Selling items for less than they cost to produce is known as "dumping" in international trade (where it is generally disallowed by trade organizations) and can be illegal in the US if the intent is to eliminate competition [0]. That last factor can be hard to prove, and I don't think the FTC is doing much about anticompetitive behavior these days.

[0]: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

To add onto sibling comment: it is specifically when they sell below cost to eliminate competition, with the goal of later being able to raise prices to recover those losses (and more) once they are the only player in town and can jack the prices up all they want. The later price elevations are what result in consumer harm, which is why it is illegal.

Predatory pricing:

A big gorilla comes in and under prices the entire market. They can do that because they already have tons of money. They do this long enough to break the market and drive the competition out of business. Once the competitors are gone they jack up the prices to unprecedented levels because there's no more alternatives available and bleed the market for all the money.

Regular pricing:

Charge a fair price based on actual costs.

No it means it’s illegal and enforcement agencies don’t have the means and/or political support to prosecute.

Then that is okay as long as they don’t raise the prices after the competition is gone.

https://archive.is/2020.07.29-212026/https://www.bloomberg.c...

>“We have already initiated a more aggressive ‘plan to win’ against diapers.com,” longtime Amazon retail executive Doug Herrington apparently wrote in an email released by the committee. “To the extent that this plan undercuts the core diapers business for diapers.com, it will slow the adoption of Soap.com,” another company owned by Quidsi.

>Herrington called Quidsi Amazon’s No. 1 short-term competitor. “We need to match pricing on these guys no matter what the cost,” he said in the email.

I bet Quidsi was also selling the diapers at a loss since they were using UPS and Fedex, so not sure what the difference is if Amazon sells diapers at a loss or Quidsi was selling diapers at a loss.

The innovation would have been in the logistics buildout, which Quidsi obviously wasn’t doing.

> criminal prosecution and product tort liability are not meaningful deterrents.

> Patent litigation is a different thing entirely

Wow! Infringing my idea is "worse" than infringing my body...

I've seen more than a few people on this forum assert that the old taxi system was/is comparable to Uber or somehow better. I even got some shit for referring to it as old, legacy, I forget the exact verbiage I used. But it is old, and it is worse. I get the price upfront, I can adjust the "class" of car I order if I'm going to the pharmacy alone or to a nice dinner. Calling ahead to preorder a taxi feels like calling to order a pizza over the phone at this point. If I called, would they even know how to handle it?

Also, Uber drivers tend to show up. It was always a crapshoot with regular cab drivers. I don't have experience with other car services, maybe they were better pre-Uber.

It depends on where you lived. NYC had a large number of "black car" livery services where you would call, arrange a ride, and typically get a price up front. It wasn't legal to hail them on the street, but in practice it was pretty common to hail a black car (a "gypsy cab") and negotiate a price up front. Source: I lived a few blocks north of Central Park and in Hamilton Heights before Uber was a thing and took gypsy cabs a couple of times a week.