Do people think Amazon should be broken up into two companies, Amazon, and Amazon Market place. The reason for it is that they use predatory techniques, based on their size, and platform. Here are two examples. There was a company that sold on Amazon Market Place. They sold pillows that looked like animals, and did very well. Amazon saw that, and created there own product that was the same but sold it at a much lower cost, and put the company out of business. The second example, is a company called diapers.com. Amazon wanted to buy it, and there said no, so Amazon sold there diapers at a loss, really hurting diapers.com, and then came back and said can we buy you, and of course they had to say yes. AAII Boston Chapter

Reagan White: Sounds like they are just serving the customers better than the pillow and diaper companies. They just took away the customers.

Carlos Hayes: good for Amazon.

Carlos Hayes: Do you see Jansport bags at $60 while you can get the same kind of bag from Amazon basics at 1/3 the price. Who wins? the consumer.

Valentina Palmer: copied from someone else As for the problem of abusing a near-monopoly power, I think there is a case to be made that at a certain level of market share they should be required to behave as common carrier.The idea of a common carrier is that you have to offer your service to all [lawful] clients and may not say no to anybody, and you have to charge all clients from the same price list, and you have to do the job professionally. Rates are sometimes regulated.In return, you have no responsibility for the content of what is being shipped/sold.This is applied to shippers and telephone companies. And, oddly, certain rides at Disneyland.Im thinking of e-book sales, for example.This is a little tricky, because arguments to date have included whether Amazon charges a mark-up or actually sets the price of a work.

Travis Barton: amazon isnt doing or hasnt done anything that any other successful company hasnt done. and critics continue to ignore the fact that its a competitive environment containing winners and losers. too many crybabies trying to artificially handicap innovators and who also dont know what a real monopoly is.

Connor Little: I live in a small town and Walmart done the same thing, they came in with very cheap prices and put all of the mom and pops out of business, after they were all gone they jacked there prices up sky high. I can go to a Walmart in a bigger city about an hour away and get stuff an average of 15-20% cheaper. Id say Amazon will be doing the same thing once all of the competition is gone.

Raymond Ryan: Right or wrong. Agree or disagree. The important question for this website is : How should an investor use these facts to make money?

Jillian Bass: If I thought there was any real chance that AMZN would be broken up, I would buy it. Its current price seems to me to have a conglomerate discount. Whether the government busts it or the company voluntarily spins itself into separate companies, I would not care.Off Topic:I dont know exactly how shareholders were affected by the AT&T break-up by the govt. But if a shareholder had received new AT&T and all the regional Bells at the break-up, they would have had very good share performance in the ensuing years.I am a big fan of spin-offs. I was in for Tyco, Phillip Morris, and Kraft spins and did quite well in those. Currently holding DWDP for its spin-out of Corteva (Agriscience), new Dow (Material Science), and new DuPont (Specialty Chemicals). Recent dollar strength should give a lower entry point next few weeks. I would buy any dips below $60.