Depends on your definition of “capitalism”.
This is not supposed to happen in a market economy, as you have in developed countries. Many people define “capitalism” as being, more or less, that system.
A narrower definition of “capitalism” is private control of the means of production. In that sense, “capitalism” is at odds with a market economy, which is one reason why that private control is limited in many ways in developed countries.
That’s literally the argument Amazon is making. They have said the Nessie tool is just for market analysis and doesn’t do 90% of what it’s are accused of doing 🙄