Don't forget to break up companies like Apple too!
They won't even let you download a free app without providing name, address, credit card number, security code, date of birth, mother's maiden name, etc.; and if you try to use a product without an AppleID, they'll nag you every 3 seconds to add one. And they still don't let you see all the data mining that they've done on you... but they do promise to protect your privacy. To me that's the same as Google, minus knowing what they know.
Breaking up Amazon would unfortunately just pave the way for Alibaba to come in and replace them. We wouldn't be any better off. Some of the Chinese giants are enormous companies that have their tendrils in dozens of sectors, and unfortunately have some state ties too that make them very powerful. Companies like Amazon seem to be the only ones keeping them at bay, for all their own flaws.
Google, for whatever it is worth - they at least offer you free services, and they've had real privacy controls and a way to check the data that they store about you for over a decade. Everyone forgets that they've been providing privacy tools longer than any other company. If you don't use them - your loss, their gain. You can have a Google account and tell them not to save or track your searches, and they will properly obey it. This puts them ahead of 90% of huge companies. Every 6 months Microsoft is apologising for ignoring privacy settings and scooping too much data accidentally. Facebook it's about every 2 months.
@MrNatural22
Do you worry at all that Amazon is putting your local choices out of business, and that one day, Amazon prices won't be so ideal and you won't have too many options to turn to? I personally miss Radio Shack and Sears.
No. They're not that kind of business. They relentlessly pursue growth and advancement. Technological progress. I honestly think Bezos's dream might be to build a solarsystem wide distribution and shipping network. If their competitors go bankrupt, they will almost certainly drop prices as they attain further scale, the shareholders will love it, the stock will rise even further making them all rich, and products will get cheaper for consumers.
That's part of why the right leaning media hates them so much and smears them. They don't play by the same game. If you're into stocks as you claim, you must've noticed that their stock price responds differently than most others. They're almost functioning like a coop, rather than a capitalist for-profit corporation. But the members are their consumers, not their employees - they are working hard to automate everything so that no employees are needed in their eventual distribution network.
There are bad things to say about Amazon, and I just handed you some great points to build off of, but the traditional (and hyperbolic) capitalist dream (drive competitors out and jack up prices) is not one of them. They might just out compete every other company though, and hold profit margins so low that none choose to re-enter, because those companies would like to profit even if Amazon doesn't care. Then you've lost a free market, although companies were free to compete and chose not too... they'd have voluntarily ceded Amazon a monopoly rather than innovate and compete, because that's hard.
I'm actually okay with that. I'm a big believer in free markets encouraging innovation and advancement, plus prosperity for all those participating in them. But if other companies refuse to join in, I am fine with them getting out-done. Give me that innovation and advancement! If Amazon chooses to give the profit back to their consumers - that's fine too. That's what Vanguard did for the for-profit financial management industry. Vanguard ran like a coop and returned everything to its members, driving down MERs and fees. It's been good for consumers / investors, so I think Amazon's effect would be overall positive even if the landscape changes dramatically as companies come and go.
The only thing that I fear is when North American companies give up and decide not to bother trying. If you refuse to play or compete, you have absolutely no chance of success or victory.