Word is, Jeff Bezos – the mastermind behind Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) – could become the world’s first trillionaire. And people are losing their shit.
Look at some of these tweets …
There are definitely a lot of folks talking about how poorly he treats his employees.
And I suppose an argument could be made for that. Although I haven’t seen any mass exodus of Amazon employees.
Folks also argue that Amazon has put a lot of small businesses out of business?
The reality, however, is that a lot of small businesses have gone under because they can’t complete with Amazon – mostly on price. Although it may not sound particularly compassionate, this is how the market works.
Markets are not static. They are ever-evolving.
What was relevant in the past may not be relevant today.
Think of Blockbuster.
Think of AmericaOnline.
Hell, think of typewriter ribbon companies.
New technologies, new business strategies, new consumer demands. All of these things are agents of change.
Does it suck that so many small businesses have bit the dust because they couldn’t compete with Amazon? Most definitely.
But if we sought to protect every mousetrap from better mousetraps, we’d still be riding horses instead of cars, and we’d still be using iceboxes instead of refrigerators.
In all fairness to critics, Amazon does enjoy some very sweet kickbacks from the government in the form of corporate welfare, which I’m more than happy to criticize at every corner. But the facilitation of unfair market environments via corporate welfare is the work of hustlers on the Hill, not of super smart tech geeks who figured out a way to make a ton of cash.
But I haven’t seen much talk of this.
Instead, it’s mostly been about the evils of capitalism. Which is certainly easy to complain about when you have a soap box plyo box that can be delivered within 48 hours, and at a very good price.
