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cmiles8 13 hours ago

Such tactics sound… illegal

simulator5g 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Haven’t you heard? Laws don’t apply to companies

ant6n 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And I thought corporations are people, my friend.

Zambyte 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Rich people

NickC25 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

groundzeros2015 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

free_bip 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You are on a website called HackerNews, where people are encouraged to comment on articles or "posts". You are seeing this because you are looking at the comment section of one such post.

knowitnone3 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Illegal in what way? They are not allowed to set prices lower than competitors or raise them at any time?

arrosenberg 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Predatory pricing is illegal in the US, but difficult to prosecute under the existing laws.

twoodfin 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What is “predatory pricing” vs. “pricing”?

giaour 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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...

twoodfin 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, I can imagine it’s hard to prove, which is a pretty good indicator it’s a slippery concept to being with. Everyone wants to “eliminate the competition”, including your competition!

kay_o 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd be unsurprised in this case that Amazon could produce the product profitably for less than half the cost due to scale.

krferriter 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The Biden admin went slightly harder against anti-competitive actions and anti-consumer actions by companies and all the billionaires freaked out and poured money into Republican campaigns in 2024 in order to roll all that back.

somenameforme 3 hours ago | parent [-]

What was rolled back? There was no major change in action whatsoever, only rhetoric, which is meaningless. As for funding, Trump raised substantially less in 2024 than 2020 while Harris raised more money than any campaign ever has, by a wide margin. [1] Dark money also overwhelmingly flowed to the DNC. [2] And a large chunk of all of Trump's funding came after the previous administration tried to imprison him, which rather freaked people out - even those not particularly fond of him. That also likely played a significant role in the more DGAF presidency we're seeing today relative to 2016.

[1] - https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_election_campaign_finan...

[2] - https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/dark...

specialist 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Enforcement.

an hour ago | parent [-]
[deleted]
triceratops 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> As for funding, Trump raised substantially less in 2024 than 2020 while Harris raised more money than any campaign ever has, by a wide margin.

Does that include the $44b spent on the Twitter acquisition?

mcmcmc 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

bmurphy1976 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

twoodfin 4 hours ago | parent [-]

This presupposes some athletic new competitor can’t enter the market and take the margin off the fat incumbent.

It’s why we have capital markets: If capturing a profitable opportunity requires spending some money, someone who wants to profit will send that money your way.

spockz 33 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

But it should only be because they indeed have lower margins or more efficient operations. It should not be funded by external money (other departments or investors), only to undercut competition too force them out only to raise prices to above the previous point after.

So a simple law could be that prices can only be raised to the point where they were at before the competition was squashed.

nothrabannosir 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You can do this to a low margin business. In fact you can increase the margin once the dust settles.

4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
[deleted]
taurath 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Which means it’s actually: legal and widespread

conception 7 hours ago | parent [-]

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

selcuka 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Amazon duped his product and sold it at something crazy, like half price

Pricing below an appropriate measure of cost is generally considered predatory pricing. It is very difficult to enforce this, but that doesn't change the fact that it could be illegal and a violation of antitrust laws.

sincerely 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Amazon could also have the resources/know-how/volume to manufacture a comparable product that could be sold for half the cost

spockz 32 minutes ago | parent [-]

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

belter 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The password is Melania...

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/04/07/when-billionaire-go...

https://pagesix.com/2026/01/27/hollywood/inside-melania-trum...

bgro 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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