Around the turn of the millennium, when e-commerce was just beginning to emerge and only a quarter of Ireland’s population were internet users, Amazon was embroiled in controversy as it sought patents for online business methods, including its renowned “one-click” shopping feature. In response to this, Amazon’s communication lead sent me a rather disdainful email referring to my writing as “nonsense”.
Dana Mattioli’s intriguing and thorough book – The Everything War: Amazon’s Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power, confirms that such abrupt aggression wasn’t a coincidence or a mere bid for patent acquisition. It was part of the standard modus operandi for the perpetually growing corporation, both then and now.
Dana Mattioli, a runner-up for the Pulitzer due to her writings on Amazon, unveils how the once humble online bookstore expanded into a leviathan that is omnipresent in numerous segments of retail and online services, to such an extent that it dictates and influences entire market movements. She narrates a captivating account of how Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and the second wealthiest individual globally, responsively used fortunate early opportunities and competitive retail intellect to spawn this dominant online entity.
Today, countless people across the globe depend heavily on Amazon’s remarkably extensive array of corporate services that it has led some to propose it should be re-categorised as a utility – responsible for critical infrastructure and as such, should be more stringently regulated or even divided. Mattioli highlights that the former bookseller has evolved into a major publisher, a multimedia entertainment platform, the largest audiobook producer, a “dictatorial ruler” to vendors on the world’s leading online marketplace, a healthcare supplier, the primary parcel delivery service in the US, a grocer, a fashion outlet, an electronics brand, a home security company, and a significant player in cloud computing with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The Everything War. Amazon’s Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power: A commercial titan.
The latter serves as its primary source of profit. Globally recognised governments, utility providers, armed forces, and even significant competitors of Amazon depend on AWS. The revenue generated from AWS subsidises the losses from the low price-tags on the primary Amazon website, allowing Amazon to dominate across numerous sectors. Mattioli highlights that these practices, along with other dubious methods, strongly hint at monopolistic tendencies. Across the US and EU, anti-trust regulators are endeavouring to address the elusive Amazon behemoth. Each and every one of us is, to some degree, entangled in the enchanting web of Amazon. The grin often seen on those ubiquitous Amazon packages is likely more akin to a sneer.