• Pennomi@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    They don’t. My small business sells direct from our site instead of in Amazon, and we do okay.

      • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        While that’s true, counterexamples are great ways to disprove overreaching implications like “companies must sell on Amazon to be successful”.

        It is not a requirement. It might be the most profitable way to run an e-commerce business (in which case you’re obviously benefiting from the system Amazon created).

        • HailSeitan@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          Nobody thinks that it’s impossible, which is incredibly rare, but rather that it’s very costly not to comply, which is the source of every monopolist’s power. Could Pepsi refuse to sell at Walmart to avoid the huge wholesale discounts they demand over smaller stores? Sure, but it would shoot themselves in the foot, and that’s the source of Walmart’s anticompetitive power, which coerces Pepsi (and lots of other suppliers) and hurts lots of smaller businesses who don’t get the same discount.