What Amazon is Shopping For
I saw this piece over at ICv2, which is focused on the direct-market comic book world, an area that was heavily disrupted by Amazon and then by digital distribution via ComiXology - which Amazon bought. Interesting, sales of physical comics went up alongside digital, which had huge gains for years.
Anyway, they had a piece on the Amazon/Whole Foods thing and there was a lot to take in from it, but this piece stood out:
"Over at Vox, Matt Yglesias sees the Whole Foods acquisition as bad news for the entire grocery business because, in his formulation, Amazon does not compete on the same basis as everyone else. That is, they do not look to profit from operations or generate piles of cash to redistribute to shareholders, and their shareholders are ok with this. That gives them a huge advantage over just about every other company that seeks short or even medium-term profits and can’t afford to plow every penny of revenues into new market growth."
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/37830/what-amazon-is-really-shopping-for
What got me with this quote is that it feels like how companies ~used~ to operate in that their profits were re-invested into the company and new ways to expand or streamline and make more efficient and/or better products. Whereas most companies are as Yglesias notes, looking to take cast and redistribute to shareholders - which is what they've been restructured to become the last few decades, hence gobble up companies, break apart, spit 'em out.
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